Drip Irrigation

You need an "emmiter" at the end of the drip lines.

BTW, you can put a globe valve after the regulator to drop the pressure and adjust the flow rate without having to change the regulator. A small gate valve also works well, even thought the valve says to only operate fully-open or fully-closed.

Bob

sorry, should have said - the dripline has pressure compensating emitters every 12 inches.

Then the pressure is still too high. (I can't remember what pressure I used way back when -- I think it was about 7 psi, achieved with a 15 psi regulator followed by a partially open gate valve.) Try putting a valve between your regulator and your main distribution line and adjust it down until the water drips out.

You can also turn the drip-line over so it sprays down.

The manufacturer of the drip hose should have a recommended pressure range.

Bob

Its coming from the emitter. The dripline is rated at 0.5gph at 10 and 15psi and 0.68gph at 20 and 25psi. Unless I am totally not getting it - any of my pressure regulators 25, 15, or 10 should not be yielding these results - none of the above should be resulting in a "jet" of water. I thought perhaps the dripline was a "defective roll" so I tried another roll and same results.

Many cheap plastic regulators will over-pressure if the volume going through them is low. Are you using a pressure guage so that you know for sure what your pressure is? I would get a pressure guage, and a use manually adjustable regulator- they are not expensive. Make sure the pressure really is what you think it is.

"Zook" wrote in news:faVpg.2652$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com:

Sounds like a 1/4" soaker line. And, actually, those aren't Pressure compensating emitters. Pressure Compensating emitters sit either at the end of a 1/4" line or in the 1/2" distribution line; they have a barbed fitting on only one side, the other one is smooth. From what you describe, those are regular 1/2 gallon per hour inline emitters. And, yes, they *do* sorta spray out rather than drip and I don't think the PSI matters a whit.

What I've done to sort of control the spray is to put either the stake holding the line in front of the hole in the emitter to interrupt the spray. The water then drips down the stake and into the ground where it should go.

As far as I know, the only way to get them to actually drip is to remove them and replace as the diagram here:

BEFORE: O = Emitters --- = 1/4" line

----O----O----O----O----O----O----(end)

AFTER:

O O O O O O

According with the other comment, in my opinion you are not using self-compensating drippers with the appropiate pressure. If you click in the link I am enclosing, you could find a table with specifications for this kind of drippers, I hope they will be interesting to you.

Zook ha escrito: