# Forum Home Renovation Water Saving Garden Ideas  gravity fed watering?

## bugsy

I have just brought a water tank to substitute using town water for the garden  
Can i use 8 ltrs drippers by gravity feed?
As this is what i have already. 
My other thought is buying another drip hose (the ones that have just holes in it) specially for my tank water. 
length of run  is around 30 ish metres, and the tank is slightly sitting higher than garden beds.

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## DJ's Timber

No idea if the drippers would work but I'd say they would, but it'll most likely come down to how much pressure you're getting from the tank, ie, a small tank, low pressure so maybe not but a BIG tank most likely due to more pressure.

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## murray44

It doesn't matter how big the tank is, only how high the TOP of the water level is. 
A 1m diameter tank 3m high will have more pressure than a 10m diameter tank at 1m high.

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## president_ltd

yep - head of pressure (height) is what matters. 
having seen how the 4L/8L/hr type drippers work, i think you'd need a pump to get you appropriate pressure in the line otherwise gravity will mean its just the beginning-of-line or end-of-the-line that works. 
a small pump should do it, even a solar powered one with 12V battery probably do the job.

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## bugsy

> yep - head of pressure (height) is what matters. 
> having seen how the 4L/8L/hr type drippers work, i think you'd need a pump to get you appropriate pressure in the line otherwise gravity will mean its just the beginning-of-line or end-of-the-line that works. 
> a small pump should do it, even a solar powered one with 12V battery probably do the job.

  do you mean like those ones used for water features?

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## RumpledElf

Done this with just a large plastic jerry-can kind of affair up a post, filled with water discharged from a HWS relief valve, of all things. Waste not want not. 
For a short run its just fine with regular drippers, the trick is to adjust them to make sure they are all running around the same rate. For a long run I'd imagine the difference in pressure from one end to the other might be a bit too much. But a tank up quite high has some pretty healthy pressure behind it.

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## HaydnG

Take a look at the NETAFIM dripper hose. Gavity feed no worries, has built in filters, no suckback etc.

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## president_ltd

> do you mean like those ones used for water features?

  i'd probably go a bit bigger than those - but yep - that kind of thing. 
we run drippers and leaky hose with geotextile fabric here in the garden from our ~11.3KL of permamently full water tanks (Melb SE suburbs), but we run them from a Davey pump that came with the Davey Rainbank - so i guess a step up from a 'water feature' type one as the pump we have has something like 15M of head capable. 
i guess you could always get something from a place on the basis of you can take it back if its not good enough...?

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## Terrian

our vegie patch is gravity fed drippers, 100lt tank sits on a small platform 1.2m higher than what the vegie patch is, works fine.

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## Boeing777

I've got a 200L tank connected to a cheapo weeper hose for the vegie garden with a low pressure 7 day timer (that cost more than the tank and weeper hose combined)  - the total fall from the tap to the garden would be less than a metre and it keeps the vegies happy  :2thumbsup:

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