DIY Drip Irrigation? Thoughts and Suggestions please

mr626 on 14/09/2015 - 12:41
Last edited 14/09/2015 - 15:48

Hello all,

We are on a ~700m2 block, which has a few garden beds in various places. We have two garden taps, one at the front and one at the back of the house.

I'd like to make watering the gardens a bit more efficient, and am thinking about doing a DIY drip irrigation system. I'm not really interested in fully automated systems, or anything that requires digging up the yard (gardens, driveway etc are all well established, so don't really want to go digging). A friend who is a landscaper suggested that a drip irrigation system might be a good option.

How I imagine it would work:

-Go to Bunnings and buy the gear, something like this with the needed attachments etc http://www.bunnings.com.au/holman-25mm-x-25m-black-poly-drip…
-Create a couple of different 'zones' which would consist of a run of the drip tube, with a standard hose fitting at the start of the run.
-Possibly cover drip lines in mulch (I believe this would make it more efficient / less evaporation of water etc)

End result (hopefully): I have a couple of different irrigation 'zones' that I can attach the garden hose to as required.

Just the above sound doable? Any suggestions on how I could do it better / cheaper?

I am aware that what I am planning still seems a bit 'manual' but as mentioned because everything is established already I want to avoid digging trenches etc if possible (and it will still be heaps better than watering by hand like we currently do).

Thanks for your thoughts

Edit: I've roughly worked out that to do all our garden beds with a drip system (using all off-the-shelf parts, getting tubing that has the drippers already installed inline etc) it would be under $150. Much cheaper than I expected.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • pjetson on 14/09/2015 - 13:23
    +1

    What happens if you forget that you've turned the hose on? The addition of a simple (non-electronic) tap timer into your plan might be a good idea.

    • mr626 on 14/09/2015 - 13:48

      Yeah, a mechanical tap timer is a possibility. Then again, its only a drip line, even if I forgot about it for a day I don't imagine I'd go through that much water?

      • pjetson on 14/09/2015 - 15:39

        You can work it out easily enough. Let's say you have ten four litre per hour drippers, then that's 10 x 4 x 24 = 960 litres per day. Or twice that with 8L per hour drippers. Or half that with 2L per hour drippers.

        Nope, it's not a lot, but we are supposed to be saving water.

        • mr626 on 14/09/2015 - 15:44

          Fair point. Probably worth just getting a mechanical tap timer, looks like these only cost about $15 for a 2 hour one, which would suit us fine.

        • sleepy120 on 15/09/2015 - 21:07

          @mr626:maybe bigW still have timers in their dropped zone range for $2 each, i know i grabbed 8 couple months ago. The seemed to be moving slow off the shelves.

  • airzone on 14/09/2015 - 14:05

    I set up a small line of drip tube and it leaked more from the push-in nipples than it did from the drippers..

    • mr626 on 14/09/2015 - 15:46

      Were you using the locking clamps on all of the nipples?

      (that just sounds wrong!)

  • Biance on 15/09/2015 - 16:40

    A knowledgeable looking old man at Bunnings informed me that drip irrigation isn't very good for most Australian soil types as it only gives water to around 10-20cm, he recommended sprinkling from above.
    Yesterday I picked up a $20 all-inclusive micro-sprinkler kit which took a couple of hours to install and works great. The kit product isn't showing up on the website but it's based on these little guys: http://www.bunnings.com.au/pope-200mm-rigid-riser-with-adapt…
    Little 20cm risers with tiny sprinkler heads, and you bury the very DIY tubing around 2-5cm underground. The whole thing plugs into your tap for manual use or you can add a timer. I like how simple it looks and you can see that the water is getting to the whole garden bed and can easily identify if it becomes blocked or breaks.

  • mr626 on 23/09/2015 - 10:11

    Talking to a workmate, turns out he has HEAPS of brand new 19mm drip line that he will give me for free. So totally trying this out, given that it's going to cost me next to nothing. I think the money saved can go towards a load of mulch.

    Will report back here with how it goes. Thanks for all the replies.

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