Watering 4-Way Splitter

Are you able to solder copper pipes?

A bit of copper pipe, a few solder T's, and a few of these, to control the flow -

I meant to add....

Ordinary garden hose, will push onto 15mm copper, then clamp with jubilee clips.

I have a 2x Claber outlet, it's lived outdoors on the ground for at least three years, all I do is make sure it's drained down and left open over winter.

They do a similar 4x outlet, about £22 on amazon

You can do it in compression or push-fit if you can't solder, but it'll cost more.

Also to note that garden taps are often 3/4" BSP thread, so get a washing machine hose (which also use 3/4" BSP threads) and then a 3/4" BSP fitting for your pipe:

Another option is to look for a cheap under floor heating manifold. You can get them in plastic pushfit variety without valves, or maybe you can find a cheap used stainless/brass one which has all the valves integrated.

Theo

A similar item is the "Gardena Four Channel Water Distributor"

Many of the negative comments say that 'it isn't frost-proof' - but that's just silly.

I wonder if you got a bad one. I have had a few of these and only had real problems after leaving out and getting frost damage. The rubber ring on the connectors perish but are easily replaced.

I have some metal ones in Spain so don't get frost. Its like this

see above

Dave

You can get brass hose connectors with both 3/4" and 1/2" BSP femail threads on them:

then run a 15mm pipe through three tees: Fit four leaver isolation valves after on one output of the fist three tees, and both outputs of the last one:

easily done to make manifolds out of 22mm & 15 mm tube, Tees, elbows and washing machine valves.

The plastic quickfity hosepipe connector for outside taps will fit washing machine valves. I can get theve valves for 99p each on eBay: I have spare copper tube and plenty of sparesolder ring copper fittings

I've also done a 3 m long 22 mm tube with 15 x washing machine valves on Tees.

Each washing machine valve then feeds a bradas dripper hose 3 m long so I can water all the rows of root veg on the 3m by 3m veg patch. If someone wants a pic, let me know.

I quite agree.

Those suggestions have certainly got me thinking. I haven't done much plumbing, and solder fitting would be a new experience, but that type of isolator certainly makes a home build more attractive. Time for some homework.

Where do you get the valves so cheaply? Perhaps I am using the wrong searches.

Chris

well to be honest with you, I got them literally as COVID hit as we had

Cheapest I could find is now £3.80

I was buying 25+ at the time so got quite a bit of discount as postage per item reduced considerably.

If you don't already have the Tee pieces, you can get the washing machine isolation valves as part of a Tee for not much more than an extra pound so that copuld save you time and/or money

a few pointers:

If you do decide to solder, *everything* at the solder joint MUST be scrupulously clean, free of all dirt and copper oxides, and keep your flux clean too.

Heat BOTH the pipe AND the Fitting by moving the gas torch around.

During the winter months, FULLY DRAIN the system or you will have a free fountain in the spring when you turn the water back on!

Thanks for that gem! A real game-changer. I could do it all with compression fittings, no new skill and blowtorch required.

Indeed!

Chris

If you don't fancy soldering, then pushfit will work.

If you want a simple intro to pipe soldering, then start with solder ring fittings (aka "Yorkshire" fittings). These include the solder in the fitting - so you apply flux, assemble the joint and then just heat it until you see a ring of solder appear at the edges of the joint. More expensive that plain end feed fittings, but nearly as neat.

Pushfit is very simple, but more pricy. Compression is simple, but a bit more bulky and mid price.

Places like

Toolstation etc can be fairly cheap if you buy packs of fittings rather than individual ones.

Here is the finished article, installed and working well:

The timer, which was discussed in another thread here, is a Claber Duplo Evolution. The programming instructions are not the clearest, but the online video makes things much easier. What swung it for me was that it works with a real-time clock, not simply hours from set point.

Chris