Garden irrigation system - drip or perlschlauch - pressure question

[Gambatte 897]

I grow veg in the garden (100+ jars of tomatoes in my 1st year :). Last year I had to spend much time watering, so to save time this year I'm going for a semi-automatic irrigation system: either soak hose, perlschlauch, or drip. The manufacturer suggest for the soak hose minimum 10psi water pressure. I could not find the info for the drip system, I guess it's the same. The water from the tap at most homes is typical 40-60 psi.

I'd like to take the water from a Garden water tank, Gardenwasserregentonne, saving not only time but also (after many years) money and environment. Height of 1m corresponds to 10000 Pa, or 1.4psi pressure. Even ignoring the pressure drop in the hose transporting the water to the veg, this is way too low pressure...

Anyone has experience on this?

Thanks,

[emkay 10,150]

We’re also looking for a better garden watering system.  I can’t advise yet regarding the necessary water pressure.  Just as an aside, regarding money saving...do you have a separate water meter on your garden tap? We save the Abwasser cost on all outdoor water. The   Abwasser cost here is more than twice the Wasser cost.  Usually save around 150€ per year.  

[Gambatte 897]

No, we have only one water meter for the whole property. Interesting, I never heard of separate meters for indoor/outdoor.

[Gambatte 897]

Have you already researched between perlschaluch (also called Schwitzschlauch), so the porous one, and tropfschlauch, the one with small holes.

I think the perlschlauch gives water even more uniformly, but the Tropfschlauch accepts a lower pressure and is more durable over the years (higher purchase cost tough...).

[emkay 10,150]

42 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

No, we have only one water meter for the whole property. Interesting, I never heard of separate meters for indoor/outdoor.

I suggest that you check with your Gemeinde or whichever company sends your water bill. In brief, buy an appropriate water meter from Bauhaus, Amazon etc. Once fitted, the Gemeinde need to come to inspect and register the meter.  We submit the meter reading annually by email to the Gemeinde and they deduct the water volume off the overall household Abwasser cost.  Have a look at this thread...

 

[Gambatte 897]

@emkayRegarding the thread you posted, I join the wagon of those thanking you! Super good to know we can possibly save the Abwasser cost. Although I admit I am intimidated by the prospect of communicating with the Gemeinde, sometimes German officials seem seem particularly skilled at making simple things very complicated, we will see...

[Gambatte 897]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yasmHRbWU8

[Sir Percy B 1,309]

How big is your watertank? To increase the pressure you will without doubt need a pump. 

 

From experience I would use the drip system, when combined with a controller it's much easier to regulate the amount and how often. It's also much more flexible when you want to add extra pipes etc for pots or other flower beds, it is more work to set up but worth it in the long run.

 

I use Gardena, not the cheapest and certainly not the most expensive, I would recommend downloading their Catalogue Clever Watering Systems. From the download options in the link you want 'irrigation systems 2021'.

 

If you have any other questions let me know I have been using their system for the last 8-10 years and not only for plants also for the grass so it's fully automated.

 

 

[Gambatte 897]

 I "inherited" 2 tanks when buying the house, I think each 200l. I'm eying getting some more. 

But wait a sec, which pump to get has nothing to do with the size of the tanks.. no?

Yes, I know the stuff from Gardena, they are generally good.

Do you have experience with a garden pump? Which one do you have?

The watering is for the vegetable Hochbeet, 7 rows, each 0.6m height and 1m X 5m surface (will be more if wife allows 😁😬), and the lawn, prob 500-700qm. Sure the tanks cannot cover all but hey got to start somewhere...

[Sir Percy B 1,309]

Due to the limited rainfall in Berlin it's wasn't possible to use tanks so we never went that route, I have ours running off the mains so I don't have any experience with pumps.

 

All I know is from my own experience,  if you are going to invest in an irrigation system then plan for the whole garden not a bit here and a bit there like I did, not only has it cost me time but also money. I had to basically re-plan the whole garden a few years later in order to include the rest of it.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Gambatte said:

I grow veg in the garden (100+ jars of tomatoes in my 1st year :). Last year I had to spend much time watering,

 

Just how many plants did you have?  

[emkay 10,150]

On 14/01/2021, 09:09:52, Gambatte said:

@emkayRegarding the thread you posted, I join the wagon of those thanking you! Super good to know we can possibly save the Abwasser cost. Although I admit I am intimidated by the prospect of communicating with the Gemeinde, sometimes German officials seem seem particularly skilled at making simple things very complicated, we will see...

We just got our water bill for last year and very happy to have a 275€ discount for the garden water usage.

[Gambatte 897]

😃😄😀

275 on water discount in a year is a pretty huge amount. Well done to you, and thanks again x the tip.

Btw, you don't say it, but was the higher yearly water cost based on your usage during the previous year, before you installed the Gartenwasserzähler...?

[Gambatte 897]

Here we go, I was kind of shocked by the number so I did some math.

