Well, today, I built the "Assembly" for our drip irrigation system. It looks a little like something that, with the proper paint, might work on the set of Deep Space 9.
Water flow is right to left in this photo.
My supply line is a 1/2" pipe, but the Assembly is built around 3/4" components. I chose the 4" long, 3/4" nipple so I'd have something I could brace against the wall of the greenhouse. The next thing to the left is an in-line ball valve (in the photo the handle is removed). Then the small-ish, black thing is a vacuum breaker. That's followed by some adaptors sandwiching a swivel hose coupling. I included the coupling so I'll be able to remove the fancy (i.e. expensive) downstream bits during the winter.
Next downstream from the swivel hose connector is a check valve. The combination of the vacuum breaker and the check valve prevent any siphoning of water out of the drip system and back into the supply (ick).
After the check valve you can see a filter. The bottom, dangly part can unscrew so the stainless steel filter can be removed for cleaning. Next there's a pressure regulator. That brings the pressure feeding the drip lines to 30 PSI (which is within spec for the drip tubing I'm using). Finally, you can see a "Y" valve with individual shutoffs so I can use the assembly to drive two separate garden areas.
Today I got the upstream bits -- up to and including the swivel hose fitting -- connected to the water supply and fastened securely to the outside wall of the greenhouse. I've put the handle back on the ball valve. No leaks on this part at all. The braces work superbly so there should be no strain on the plastic supply line to the greenhouse.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got most of the Assembly components from a place called DripWorks.com. Their prices were good (very good in some cases) for the specialty bits. The standard pipe fittings were competitively priced at the local hardware store. The stuff from DripWorks arrived promptly.
Next I need to brace the rest of the bits and then start on the actual drip array. I'll probably work on that tomorrow.
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