That's a thought! They may just let you do that! Also check some opinions of those that have to do the watering there on a regular basis. Though you may need to be ready to hear some 'cussing' along the way!

Okay, I just got off the phone after talking to the Dramm company. The woman I spoke to was very nice and had the cutest accent. She informed me occasionally they get a 'leak' complaint, but that their products do have a lifetime guarantee (or maybe it was warranty?).

My advice would be - if/when you buy Dramm, save your receipt.

Also she said they have a new product called 'One Touch Rain Wand' which has a thumb control [doesn't help me any as my thumb doesn't work in that position!] which most people find very easy to use. I asked where to buy it and she said (definitely not WalMart) it can be purchased at any TrueValue or Ace Hardware or Do-It-Best stores; also at many independent nursery/plant stores.

http://www.rainwand.com/one-to...

Since my brain is in 'watering' mode, I'm thinking why can't we just use our pressure sprayers to water the overhead/hanging baskets? At low pressure that should work just fine and most sprayers have a hose that would reach up that high.

This is probably a totally unnecessary suggestion, but someone may not have tried it yet.

Have you tried buying several varieties of washers and swapped them around or doubled them up? If the leak is coming from the screw-together part, it "ought" to be fixable with the right washer and strong hands screwing it on.

I've seen really cheap plastic washers, and rubber ones, and polymer ones. Maybe "polymer" is just another name for plastic, but if it costs a little more and works better, the manufacturers can call it anything they want. Even "expensive" washers are a bargain if they rescue a wand or hand sprayer.

They might even have slightly different sizes and thicknesses despite all being "garden hose" washers.

I had one cheap wand that worked great until I left it out in a hard freeze with water in it. Then every crimp joint loosened up and sprayed water freely.

P.S. In the worst case you can always tape or tie some heavy plastic film around the leaking joint so the water dribbles down the hose instead of spraying in your face. I never throw away the bags that compost and bark come in, I save them for re-use.

I have several different watering heads and wands, I don't think I have ever had an attachment to a hose that did not leak, I just assume if I water with a hose I am going to get wet.

Since I started buying irrigation gadgets from Dripworks and a local supplier, I keep handy some 30 cent Hose Caps (covers male hose thread).

When I unscrew something from a hose end, I screw a plastic cap back on. That keeps grit out of the threads and prevents dings on the mating surfaces. I don't usually have hose end leaks unless I fail to tighten it down firmly.

Or, which I have done a few times, open the WRONG VALVE or turn a valve the wrong way. That can knock my hat right off, and make me feel like a major dummy.

Maybe I've just been lucky with my hoses and gaskets. Certainly most cheap hand sprayers get loose and very leaky pretty fast. When I found a good price on a hand sprayer with some metal in the body and a few useful patterns, I went out and bought three more so that when they DID wear out, I would still have another.

Since I ran irrigation mainline around the yard, I do most of my watering with mini-sprayers on 1/4" tubing, or Antelco Shrublers or Spectrum sprayers. I only "stand there and hand-spray" a few spots.

Just reporting in.
I had purchased the Dramm before reading this thread and put it into service yesterday. I got the short version of the wand Touch-N-Flow which I bought because it did not have the 'pistol' grip and thought it would be easier on my old hands.

Good news: No leaks from the Dramm!!!

Bad news: My old yellow garden hold sprung a leak just about even with my knees.

Seedfork said:I have several different watering heads and wands, I don't think I have ever had an attachment to a hose that did not leak, I just assume if I water with a hose I am going to get wet.

A+ for attitude! At the point in the day I do my watering, it really doesn't matter, LOL! Water is one of the friendlier elements gardener's have to deal with. But we air breathers like to stay dry unless we dress to get wet. Inventors of clothing for swimming of all things...

Celene said:

I bought one of the Ray Padula ones at Menards last year on clearance. Water squirted from every single joint. It was guaranteed not to leak, and I returned it and got my money back, but it was bad on a kind of amazing level.

Golly looks like you got a lemon. I put mine on the wand part of an old one I had with a new washer inserted and it is perfect. Just love it!

I bought a new Ray Padula one at a tag sale (for a buck, why not?), and I changed the washers and used that white tape and it's fairly okay. I also bought the pro Dramm that they use at my favorite nursery, but it was raining when I was watering so it's hard to tell. So you all don't think I'm an idiot, I was watering on my covered porch, where it doesn't get rain

I taught my dog to bring me the end of the hose yesterday. She likes spraying water less than my previous dog Messy Tess, she would bite the hose so it'd spray. Wish I could teach her to water, she wouldn't care if it leaks.

@Celene, what a great skill you have taught your dog! Gives me an idea...

Waiting to hear the idea...

The last couple weeks, I have been mad enough to swear like a sailor every time I have to water. I totally dread watering.

