Another Q&A: Drip System Blues

And another question to the garden agony aunt from the "I Love My Farmer (Local Farmer Fan Club)" FB page of days gone by :-)



"Drip System Blues"

Dear Local Farmer,
The joints at the main line and the drip lines WILL NOT stop leaking (it's a pretty bad leak). I just replaced the main line and carefully reattached the drip lines. No luck. Same shit. The drip lines are fully connected to the connector piece. Help! This drought it killing us! 

Sincerely,
Water waster

my response:

Dear Water Waster,

I assume we're talking about T-tape and not aquapore. My T-tape system always leaks at the intersection of mainline and tape. It is definitely a design flaw and it drives me crazy as well. My only suggestion is to try and make the holes you punch in the mainline as small as possible (while of course still big enough to put in the barbed tape-attachment piece...which is often a frustrating operation in and of itself).If you need to re-punch the holes, dripworks.com sells "goof plugs" which are supposed to patch the old holes (i need to order some myself)

And if all else fails you can think to yourself "At least we're not wasting as much water as if we were using sprinklers" and put a water loving plant in the ground right under the leak.

-the local farmer