My neighbor's one comment made me rip out my entire sprinkler system

I spent 3 weekends putting in a drip irrigation setup for my flower beds (in Phoenix, no less). My neighbor Debbie walks over and says 'you know those emitters are going to clog in about 2 months with our hard water, right?' I laughed it off but after 6 weeks, half of them were already blocked up. I switched to a soaker hose system with a pressure regulator and it's been running smooth for 4 months now. Has anyone else had luck with a different solution for hard water issues in their backyard setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_diana8d agoTop Commenter

Oh man, that Debbie sounds like she could be my mother in law! She's always got a "helpful" observation right when I'm proud of something I finished. I don't have hard water where I live but I had a totally different issue with my drip system. The first one I put in had those little tubes that kept getting chewed through by squirrels. I swear those fluffy tailed rats were staging a war on my garden. I ended up switching to a buried soaker hose under a thick layer of mulch too and it worked way better. Just my two cents.

phoenix2467d ago

lol "fluffy tailed rats" is exactly what I call them too. I had a similar problem but with chipmunks, little jerks kept chewing through the risers on my drip system like it was a snack bar. I tried that metal mesh tape trick hugoj12 mentioned and it actually worked for a while, but then they started going after the main line underground. I ended up running a chicken wire barrier about 6 inches deep around the whole garden perimeter and that finally stopped them. Pain in the butt to install though, my back hurt for a week.

hugoj128d ago

Gotta respectfully disagree here. I've buried soaker hoses before and in my experience they clog up way faster than you'd expect, especially if your soil has any clay in it. Plus once they're buried, if a squirrel or a root does find its way into it, you're digging up a whole section of garden to fix it. I've had better luck with those little tubes actually, but I wrap them in some of that metal mesh tape right where they come out of the ground. Stops the squirrels cold and you can still see if there's a leak. Your mileage may vary of course, but I wouldn't write off the drip tubes completely.