Schmutzwasser costs ca 2,7eur per qm, so the savings you got corresponds to ca 100qm readings from the Gartenwasserzähler. The flow from a normal tap is ca 15 l/min. Say you watered the garden every day for 100 days, so 1qm per day, so 1qm/15l = 66min, so 1 hr of garden watering per day. Very realistic. 

 

A bit shocking isn't it...?

One would not think garden watering is so expensive 🤣😱🤣

 

[HH_Sailor 3,529]

Just to be pedantic... 

I assume you mean cubic metres and not sq.metres....

 

The fresh water has to be paid for. But you're let off the waste water charges as the water percolates through the ground. 

 

If you want to save more, try a rain tank that feeds your toilets. Then you pay for waste water but not fresh.

 

We have this. Need to have a (chargeable) automatic top up for the tank in case of dry weather. 

Also attached to the washing machine.

Needs a pump, pressure compensation and a filter. 

And more meters if course...

[kiplette 8,675]

Can you give us a bit more detail about this, HH?

 

When we first moved into this house I was very interested in this kind of thing - we have low water usage, mostly because I grump about it a lot, but really, flushing the loo with water is totally pointless generally, and then flushing it with treated drinking water is just stupid.

 

Given that no-one but me would use my proposed composting bog, the rainwater thing is sounding more likely again.

[Gambatte 897]

12 hours ago, HH_Sailor said:

I assume you mean cubic metres and not sq.metres...

of course you are right. I understand the confusion originated from me mistakenly writing qm, sorry.

 

Using rainwaer as you write is really great, I like it a lot. But I guess installing everything must be very expensive, with a very very long period to recover the initial cost. Sure there is also the environmental aspect, which is not necessarily reflected in the finances of the next xyz year...

[Gambatte 897]

HH, where is your water tank, outdoor right? Overground or underground? When how whom got it installed etc? We are interested, tell us more!

[Gambatte 897]

Here the usual guy visiting our garden.

Free food always taste better.

https://youtu.be/sqz_jY5UYYk

[HH_Sailor 3,529]

Here we go then...

Detached house in its own garden. We built around 20 yrs ago.
Wanted to reduce waste and conserve resources - saving money was not our primary goal.

 

Buried a 5000L tank in the garden. This has a large "manhole" for access.
It‘s filled by pipeing rainwater from both the house and car port roofs directly into the tank.
These come together in an easy to access sieve that keeps the frogs and larger crud out.
Need to clean it twice a year (more if we notice crud in the toilets). 
Easy task - no brainer to do myself in 15 minutes.

 

The tank has an overflow, so in the times of torrential rain, it doesn't backflow into the house.
That leads off to a sink hole (Sickerschacht). All pipes are underground and feed to and from the tank via gravity

Water is taken from the surface of the water in the tank via a floating filter.

Any rubbish in the tank falls to the bottom. Floating filter feeds a flexible pipe before it hits the rigid pipework feeding the house.

 

Tank gets a checkup every couple of years - on a nice warm day when virtually empty.
May even use a high pressure wash inside the tank to rid the sides  of algae.
Again, DIY job that I can manage. Not a crisis if I miss a year.

A teenager could climb in - I can't!

We locked the access cover (simple nut and bolt) to prevent the toddlers falling in.

(It's still there even if the toddlers aren't)

 

Now the tank is below ground, but above our cellar.

The pump in our cellar is for a pressurised reservoir in the house and the pump only starts up some 30 sec after we flush.

It pumps rain water up the two storeys to the toilets. The pump is protected by a filter too.

 

In times of drought, the tank is topped up automatically with fresh tap water.
There is an air gap between the fresh water and tank inlet. A legal requirement same as when plumbing a washing machine.

A sensor hanging in the underground tank signals that the water level is low.

(we can adjust it to start topping up before we notice the muck from the bottom of the tank being sucked into the system).

 

We use the rainwater to flush the toilets and also to water the garden.
When we built, the plumbers stated that in our area we would not be allowed to use the rain water to run the washing machine. However they did the plumbing for us so that as and when the law changed, we wouldn’t have to dig up the garden or retrofit the piping to the machine.

BTW, it’s now allowed to wash clothes in collected  rainwater in Schleswig-Holstein.

 

We’ve changed the pump once in twenty years.

The floating filter also once. (the flexible pipe lost flexibility and wouldn’t go low in the tank when the level was low.

 

We have a meter on the mains water inlet to the house = fresh water usage from utility.
There is a meter on the pump showing how much rain water we have used for any purpose.
A third meter monitors how much fresh we use to top up the tank.

 

Looking at the setup now to explain all this, I wonder if we should have meters on the garden taps too.

I’ll talk to the plumber when I get the chance in the next weeks.

 

Rainwater in the toilets causes a stagnant smell on hot days if rarely flushed.

Also, the ceramic bowl needs a thorough brush twice a week otherwise it looks

somewhat grubby (under the water surface around the bend)

 

Never had a problem with the washing machine though. Only use the rainwater for this

during the rainy season. We use fresh, tap water in the summer.

 

If you need detailed more info - feel free to PM me.

As this installation is 20yrs old, I can't help you with prices, I'm afraid