Irrigation system help

Hello!

I’ve acquired a load of second hand Hozelock irrigation bits and bought a few more more and set them up in my garden (which was something of an ordeal!)

I’ve got about 18 dribblers in pots connected via a 4mm pipe. They are hardly even dripping, though maybe that’s normal and I’m just meant to leave them watering for a long time.

Separate to this, I’ve got a 13mm pipe going around my garden through the borders with a T-junction taking a pipe through a veg patch. This has a number of sprinklers attached either directly or via 4mm pipes and a few dribblers set up against trees.

The dribblers on this are doing almost nothing again and the sprinklers have a small dribble out of the top when they should have a radius of 30cm or 50cm depending which one.

Most of the 13mm hosing is new but there’s a 5m section linking the garden tap to the rest that isn’t and has holes from its previous use. I’ve tried to plug these but there’s still some water that comes from them. I’ve ordered some more hose to replace this but I can’t believe it’ll make that big a difference to suddenly make the sprinklers sprinkle. The other very small sections of old hose that I’m using either have the old holes also being used again or they’ve been successfully plugged so these shouldn’t need replacing.

Is anyone with any experience with this and able to offer any suggestions/solutions to get the system working?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi @Jo Benjamin if the system is secondhand then it's possible that there is some crud in the pipes. It is also possible that the dribblers have dirt in them - use a pin to wiggle about to clean the exit. Otherwise you need to work your way through from the main pipes, disconnecting subsections to see if the water is going freely to each. Tedious but it should get you there.

 

Thank you - this makes sense, except that I have new 13mm pipe with new sprinklers put straight into it which are not sprinkling. Maybe replacing that first 5m of reused pipe will do the job but it doesn’t feel like it will.

 

Is your system fed from an 1/2" 'outside' tap with the statutory double non return valve ? This may restrict the volume/pressure of water available.Also consider whether your mains stopcock is fully open.(Could also have a further stopcock or service valve to the outside tap to enable it to be drained for winter)
Any puncture in the delivery hose will result in loss of pressure and water volume, also adaptors and tee pieces will affect the discharge further downstream.
Remember that if you have a metered supply; and use large volumes outdoors, you should be able to get a second meter installed for the outside tap from which you will get a rebate upon sewerage charges on your water supply bill.
(Because if you do not return the water to the sewer mains, you should not pay for its recycling). Every little helps !

 

Thank you for all of this. It is fed through an outdoor tap which no doubt has the required valve. I’ve not tested the pressure but it seems at least as high as any other I’ve used when using a hose.

I’ve taken out the pressure regulator from my system too.

The whole 13mm system is about 40m long and has 3 right-angles joints, one tee-piece and one piece to connect two lengths together. I guess my frustration is that I feel like this is much smaller than many (my garden isn’t that huge!) so I can’t see why it’s not working.

Maybe the initial leaky section is having a bigger impact than I imagine…

Interesting on the sewerage rebate - I had no idea! Whilst I don’t envisage it will use that much water in the grand scheme of things, I’ll keep it in mind.

 

There are two types of 'dribblers' for the Hozelock system. One type needs higher pressure than the other. The ones which require higher pressure have a bulbous shape (best description I can think of) with the input one side and the dribbly bit the other. I could never get those to work properly despite having good water pressure. If they aren't that type, the suggestions from @infradig could help.
My system successfully waters about 40 pots and baskets and includes about 40 metres of 13mm (1/2) and lord knows how much 5mm.

 

Are you in a hard water area? My drippers and sprinklers get clogged up with limescale after a few years (not the actual pipes). I have on occasion tried descaling them, but it's easier to buy a pack of new ones (not Hozelock brand, I started with B&Q own-brand but now I buy whatever cheap-ish ones I can find, they all get bunged up eventually).