Comments on: Cheap-Ass Tools: A Houseplant Watering System

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:35:59 +0000

@Janet: Sounds like it’s standard PVC tubing. The smell is typical of PVC products, which do emit a great deal of gas for the first few days after they’re unpackaged (shower curtains are the worst!).

If you’re dealing with it outside, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, but if you’re going to use it indoors, I’d let the tubing sit outside for a couple of days first so that most of the offgassing takes place where you won’t have to deal with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PVC has a pretty good set of references and articles if you’re interested in doing some further reading. I haven’t seen any studies about the ability of plants to take up the various compounds that you’re potentially dealing with here, but I also don’t think any of them would be present in sufficient quantity to be a problem in the food you’re growing.

By: Janet

Janet — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:47:02 +0000

I purchased this system today from HF, but when I took it out of the plastic I was overwhelmed with the smell from the hose. I am deeply concerned about putting this in my organic vegetable garden. What is the risk of chemical contamination from this kit?

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:38:27 +0000

I have tried a couple of these from HF but could not get them to work. Every time I connected one to the hose bib, the water would flow out of the holes in the reducer. Granted this meant that any plant material right under the faucet got plenty of water, but the plants near the hoses got nothing.

By: Brau

Brau — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 05:40:35 +0000

I have tried numerous brands of low flow drippers and *most* suck! The exception has been the RainDrip line, but ONLY their misters and low flow sprayers. The result is that after two years of trying all the different types of sprayers, misters, sprinklers, drippers, and bubblers, I FINALLY have a system that works very well. Unless you have a lot of time to fart around, don’t waste your time and money.

Oh. One more thing. I would NEVER use one indoors. They are very cheaply made and therefore very prone to failures.

By: John Laur

John Laur — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:03:41 +0000

Seems like this is better suited for outdoor use not indoors while you go away for a long time…. You’d at least want a failsafe that will shut the water off if the flow rate gets too high…

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:05:32 +0000

I love the idea, but I’m not too sure that this is something I would want to go too cheap on - a failure could be incredibly costly…

By: Zathrus

Zathrus — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:51:15 +0000

We bought one of these kits on Amazon — the instructions in the box stunk, but the ones _on_ the box worked just fine (go figure).

As best I can tell none of the HF kits come with a timer — if you need a timer, then buy a kit from Amazon or the like; the timers I found locally + HF kit were far more expensive than the kit I bought.

That said, it’s worked well for watering our tomatoes and peppers (in large pots on our deck) from an outdoor water spigot. And if I need more tubing, drippers, etc. then I’ll definitely be going the HF route. It appears to be the exact same manufacturer as the RainDrip system I bought.

By: Toolaremia

Toolaremia — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:46:17 +0000

I have many Harbor Freight products around my house, and can’t go there without blowing at least $50 every time.

However, you are unlikely to find me using anything from HF that involves unattended pressurized water anywhere inside my house…