I have multiple problems with watering. When the hose fills with water, it is difficult for me to move the hose around the yard due to the weight. I thought those "pocket" hose types would be perfect for me. NOT! We bought 5 last year. Each one a different brand. Each one developed a hole or blow-out in the hose. Probably not meant to be used over rocks, only on smooth surfaces or grass. So back to using rubber hoses that are heavy to maneuver for me because I am in a rental. As much as I hate seeing rocks, or having to walk on rocks, I'm stuck with them. I have pavers throughout the yard and the straw mulch is thick enough around plants that it is a nice cushion for walking on or kneeling. No more carrying kneeling pads around. If anyone knows of one of these hoses that live up to heavy duty, I'd like to know about it. I returned each and every single one of them.

When I turn on the spigot from the house, I get wet every time. The spigot leaks like mad and the manager won't fix it. So, even if the sprayer itself doesn't leak, I'm already wet just from turning on the spigot. Actually, I shouldn't say that it leaks, it is a fountain of water and anything within two feet is going to get wet. My face, arms, shirt sleeves, pants, and shoes are all wet.

Two weeks ago, I noticed that there was very little pressure coming out of the sprayer when I watered. I was gripping the sprayer so tightly that my hand cramped before I was done watering the first bed. I have 6 beds. Plus a bunch of pots and two trees I water once a week. I don't have to water the trees this week, because it rained. Yay! Three of the beds are within a gated and fenced area. One bed has the flimsy plastic fence around it that I just push down a little when watering, or when I need to step in to weed. It was just meant to deter Treasure from tramping my strawberries along the chain link fence every time someone interesting walked by the yard. She didn't do it every time, so I didn't think a permanent fence would be necessary. I never got around to making it half way sturdy.

Anyhow, it was getting to be very tedious to maneuver the hose so that I could be almost on top of each plant as I watered due to the lack of pressure. While I was at Walmart last week, I noticed those long wand type of sprayers. I never considered them because I don't yet have any hanging planters up. But I did create a tower planter with some stakes and a planter that had huge holes on the bottom where the self watering part had fallen off and became lost. I stuck the stakes into the very large and deep planter I have on the porch. The top planter is just high enough that it caused me intense pain lifting the sprayer and waiting while the planter received enough water. I decided that the Orbit wand I saw at Walmart might have been frivolous a couple weeks ago, but my hand and arm pain was worse each day. So I bought the wand. I hooked it up right away when I got home to test it out - there was still time to go back to return it or exchange it.

Right away, the difference in the two sprayers was like night and day. I only had to barely touch the large button to get the water to spray out more than 10 feet. Plus the spray part can be swiveled up and down. It has a knob to adjust the pressure and I think 10 different sprays. I don't have to maneuver the hose into the fenced areas to water. I can water from outside the 3 main garden beds and each plant is sufficiently watered. No more having the hose knock over my lights or drag across plants or knock my markers out of their spots. And no more kinked, twisted, and tangled hose to wrestle. This means that watering is much quicker for me, and I'm more relaxed after watering because my pain level only goes up a little bit during watering. This wand hasn't been leaking all down my arm, but maybe I just haven't noticed because I am already wet and tickled to have my watering chore made easier and faster.

Now I am just hoping that this wand will last through the summer at least. We would like to set up drip irrigation in at least some of the beds, but that is still in the planning stages because other things have priority. I don't know if we will get that done this year or not. I do know that I don't mind watering as much with this new wand so I won't be tempted to rush the planning of our drip irrigation.

Normally fixing the faucet outdoors is a very simple matter of tightening the nut on top of the faucet: pliers, vise grips, adjustable wrench would all work for that purpose. So if your landlord won't do it, you could do it yourself, then slap him upside the head with the tool of your choice for being so lazy. I bought one of those wands last year, changed the head and it lasted all year, I just like the shower type heads. this year it poured at the base and I have only managed to slow the leak down. I like it for reaching on the far side of my compost piles.

I wish the faucet could be fixed that simply. But the manager already said when I moved in that the leak can't be fixed by just tightening the bolts. The entire pipe has to be replaced. Most of the pipe here needs to be replaced because it has rusted so much. Rust comes out of all the faucets, and all the faucets leak. The owner said he would send a plumber to fix the leaks, but it hasn't happened yet.

I learned how to fix that problem myself, too.

>> When the hose fills with water, it is difficult for me to move the hose around the yard due to the weight.
>> I have 6 beds.
>> Three of the beds are within a gated and fenced area.
>> Anyhow, it was getting to be very tedious to maneuver the hose so that I could be almost on top of each plant as I watered

I also have several small beds scattered around the yard, and hated dragging a hose around corners and trying to avoid knocking down plants. My solution was to lay down the "mainline" part of a drip irrigation system and add several "Tee" fixtures with garden hose threads, then add a garden hose or better, a "Y" with two valves and then a hose.

