Hi stephanieelaine, If you put the pump inside the bucket it must be submersible; if it is outside the bucket then centrifugal will do. A centrifugal pump can be mounted on the balcony itself & will easily draw the water up 10 feet from your tank. You can probably wire & monitor it better from the growing balcony as will be checking on plants there. You can run a centrifugal pump dry, but if the impeller is plastic it can eventually deform from the friction heat. If your water supply is an outdoor faucet near that proposed 5 gallon bucket placement site you can probably plumb it to a centrifugal pump sitting up on your balcony & wire the timer in to the pump. Submersibles are not meant to run dry for long stretches; sorry don't know particulars on your chosen brand. You usually use a check valve in the water tank that is connected to the feed pipe going into the pump; to keep from having to prime the pump every time go to use it. Put a screw on filter housing (so can clean inner screen out) somewhere before any water actually reaches the drip emitters to keep from clogging up. Use a pressure regulator at the outflow end of the pump. Match the regulator of the water pressure to the ratings of your drip emitters so you are not over powering their ability to release water from their holes. This is pretty simple sizing of the elements in a system, so don't be put off. I would say determine which pump can lift the water to the height you require & then work backward from the specifications of the total drip emitters you plan to use to size a pressure regulator. Emitters with built in diaphragms assure it that you will receive equal water outflow, irregardless of the planting height differentials. Put a removable end cap on the irrigation tube so can purge any algae that builds up inside, or it can block an emitter. If use an end cap that can be adjusted to bleed off some flowing water then it will let you release excess pressure if you find system design is flawed.

Luis, no need to take a couple of years to think this through. Drip irrigation is really quite simple, there’s just a lot of options. You say your zones are maxed, do you have a spigot you can use? Q1. Running water 1’ upwards will not be a problem. Q2. The ½” tubing is poly tubing and serves as your main line that supplies the water. The smaller tubing is usually referred to as micro tubing or spaghetti tubing and is generally ¼”. You don’t want that large ½ tubing going in to your pot, so you feed off of it with the ¼” tubing. The tool to make the hole, is called a punch tool. Q3. The tiny “doohickie” that connects the micro tubing to the larger tubing is a ¼” connector. Has a barb on both ends, one end goes into the larger poly tubing and the micro tubing on the other end. Q4. Looks like you might be referring to an adjustable dripper on a stake. That would also have a little barb on it, that you would connect the other end of the micro tubing to. Q5-6. Yes, gph is gallons per hour. If you use a 1 gph dripper for an hour, it does not stop dripping after an hour (if that is what you mean). But in an hours time, it should put out approx. 1 gallon of water. I would suggest an adjustable for your pots, as they can cover a larger area. Q7. The adjustable dripper, the more you open it, the more water it puts out and the wider the spray. Q8. Micro tubing and fittings are not very expensive, so if you do have a problem, it would cost much to replace it. The fittings and drippers are what have a tendency to freeze and crack. You could always add a drain valve to your system when winter is approaching, this allows for most of the water to drain out of the line, via gravity. Q9. If the sun shines on the tubing, it could melt the water in there, but if not and it stays frozen, you will have to water by hand. Last ?. Yes, there is a way this can be done with a fertilizer injector and it can attach directly to your faucet. All of this is easy peasy, really! I’ll also send you an email.

