[drmoonshine]

hi all i will be getting some kind of irrigation system soon for my green house.... possible also for the whole plot and i am wanting to pick your brains on what to go for

i was thinking of this

Irrigation System

i was more wanting to connect it to my water butt and not the mains but if that is the best option then i can live with that...... the only prob i see is my outside water tap aint near my greenhouse its like a max of 10m away.... would that be a prob with running 10m of tube to my greenhouse and then using the other 10m to connect all parts together? there may be a better option of using a hose to take the water to greenhouse and then connecting hose to irrigation system never had one so not sure if possible...... 20 drippers should sort the greenhouse out hopefully

any idea on plot watering apart from going round there and watering it myself lol i can be a busy person sometimes and dont always have the time to go round everyday. id'e like to be happy knowing things are wet and happy lol

Edited to condense excessively long link

[Doddy]

I'm in a similar situation - want to be able to manage the plot during those times I'm not able to get down there.

My plan at the moment is 2 x 200l water butts (was looking at a 1000l IBC but delivery was prohibitively expensive) - plumbed into the gutters on the greenhouse (done, in situ), water butts cross-linked via the taps (done). Submersible caravan pump - 12v (bought), drawing water into a header tank in the greenhouse (yet to be specced). Car battery (cast-off) to power the pump with a solar charger (bought, frame drying after coats of paint). Then a system similar to that you show to provide root-level watering. Ancillary feeds from the header tank to keep the beds alive outside the greenhouse - not thought too much about this yet.

I'm also thinking that it's a system that could be quickly expanded, dropping more pumps into the water butts to water other beds, unattended.

Not sure if all this is a waste of time and money, but I can't bear the thought of potentially losing up to a year's work and planning on crops if I need to be away during the growing season for any reason.

[drmoonshine]

i dont think its a waste of money its better safe then sorry as you said...


theres an artical in my magazine about how to do it with pumps and stuff

when i find it lol...........


you need a water butt
and something called a demand pump witch can be mains fed or fed from a battery. the pump will only work when a ''tap'' is turned on in this case by an electonic timer the pump is controlled by a pressure switch when the tap is turned off again the water pressure builds up and the switches the pump off

no pressure valve open = pump runs
timer closes valve pressure builds and pumps turns off..... simple really......

ya can pick a demand pump up for around 40 pound on ebay 10 pound 2nd hand.............
there 12v DC powered also


20psi
1.1bar
12 volt
4.5 amp rated


wonder if its powerfull enough hmmmmmmmmmmmm would be cool to have some sort of mista hucked up to it also but need more pressure for that i think? a dribble through a mista aint going to do any good

[fatcat1955]

Why not place your water butts on breeze blocks and let gravity do the work ?

[Praxxus]

Run hose from your tap to the greenhouse, finish it with a hose joiner - unscrew empty sider of joiner - voila 3/4" as per specs stated in link. Bobs yer aunty uncle.

[drmoonshine]

cool thank you

[Kristen]

Just in case relevant:

Some water timers (e.g. battery operated) require a decent mains pressure to work. They won't work with low pressure from a water butt. (But there are timers that will work with low pressure

If you are going to have a 12v pump, and a 12v timer, then no problem!

[stompy]

There are plenty of 12v timers on the net and i didn't think of it but a 12v caravan submersible pump would be ideal.

[hightide]

interesting ideas there

Why not place your water butts on breeze blocks and let gravity do the work ?

fatcat 1955 has got it right; a solenoid valve similar to what is in your washing machine only with a 12V DC coil could act as an electric tap. Connect the valve to the water butt, the outlet to a seep hose, the pressure in the butt should be enough to push the water to the areas you need watering. (solenoid valve £4 on E-Bay unbelievable!)
The timer has to be programmable, and capable of operating one or more valves, as the current needed to operate the timer and coils in the valves is very low, a 12V car battery should last for some time before needing to be recharged. (Timer £19.95 on E-Bay)

The biggest challenge is to keep the water butts filled; we have no mains on our allotment only water troughs. I use a 12V DC diaphragm pump run by a small industrial battery to take water from those to fill my butts while I get on with other things. It is rated at 50psi so I can connect it to a garden hose and water/spray when no one is looking. This is fine, but the drain on the battery from the pump requires battery recharging after each use, so I doubt if my intentions to fully automate at the plot are feasible just yet.
On another note anyone connecting their mains supply to a water butt, please check with a qualified plumber, I remember being lectured by a man from WRAS on Water Supply Regs, you may need to have a RPZ valve fitted.

[Kristen]

Gardena water timer will work at 0.5 bar - do you get that much from a water butt? Only needs a couple of batteries, and would thus be suitable for a seep-hose type system

http://www.gardena.com/opencms/opencms/UK/en/products/Product/index.html?cat=PK410&scat=PK41005&prod=4078500182508&bls=0#

[strangerachael]

I have been researching this as well for my greenhouse. I am going to get a water butt to collect from the greenhouse roof, then connect it up to this system: http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/pages/cm/cm.asp?sCCPage=IRISOWATERING
There don't seem to be any customer reviews for it so far, although reviews for the bottle system are good. It seems fairly inexpensive if it turns out to be a complete failure.
I will have to make sure it works before I go away on holiday though.... one potential problem is that the water butt will have to be low enough to fit under the greenhouse gutter, but I suspect  it would have to be significantly higher than the pots to be watered, for the gravity to work.

[Doddy]

Ione potential problem is that the water butt will have to be low enough to fit under the greenhouse gutter, but I suspect  it would have to be significantly higher than the pots to be watered, for the gravity to work.

Hence the idea of pumped water from the butt to a header tank 

Raising butts on breeze blocks will help a little for low-lying grow-bags, etc, but I like the idea of staging etc for plants (as well as grow-bags).

Don't get me wrong - the more complex the solution then the harder to get it to work properly, I've ended up with a solution more complex than I'd care for (and I'm concerned over the unprotected value of it) but it gives me, I think, the flexibility to take a week off sometime. Here's hoping, at least.

In the mean-time, still waiting for some damned rain to fill the butts!