That gave me a spigot near every bed, and the parts were as cheap as $4.75 for each spigot (not counting the 1/2" mainline, which was $14 / 100 feet.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/R...

That might be one way for you to ease into drip irrigation. Lay down the mainline one year but mostly use that as a way to put the spigots where you want them. Next year, experiment with drip tape and sprayers. When you move, unscrew each length and coil them in a big box (it will be big but light). Or tie them together into one big coil, like garden hoses.

Closeup of Compression Tee with Male hose thread
+ Brass 2-Valve Y
+ EZ-Loc connector to ½" mainline
+ cut garden hose with brass Female Hose End from Home Depot

.

The 2-valve brass Y was $10, but the plastic version was only $2.50.

I will have to try to remember this so I can plan it all out when I don't have a headache making it hard to concentrate. This is probably just what I need. I know from past experience that the brass fittings are always better than the plastic ones. We had a complicated setup at our house for a while. We ended up dismantling most of it because in Denver, people would come steal your hoses, drip irrigation tubings, sprinklers and your hose reels if they were left out and visible. We even had sprinklers and hoses stolen from our yard while they were running and we were home and didn't hear a thing.

But it was easier I think back then to just go out and buy everything we needed at once. Trying to figure out how to start with just the basics has been a bit confusing. This should help clear that I hope. When my head doesn't already hurt.

I hope you get over your headache soon!

>> But it was easier I think back then to just go out and buy everything we needed at once.

You're probably right about "easier". Especially if you order online and don't want to pay shipping charges 2-3 times! But I found two local places with irrigation gadgets, plus Dripworks online. I enjoyed playing with my first setup, then going shopping again and trying new gizmos.

One thing I learned quickly was that the compression fittings might be slightly cheaper, and they sound technically desirable because they don't restrict water flow at all, but Man of MAN they are hard to push on!

At this time I lean toward small sprayers rather than drippers, because I can water a whole small raised bed with just 1-2 sprayers instead of running dripline through the whole bed, making weeding harder. My next gizmo to play with is "Spot Spitters" that run off 1/8 inch "spaghetti tubing".

(And thank you for the acorn!)

Well, in my front yard, in Denver, I had to split my yard into zones. I don't remember the names of all the water gadgets we had. But I know that the main spigot in the front was split 5 ways. So the first split was zone 1. That was the drop irrigation for the Washington Hawthors I was growing for hedges. Zone 2 was for hand watering. The other 3 zones had different sprinklers based on how much water was needed for those plants and the shape of the zone.

I used sprinklers in the front so I could spend time in the backyard hand watering. I had a lot of containers, so hand watering was better than anything automatic or semi-automatic because my containers were different sizes and all over the place. But I never put anything on timers. The splitter in the front could water all at once, but I preferred turning on the water and pressure for one zone at a time. This way I could make adjustments if the wind was blowing, or if I needed to move my outdoor chairs so I could still lounge about in one part of the garden while another got watered. And I could keep an eye on my stuff so I would still have something to water with the next day without having to make an emergency sprinkler purchase. My husband set up all the water works. I just had to know how to use them and how to hide them from the thieves.

I have three beds I would like drip irrigation because they are basically just a long and narrow strip. The other three beds would be best served with a low sprinkler. Those oscillating ones that arch way into the air wouldn't work here because it is so dry that most of the water would evaporate. I have trenches filled with straw around most of my plants. When the plants get big, it is easier to just water the trenches, especially with the tomato and pepper plants when I want to make sure the water gets to the roots, not the leaves.





In the pictures above, it looks like I just spread straw around the plants. But I actually dug trenches around the plants and filled the trenches with straw.

Hope you have your water problems worked out. I have always loved to water and my favorite is with just hand holding the hose and laying it under the plants while I wander around the yard and photograph it! I am still loving my latest sprayer, the Ray Padula one and I also like to put the old sprayer heads from Miracle Gro (ones that came with the feeder jar) on the hoses. They are great for not letting the water wash away the soil and have lasted me for many years. Lately I have had a bout of tennis elbow (in my case not from tennis but gardening!) and so I attach an old plastic sprinkler to the hose and just move it around the yard. We don't get much wind and I am out early so this works great.

In NM our water is hard all over the state I think. I have trouble with drippers of any kind clogging. I check them about once a month and sit the head in vinegar to clear them. I also soak my sprayers and sprinklers in vinegar at least twice a season to keep them in order. I try and put in new washers every Spring. Sorry about your faucet problem. I would think that the owner would appreciate knowing why his water bills are so high?? You might be able to get quicker fix if you called the water dept. to report dripping? Just a thought! We don't need water to be wasted here in the desert where we are in severe drought.

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