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Jul 16, 20227 min read

HOW TO INSTALL DRIP IRRIGATION

In this post we're discuss drip irrigation and walkthrough all the components and fittings to setup your own Micro Drip Irrigation System. This is ideal for automatically watering plants and beds in your garden, saving you plenty of time and money on watering and great for when on holiday or leaving your garden unattended.


Here's a video before we jump into some of the know how:

The advantages of drip irrigation is that you're only watering the plants you really want to, and not the weeds. You're conserving water and saving money by maximizing use of your available water and best of all, your plants will grow stronger and healthier with deeper roots. Plants generally grow towards light and water. By allowing water to slowly, deeply penetrate the soil at the base of the plant (and not just run off on surface), the structure of the roots will be improved, and deeper roots means increased uptake of nutrients, more resilient to diseases and less likely to be impacted by hotter or dryer weather. There are plenty of reasons why you should consider installing a drip irrigation system.





Drip Irrigation System

First, we start with an overview of a drip irrigation system where I’m rain harvesting off a shed roof, collecting, filtering and storing water in a water butt/ rain barrel, and then automatically watering my garden through a network of pipes, fittings & drip emitters or stoppers.


You can see here how this garden is being transformed by watering regularly through gravity fed drip irrigation.


Rain Harvesting

This system starts by capturing rainwater in gutters, which flows into a 210 litre water butt where it is stored for later use in a gravity flow drip irrigation system. You do not need a pump as gravity will create pressure in the system to force water to it's destination. There's a limit how far "capillary action" will take the water, which is why we elevate the water butt with a stand. The higher the water butt, the more pressure in the system and the further and stronger water can flow allowing you to add more sprinklers to the system. If you don't have enough pressure, raise the water butt or reduce the number of drip emitters. You can always run a second or third line to add more emitters, creating different watering zones.


There's also no need to add chemical filters or chlorine as this is not potable water - it's not for drinking, it's for your garden irrigation. Rain water without the chemicals found in drinking water is actually healthier for your plants and won't damage soil biodiversity - all the little micro organisms and critters that interact to form ecosystems within the soil.

You can connect gutter down pipes directly into your water butt. The problem will be that leaves and debris from the roof will find its way into your water butt and eventually clog up you pipes and drip emitters.


You should therefore consider adding a self-cleaning leaf filter, mesh or basket filter to keep out unwanted debris and leaves. You can also use tights/ panty hose or any type of sieve to make a DIY filter for your irrigation system. Alternatively, you can install a diverter kit to connect your water butt to the downpipe. We will discuss setting up a water butt in another post, for now we will simply assume you have a water source and take it from there.



At the bottom of the water butt is a tap onto which we connect the main watering hose. The main pipe has a 13mm internal/ 16mm outside diameter and will supply water to the smaller 4mm Tubes and Drip Emitters. even if you have installed some kind of filter prior to your water butt, it’s always a good idea to install an inline filter (13mm) just after the tap. This is because algae, moss and little bugs may be growing in your water butt and you do not want that to find it's way down to block your emitters.

An Inline Filter is a cheap but important part of your kit as it will save you hours and hours trying to unblock your drip emitters!!


The inline filter prevents tiny particles clogging your irrigation system and is relatively easy to open and clean. You can use standard garden hose fittings pushed on both ends of the filter to connect this to the water butt and the main line.


The irrigation system can be manually operated by opening and closing the water butt tap, or you can add a Garden Water Timer to automatically operate the system.


Water timers are usually battery operated and should have enough power to see you through spring and summer.


The timers allows you to set the frequency and run times to control when and for how long your garden or pot plants will be watered.






Here are some examples of a Water Timer with a single outlet and a Water Timer with a double outlet which is a great way of operating multiple watering zones.






Garden Water Timers

Drip Irrigation Kits

You can purchase readymade kits containing ALL THE COMPONENTS & FITTINGS to easily set up your drip irrigation system. Irrigation kits of varying lengths, similar to the ones below are available in our shop. Here you will find Irrigation Kits which can be manually operated by a tap, or Irrigation Kits with Timers which can automate your watering system.


This blog should however help you to find all the right components and fittings to make up your own system and custom design your drip irrigation. You can always start with a kit and then build out as you begin to experiment and become more familiar with the different fittings and emitters.


You will need 13mm pipe or hose for your main line and 4mm tubing together with your drip emitters and drip or spray nozzles.

Once your main line has been laid out, it’s time to measure and cut your pipes.


