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prairiemoon2

Connecting Soaker Hoses, water not traveling to end

We have 5 vegetable beds in a 25x25ft area. Trying to lay out soaker hoses in each bed, connect them all together to water all at once. We got that far but the water wouldn't travel beyond the first two soaker hoses. So at the moment, we are using quick connects to water each bed separately which feels like such a waste of time.

I'm wondering if our water pressure is not high enough. I am planning to make a call to our water department to find out. Not sure what questions to ask, or how much pressure I need to get the water to travel to the end.

Is there anything else I should know? Or a device I can purchase to measure the water pressure coming out of our spigot?

Comments (5)

  • cold_weather_is_evil
    9 years ago

    What are the hoses? Are they quarter inch drip perforated, quarter inch with emitters embedded every foot or so, half inch fabric, molded rubber crumb?

    There is a lot of unknown to your setup. If youâÂÂre using dripline and you have meager water pressure, the trick is to accept a longer seep time and to equalize the pressure across the system as much as possible.

    One way (of many) is to make a full complete unrestricted loop of half inch main line, fed at each end with a tee fitting, and to plug the quarter inch soaker tubing into the loop at each end of each 25 foot run of soaker tubing. This is also MUCH cheaper than woven or crumb garden hose style line.

    If it's substantial garden style hose and the water just won't even make it to the third hose without the end caps on, then it's most likely just what you think: lack of flow at the source. Does the possibility of corroded (restricted) iron pipes exist?

    A simple pressure gauge will give you an idea of static water pressure at the hose bibb, but can't really help with pressure of flowing water.

    This post was edited by cold_weather_is_evil on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 15:03

  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    Soaker hoses LOSE pressure from the water leakage, so it's not surprising you are not getting 5 of them to work end to end.

    About 100 feet is the maximum run you can have.

    Can you build a manifold so the soakers are not daisy-chained? Have them come out of a TEE in a non-soaker hose supply line to each bed

    ___:___:___:___:___:

    That might fix the pressure dropoff problem

  • ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
    9 years ago

    your problem ... is that you are using a NON-engineered product ... and hoping for the best ..

    it simply wont work .. period ... and even if you had spigot pressure to fill the lines with water ... odds are.. it would not apply at even volume.. along the line ... usually it dumps most in the first few feet.. and barely anything near the end .... which you find out.. when the plants at the end die ....

    you would be much further ahead.. using an engineered product.. to accomplish your dream ...

    the right stuff will last forever.. yours wont ... will accept the pressure you have.. and work in all kinds of circumstances ...

    i would suggest something like at the link ...

    i do not bury mine ...

    there are various online suppliers.. and i THINK ... some used to offer package deals... a starter pack.. if you will ...

    good luck

    ken

    Here is a link that might be useful: link

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    CW is Evil,
    The hoses are drip perforated, not sure of the size, IâÂÂll have to check this weekend. IâÂÂm also going to have to check the length of each hose, because we had two different lengths. Some I think are 50ft, maybe some are 25ft. IâÂÂll check.

    Lazygardens,
    Okay, so the dripping, flowing water, is going to be an issue regardless of the water pressure from the spigot. I took a look at what a sprinkler manifold is and I guess IâÂÂm going to have to get up to speed on my âÂÂirrigation vocabularyâÂÂ. [g] Not sure how that would be set up or if we can, but IâÂÂll give that some more thought.

    Ken,
    Thanks for the link. You are talking about getting a better Dripline system with emitters for each plant? We should consider that, I guess. We have had a lot of soaker hoses for a long time, so setting it up this year didnâÂÂt cost us anything. We did have the same issue when we first bought them and stopped using them and switched to sprinklers. I thought I would put a little more effort into getting them to work this time around. I really donâÂÂt want to water my vegetable garden overhead. All our beds are raised wooden beds 12â high.

    IâÂÂll spend some time on the forum reading up on irrigation so I can better understand the advice being given. Thanks to all!

  • jean001a
    9 years ago

    Soaker hoses work fine for your beds. But you must not exceed a 100 ft run because they are low-tech -- not pressure compensated.

    I would advise rigging your soakers in a fashion that works because it will provide even moisture thru the raised bed-- someone suggested running them off Tees.

    My experience with individual drippers is that they are are a headache because each one moistens only a small portion of a root ball.

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