Irrigation system

I’ve used watering systems for over 10 years and been through at least that number of timers. You need to:-

bring the timers in over winter

empty any pipes left out in winter

plan your system

check enough water pressure

My current timers are Orbit, newer model here on Amazon. I’ve had two of the older models now for 3-4 years (amazingly). You can set the timer to water at a particular time for a selected duration, but can also switch it to manual with a 10 minute default, hit the +/- to change.

For piping use “nutlock” type connectors with 13/14mm (some use outside measure of 16mm for 13mm) pipe for the main supply and 4/5mm feeder tube/pipe. I can’t recall who was the best supplier of this, but there are a number out there.

For big gardens or weak pressure you can look to make multiple outlets. The above connects to hozelock type fittings. I use these and standard hose to connect from the outside tap to the timer(s) and also from the timer outlet to the feeder 13mm pipe. This way you can connect and disconnect easy. Happy to try to help further if needed…

 

Plan looks very good. Unless you have a very big garden and/or low water pressure I doubt you will need more than 2 timers (1 might do). I have 2 off separate taps , one for the back and one in the front. I could put them both on together as we have super pressure, but normally put them on separate. To be honest you can get away without the timer (or using it as such), but if you are away often they are great. I would think about the different areas and see if you need an inline tap to isolate off any area at different times of the year. They can also allow you to control the flow instead of adjusting several sprinklers or drippers. I use dripper for the likes of beans with an individual one for each plant. Sprinklers for larger areas with flowers are spuds. But I've also used soak hose and dripline hose (13mm). Best thing I learnt was that it's flexible enough to easily change if you find it's not quite right.

 

Yikes that's an expensive timer! I think I had a Gardena in the past, but it may have been Claber. Last year I only used the timer to switch on in manual watering, default on mine is 10 minutes which is fine for me. I used the timer because I was always forgetting to switch it off otherwise...

 

@Fat Controller one of the troubles with the hozelock manifold is the outlets are blocked by the timer like this


from your Amazon link. But you can get around it by putting a length of hose between the tap and timer. It's better like that in any case as directly attached puts pressure on the outlet (they tend to leak by the way).

 

Seep hoses would be an alternative for the borders. You don't need a pressure reducer for those (nor for sprinklers) (edit: alternative to sprinklers, not timers/manifolds )

 

I found a much cheaper alternative, details to follow when I can post a link.

 

https://www.waterirrigation.co.uk/w...timers/hydrosure-dual-outlet-water-timer.html

 

1. Looking back I've ordered a lot from waterirrigation over a number of years. They also do "nutlock" type connectors here on their site. I thought it was them that did "bulk buy bags" of connector type e.g. 20-30 "tee" connectors, but can't see them. These worked out much cheaper which is good as these small bits are likely much dearer than a couple of timers. I'll try to track down who it was