You can use a pipe cutters or garden secateurs for this. The next step would be to select where you would like to place your drip emitters and sprinklers.

It’s then just a matter of measuring and cutting adequate length of 4mm tubing to connect your drip fittings & emitters. If your system pressure allows for it, I recommend cutting pipes slightly longer than needed to make your system a bit more flexible should you wish to move plants, or relocate emitters at a later stage.


There are a many types of drip emitters or stoppers available on the market which should be suitable for your watering system. I recommend experimenting to find the ones you like best. To get you started I have listed a couple here. The first is an Adjustable Drip Nozzle which has a tee to be able to add more emitters. The second is Drip Emitter (8 holes) which can be used as an end of line stopper.

These emitters can be adjusted to either drip, spray a stream or be turned off. The drip emitters can be connected directly onto the main line or you can use 4mm tubing to run the emitters in a series, like a daisy chain.


The water pressure will determine how many drip emitters your can connect on your line. If it's a long daisy chain, the first drip will use more water and may leave little or none for the last emitters on the line. You could try connecting both ends of the chain back to the main line (like a U-shape), or run multiple shorter lines.









A threaded barb is used to connect the 4mm tubing to the 13mm supply pipe. The single barb goes into the 4mm tubing and the "Quick" thread end connects to the main supply line.


You will have to make a hole in the main supply pipe for which the Gardena Installation Tool or Claber Hole Puncher/ Spanner are great tools to use. You can also use a hand drill but be careful not to drill straight through the pipe.


When making connections, I recommend using hot water to heat up your pipes. This will soften your pipes and make them more flexible to slide onto fittings. A handy tip if you have a lot of connections to make, is to keep a hot water flask with you. This will save time and avoids running in and out the house when your water has cooled.

Hold Down Stakes (13mm) and Drip Emitter Support Stakes (4mm) can be used to secure your pipes & emitters in place in your garden beds and plant pots.


Finally it's time to turn on and test your system but make sure you flush the lines before connecting the last emitters. It’s as easy as that!!


Stick around for the fun Outtakes at the end.


Happy Irrigation!!

All the products and tools used in the video can be found in our shop or in the links below.

-- LINKS --


Kits

► Drip Irrigation Kits : https://geni.us/Dripkit

► Drip Irrigation Kits with Timer: https://geni.us/dripkitautomatic


Pipes, Fittings & Drip Emitters

► 13mm Main pipe/ hose: https: https://geni.us/SupplyPipe

► Inline filter: https://geni.us/InlineFilter

► Water timer (Single): https://geni.us/watertimersingle

► Water timer (Twin Outlet): https://geni.us/Watertimertwin

► 4mm flexible hose for dripper lines: https://geni.us/Driptubing

► Drip emitters (8hole): https://geni.us/dripemitters

► Drip emitters (nozzles): https://geni.us/Dripnozzle

► Threaded Barb/ joiner: https://geni.us/Threadedbarb

► Hold Down Support Stakes (13mm): https://geni.us/Holddownstakes ► Drip Irrigation Stakes (4mm): https://geni.us/dripstakes


Tools

► Pipe Cutters: https://geni.us/Pipecutters

► Claber Hole Puncher/ Spanner: https://geni.us/Claberpuncher

► Gardena Installation Tool: https://geni.us/GardenaDripTool

► Water Pump Pliers: https://geni.us/waterpumppliers


Break Time:

Freshly brewed Coffee: Lavazza Qualita Rossa (Arabica & Robusta Medium Roast), Coffee Mate & no sugar thanks

► Coffee ~ Freshly brewed: https://geni.us/LavCoffee

► Coffee creamer: https://geni.us/Coffeecreamer

► Ouma Muesli Rusks: https://geni.us/OumaMueslirusks


Links to products and services may be affiliate links that provide a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I use Geniuslink to try and help ensure you are directed to the correct countries Amazon website. ______________________________


-- TIMESTAMPS –

00:00 Install Drip Irrigation

00:08 Intro: Drip Irrigation System (Overview)

00:38 Step 1: Rainwater Harvesting

01:06 Step 2: Main Line (Supply Pipe)

01:51 Step 3: Water Timer (Optional)

03:19 Step 4: Cutting Pipes

03:45 Step 5: Nozzles & Sprinklers (Drip Emitters)

05:09 Step 6: Connecting Pipes & Fittings (Tools & Tips)

10:04 Fun Outtakes


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