I use both. We have a large property. The bamboos are rather thirsty plants and do better with soaker hoses. My garden beds are densely planted - drippers are not a viable solution - if something were to go wrong, it would be a nuisance hunting for the source of the problem. So soakers go in there too. I use drippers for containers and also for spot irrigation of plants that are isolated from the main beds. Some of my soakers have been in the ground for 10 years, and are still working fine. They are not supposed to last that long, but with annual flushing and the odd repair jobs, I have not had to buy any new soakers in the last 3 years. Do not use the tiny 1/4 inch soakers - they do not work well, clots up easily, and can't be repaired. As for the drippers, I use a type of dripper head with completely adjustable flow, from zero to up to 13 gallons per hour. Lee Valley Tools sells them as B. & D. Shrubbler Spikes, and bought in bulk packages, they are the most economical I can find - at abut 75c a piece. They are supposedly the most used drippers in commercial applications. At 30 psi of pressure, and maximum flow rate of 13 gph, it throws out a circular spray covering 360°, to a radius of as much as 2 feet. Turned down low, it acts as a slow dripper. It is this flexibility that is the next most appealing feature. I do not have to select different drippers with different flow rates for different sizes of containers - something which turn out to be a real pain with fixed flow drippers I had used previously. I use them for containers as big as the 20 gallon box to the small 1 gallon nursery containers. The adjustable flow rate also makes it simple to deal with variations in flow and drops in pressure down the main supply line. The third appeal is that it will never (and i do say never)block permanently since the spray head is controlled by a screw cap that can be removed completely for cleaning. coverage. The fourth reason I love them is that they are tough and durable. Except for about 1/2 dozen where the inlet pot has been snapped off by an over zealous gardener (me!), the 200 or so scattered in my garden are all working well inspite of neglect and occassional abuse (by my lawn mower!). The othe advantage is that it does not seem to suffer frost damage - as long as the system is well drained and the caps are then screwed on tight. They come on a 6 inch spike - which is another reason I love them - they are difficult to lose. I manage to get by with a 6 station timer. The beauty is that once set, I don't have to do anything except a weekly inspection. I also use a siphon device to feed soluble fertilisers down the line. Keep in mind that if you want to do this, make sure that you have a reliable back flow preventer valve in the circuit.

Hi Teeka: I just recently installed a drip/micro system and still have some of the receipts. Our home came with an inground sprinkler system but in the interest of saving water and selectively watering flowers, I just installed the drip system. Initially I bought 1/2" poly with in line drippers. However, it's stiffer and I found I had gaps because the "bends" had to be large to make turns, etc. But, all is not lost. I've since bought regular 1/2" poly and drippers and misters to use with it. Where there's a gap that I want to remedy in the in-line dripper system, I've just added misters or extra in-line drippers and am happy. I'm using components of the "Mister Landscaper" system available at Lowes because there is a Lowe's very near me and, as expected, I've had to run back there for "more" of various parts. Ignoring the poly with inline drippers, let's say I started with just regular 1/2" poly (which is what I did convert to). I ran this from my water source around my house just laying it on top of the ground (my beds are along the house). I didn't want to blow out the drippers because of high pressure and wanted to keep the line clean so the drippers wouldn't clog, so at the head of the line I installed a filter (about $10) and a 25 PSI pressure regulator ($7.56). Whereever I wanted to water a plant I either installed an inline dripper ($7.56 for a package of 10) or a stake assembly ($3.13) with a small full circle spinning mister ($3.77 for 5). The stake assemblies are above ground and come with a small amount of 1/4" poly so you can attach them to the 1/2" poly feeder line. There were places where I needed more 1/4" poly line than was provided on the stake assembly so I bought a small roll of 1/4" vinyl tubing (? price) and connectors (again, receipt gone) to extend the secondary line and place the stake where it was needed. The stake assemblies do not come with any type of mister so you must buy these separately. There are various types (depending on the spray pattern you wish). The one thing I did which I would advise against was being too quick to mulch so as to "finish" the job. It's easy to see where the elevated misters are watering because the mulch is wet. But the inline drippers and their wet area are covered by mulch so I've had to probe through the mulch to find the drippers and see where it's wet. I should have waited on the mulch, run the system and evaluated the water pattern, corrected whatever needed correcting, and then mulched. I did not attach a timer to the system, thinking I would just turn it on when the plants needed it. However, now that I'm going to be away for several days I'm sorry. I'll revert to the regular in ground system to keep my garden alive. When I return from my trip, I think adding a timer will be in the cards. Home Depot also has these type systems from DIG corporation. Their web site is http://www.digcorp.com I also read that irrigation supply stores have components for drip systems. I didn't do comparison shopping. I hope that the gas money I saved by only having to go to the nearer store, compensated for whatever I may have saved elsewhere. June Here is a link that might be useful: Mister Landscaper