Soaker Hose Spreader

[pelligrini]

A few years ago there were some watering ordinances enacted for the city. One of them was that during a certain period of time of day you could only water by hand or with a soaker hose. There were certain parts of my yard that would get really baked, especially next to the curb. I fooled with one of those flat soaker hoses with the pinholes, but they are certainly a pain. Placing and moving a loose black soaker hose wasn’t that much better.

I believe this is the final design I have come up with. The first version used only one hose and it really didn’t cover a lot of area. The second version looped 2 50’ hoses back and fourth 7 times. It covered a lot more area, but there was hardly any water pressure for the last 1/3 of the run. I finally found that if I put a splitter off the garden hose I can get an even flow throughout.

Construction was a 2x4 ripped in half. I drilled holes for the hose on the drill press. I oversized them because I would be removing material when I cut the drilled spreader in half. I can't really remember what size bit I used for the holes, but they were too big at first. They need to be pretty tight, especially for the middle spreader. Some 1 1/4” screws hold it together. Putting a radius on all the edges make it quite a bit easier to pull across the grass. I also put some holes through the spreaders so I can hand it on the fence when storing it.

[Ed62]

The idea of putting the splitter where you did was a good one. How far between the lengths of hose? I'm guessing about 12".

Ed

[pelligrini]

I think it was about 10" OC. It was more of a function of the length of wood I had on hand. The first design had them spaced farther apart, around 18", and it didn't get good water coverage. So I picked something about 1/2" of what it was.

The splitter made it a lot easier to move around too. With having the hose hooked up on one corner the drag would distort the shape, and I would have to mess with getting it spread out properly. Moving it from the hose end isn't that easy either.

[cabinetman]

Pretty unique idea. Here's another thought. From the pictures it looks like both ends are "dead ended". When I have long runs for airline pipe, it got laid out wherever it goes and returns to be tapped back into the start of the line creating a large "loop", with drops along its run.

I'm thinkin' that your water pressure might be more uniform if the ends of the run were "tapped" into the start creating a "fed" line pressure.
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[pelligrini]

I didn't think about looping the feed. That probably would have worked without adding the splitter. There's not too much difference in the water flow at the hose end compared to the capped end now.