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sfhc, My 2 cents it to get a regulator on your house because your faucets, shower and water appliances are not designed to withstand high pressure over time. Nor is your irrigation system. High pressure systems are prone to water-hammer problems and noisy pipes. You shouldn't be looking for the govt agency to install something a home builder should have done and usually does. The water agency sets its limit very high so it isn't required and doesn't have to pay the cost of giving everyone a house pressure regulator. Normal house pressure should be 45 to 60 psi. If you had your house at 55 psi, your in-line pressure regulators for drip would work. You want a 15-30 psi limit for drip. JMHO Aloha

Thanks for your comment, Jake the Wonderdog. The reason I posted my original comment was because I got the impression from your earlier remarks that there were few if any peer-reviewed studies documenting any kind of effectiveness for EMF: Point me to some peer reviewed study that shows this works. You can't - because it's not out there. I've looked, I've looked for years. It's still not out there - 7 years from this original post there's still no legit documentation. Dude, if this was something that actually had some science behind it there would be studies, tests, peer reviewed journals, etc. We would see charts showing effectiveness given various variables such as hardness levels, temperature, iron levels, flow rates, etc. There's none of that. The meta-analysis I linked to suggests there have been many studies documenting some kind of effectiveness: "Over 4,000 studies have reported EMF associated anti-scaling and ani-fouling work from last century, and the quantity of publications increased exponentially during this century." I think it is not quite right to suggest that these studied are "still not out there." Regarding your latest points: 1. The study I linked to was a meta-analysis that did control for variables. Figure five, for example, documents effectiveness given variables of pH levels, pipe material, water temperature and flow rate. If the issue is variable control, then it is not clear why the lack of a study in a residence should matter. 2. Treatment variation is addressed in the meta-analysis: "EMF device configuration is not a primary factor for EMF efficiency." 3. Given that the meta-analysis controls for water chemistry and other variables, it is not clear why it is a leap to say that industrial and lab applications might also support domestic effectiveness. For example, I have copper pipes, and if I test my water for pH &c. I should presumably be able to see whether EMF will work in my house. Note that scale reduction is *all* I care about. I need to protect my old pipes. If EMF can do that, it will be a very big deal for me. The passage you quote from the meta-analysis is from the introduction: it is not a conclusion. As the next sentence states, "This review aims to elucidate the factors pertaining to EMF water treatment and their anti-scaling effects." The meta-analysis's conclusion regarding effectiveness is positive, as noted in the passage from the summary quoted in my first comment. Given that your criticisms are addressed in the meta-analysis, I'm inclined to think that it provides evidence for the effectiveness of EMF in at least some domestic contexts. Someone thinking about using it though should test their water first and then cross-check the results in the meta-analysis to see if it is likely to work.

Thank you so much for opening a new topic. As I recall you are 2 miles from the beach. Can you give us the name of the town please? I grew up in Riverside, but my grandfather lives in Los Angeles and then Huntington Beach. I also lived in Downey and Hawthorne. My parents moved to Palm Desert and Indio, so I can just about cover all the bases until you get up into the San Fernando Valley and Ventura area. You are almost certain to be in the "early morning fog" zone, so Marathon II is a reasonable choice. I usually chastise SoCalians for picking any of the Marathon varieties, because they live in the desert. Even living east of the 5 or 405 freeways is too warm for a fescue type of grass. As soon as you get inland then Marathon is not a good choice I have to admit I am not going to be much help with a drip system, but I hope to learn from you and give you some watering basics. Generally we talk about watering deeply and infrequently. What that means is to water a full inch of surface water all at one time on a time frequency based on outside air daily high temperatures. For your temps I would deeply water once every 2-3 weeks on mature turf (yours is not yet mature). The beauty of subsurface watering is there is no loss to wind or evaporation. I would like to see the surface of the soil remain dry at all times, and have the subsurface alternating between moist and fairly dry. The reason for alternating like that is the beneficial microbes living in the soil almost all require air to survive. If you keep the soil saturated then the air cannot penetrate and you lose the beneficials. If you allow the surface to get wet, then the weed seeds will germinate. What is your watering schedule now? How often and for how long? Do you know how deep your emitters are? What is the flow rate at each emitter? I highly doubt you have any clay in your soil, but there is that possibility. Let's test it. Find a straight sided jar and fill it half way with your soil. Take a picture of the jar for reference. Then fill it the rest of the way with water and a few drops of any liquid soap. Stir that up and set it down for 2 minutes. Take another picture. Take another picture after 2 hours and another after 2 days. Sand and gravel settle out instantly so that will show up in the 2 minute picture. Silt and loam take longer so those will be settled after 2 hours. Clay will remain suspended in the water for days. If you can see any daylight through the water on top after 2 days then you have very little clay. If you want to you can post those pictures here for our review. If it makes you feel different, in the 12 years I've been following this forum, of all the people who came here believing they had clay soil, only a handful really ended up with clay soil. What they usually have is an imbalance of chemical salts (calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium) which causes the soil to act like clay. You could have a highly sandy soil with the wrong mix of salts and it will bind up and act like clay. Only a really good soil test (Logan Labs $25) would tell you about your salts.