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Drip irrigation problem
reyaazm
Posts: 2
Hello all,
We have set up a drip irrigation system. The first half of the system seemed to work, however no water was flowing from the latter half.
We then rearranged the tubing as shown in the pictures:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4k0mnzpS9nQS1d3LUdRZWdoQ2s
Unfortunately, we seem to have defied the laws of gravity as now nothing comes out of any irrigation pipe.
The water butt is 2m off the ground and the pressure seems sufficient to flow through the system. The length of the system is approximately 10m.
All help would be appreciated as we need to eat at harvest time.
Kind regards,
R
Last edited: 08 April 2017 10:44:49
0
Posts
I wouldn't expect a gravity fed irrigation system to be able to feed many outlets, and it's difficult to see how many you are trying to feed on your system. Because the pressure will be greater the lower the outlet, those will be the ones which I would expect to get most water.
Water will flow through the system by gravity, but each outlet is designed to restrict how much passes through, and even tiny differences in manufacture will make a difference.
The system I use runs off an outside tap and there is a difference in flow on adjoining outlets. It's really a case of trial and error.
We are in the midst of having an irrigation system fitted. It seems that the more outlets you have the less the flow is from each outlet. Are you overloading your system reyaazm?
We have 15 outlets in the space of 10m. The main tube is 7mm in diameter.
Check that you don't have any sharp bends in the main tube which would block flow. The 90 degree bend under the first mural in 20170408_103809.jpg might be the problem. It might also be worth fitting a filter close to the water butt to prevent debris getting into the system - these systems are very prone to blockages.
Use a larger bore feed pipe to reduce flow resistance, 13mm is commonly used for this. I have a hozelock system running off a tap which uses a combination of 13mm feed pipe and microbore drip pipes.
These systems generally have pressure reducers fitted to keep pressure to 1 atmosphere but a 2 metre head is only a fifth of an atmosphere so you need to minimise flow resistance.
That may be too many for a gravity fed system with comparatively little pressure from a 2 m head.