Snip-n-Drip Soaker Hose System

Much much easier than Rain Bird to set up - you literally just clip the length you want and screw the pieces together. Using their hoses there isn't much leaking, and if you measure wrong you can just unscrew and redo. With Rain Bird you have to boil water, soak the ends, cram in the junction, and when you can get that to work sometimes it still leaks. You can't easily reuse the junctions, which means you run out, and finding more that work at a reasonable cost is a real chore. AMAZON DOESN'T SELL THE EXTRA RAIN BIRD JUNCTIONS YOU NEED. Most easily available options leak or are unusable, and cost many times more. Rain Bird's watering holes are so far apart (18") that you can only water a patch about a foot wide, and you have to water forever to get it saturated, and juggle water pressure a lot to get it working right and not howling. Snip-n-Drip's holes are so many that the whole hose just oozes water, cutting watering time way down, watering a wider swath, and eliminating water pressure sensitivity. Since AMAZON DOESN'T INCLUDE SNIP-N-DRIP UNDER "DRIP IRRIGATION" I couldn't find it to order more, so I ordered more from Gardener's Supply - which turned out to be a boon, since I happened to order enough to get free shipping, and ordered more junctions in the process, though the kit includes enough. I originally gave it four stars instead of five because I haven't used it very long and I didn't know how or whether it would survive over a winter - well, it's survived a tough winter (for here) just fine (two separate weeks without a thaw, frozen ground) and because part of it is buried I didn't even drain it for the winter, just unplugged it from the tap. After another season I'm still happy with it, but even with the soaker hose, I really need lines about six inches apart rather than a foot. Gravity seems to work differently at my house - the area directly below the hose gets watered and maybe a few inches on either side, but the water doesn't seem to reach out beyond a few inches, so you need hoses every four to six inches to really water things. It's also very hard to tell when you've watered "enough." These may be issues with any drip irrigation (or issues with Gravity) rather than issues with Snip-and-Drip or Rain Bird.

I had an issue with my order as what was sent was not what I ordered. I was in a pinch and after several days of hot weather, I couldn't go on any longer and not watering my plants. I used what was available, and then called customer service to order additional parts to allow me to reach the most distant area's. I emailed customer service and the same day I had an email from Darcy. We played "tag" on email, and then Darcy finally called me. She was very professional, super helpful, and offered to send the parts out right away and apologized for the wrong order being sent. She went above and beyond my expectations! The hoses (garden and soaker) are very easy to work with, just lay them in the sun for a short time and let them warm up. They become very pliable and much easier to work with. I used simple scissors to cut the hoses, then pushed them together with the appropriate connectors. The whole project took perhaps an hour and a half to get everything laid out the way I wanted. No specific measuring was required, just lay it out, cut, assemble with the connectors and move on to the next loop. I have this set up to a "Y" connector on my faucet. Now I just have to turn the faucet on, flip the valve, and the entire side of the house gets watered where it needs it (at the plants) and not in the rocks. Very good product, and EXCELLENT customer service. I will definitely buy from them again in the near future.

Has worked well for developing your own watering system. Be sure to tighten the attachments for the hoses so they don’t pop out when watering. Set faucet at lowest setting.

I was really excited to set this up to use for the season. The set up was easy, and the options were great. However, after using several times, the soaker hose started to crack open. I thought it was maybe just a minor issue. I replaced it, and again, another area cracked. After three replacements, I gave up and stood and watered my vegetables. In the end, the leaks caused my leaves to get wet and yellow more easily. Maybe one could cover it with a lot of mulch or something. However, you may have waterlogged in a few areas if you don’t check it regularly.

I recently received this kit the other day and installed it yesterday. It installs ridiculously easy. I'm using it to water four planter boxes that I have set up. Here's the issue: as you go down the line there is less and less water pressure. So, the first box gets plenty of water, the second box not quite as much, by the time you get down to the fourth box there's almost nothing coming out. So yeah, the system works great in theory and in some instances maybe really well. But I'm just not seeing it working for me. My plan at this point is to set up "Y" connectors for the boxes so that I can water two boxes evenly at once. I'm looking to set up each box with a quick connect receiver for each box so that I can easy attach and detach each box. Doing it this way will also require me to buy additional end plugs for each box. I also have four more boxes that I have to set up. Which will require more end caps, more "Y" connectors, and more quick connect receivers. All-in-all I'm probably looking at another $150. This system is good for starting you off in the right direction, and it saved me more head scratching at the hardware store trying to put together my own system, but it's going to require a lot more than I had initially expected in order for it to work for me. As for the Snip-and-Drip pressure regulator that I got to go with it, I'm not convinced that it drops the water pressure down to 10psi as it claims to.