Micro-Drip vs. classic hose distribution – So much choice

A problem in planning is the multitude of available systems and the fact that the manufacturers themselves often do not explain properly which system has to be used for what and which parts are mandatory or only optional.

At first I wasn’t sure whether I should install a Gardena Micro-Drip system, for example, or rather a classic Perl hose.

Both systems require a central irrigation computer that delivers water to the downstream irrigation system according to a programmed schedule. With the Micro-Drip system, however, this is followed by a pressure reducer, which reduces the water pressure to such an extent that the downstream pipe system can deliver the water drop by drop to the downstream, thin pipe system. With this Micro-Drip pipe system, I can position the nozzles flexibly and thus deliver water to individual plants. Potted plants can also be watered in this way.

With the classic model, I also use the watering computer, but save the pressure reducer. The supply hose is connected directly to the Perl hose with a coupling. In contrast to the Microdrip system, the Perl hose delivers water evenly along its entire length. This is ideal for my densely planted raised beds and elongated flower beds, which is why I decided against the Microdrip system and in favour of the classic Perl hose.

The brain of irrigation: The Gardena Master Irrigation Computer

Let’s move on to the watering computer. I decided to use the Gardena Master watering computer (*). It allows me to create 6 different watering schedules. Setting up and operating the computer is quick and intuitive. After entering the day of the week and time, I can create the first watering schedule. I select a start time and the duration of the watering. I also specify the days of the week on which this schedule is to be carried out.

After configuration, I insert the removable control panel into the computer installed on the tap.

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Bringing water to the flowers with the bead hose

First of all, I lay the supply line to the flower bed and use a normal garden hose for this. I now connect the Gardena bead perl hose (*) to the supply line with a coupling.

To ensure that the hose is laid reliably and does not slip later, I use regular pegs from camping accessories. I use these to fix the hose in the flower bed.

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The bead hose can be shortened at any time without major problems. To do this, I simply cut the tube cleanly at the desired end point with the string cutter. I remove the end plug from the rest and insert it with brute force into the end I cut. Since I don’t trust the material, I put on a hose clamp so that the plug doesn’t come loose at some point.

Watering schedules: how much water, for how long?

I have approached the watering schedules as follows:

I used to water the flower bed shown in this video two watering cans of 10 litres a day. So now, with the irrigation system, I also have to supply about 20 litres per day to the flower bed. Since the flow rate varies depending on the local water pressure, the type of installation and the length of the hose, I also got a water meter from Gardena (*) and used it to see how many litres of water are effectively used in one minute at my system.

I then created my watering schedules depending on this and distributed the required minutes between 8:00 in the morning and 20:00 in the evening.

Gardena Wassermengenzähler: Praktischer Wasserzähler zur Anbringung am Wasserhahn oder Verbrauchsgerät, zur Kontrolle des...*

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38,20 EUR

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The irrigation has been doing a lot of work for me for 5 weeks now and the flowers are still doing well. For me, it’s a well-rounded solution.

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Der Beitrag Smart irrigation – automated garden plant watering erschien zuerst auf Pixelfriedhof.

To make the installation more inconspicuous, you can camouflage your hoses with flexible cable sleeves (Amazon Affiliate Link) in the colours white, grey or black.

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Der Beitrag Cover visible garden hoses with cable sleeve in white, grey or black erschien zuerst auf Pixelfriedhof.

Pay attention to stainless steel and coating

First of all, you should make sure that the respective set not only says stainless steel on it, but is also in it. This applies not only to the rope itself, which is usually made of stainless steel, but also to all other parts of the set: clamping screws, eyelets, screw clamps. The only exception are crimp terminals (crimp sleeves) , these are usually made of slightly bendable, but also non-rusting aluminum.

In addition, it makes sense in my eyes, if the steel cables are coated by a thin layer of PVC. This makes them more durable and prevents individual ropes from breaking.

For these reasons, I chose a set of stainless steel ropes, turnbuckles, eyelets, hooks and crimp clamps from Ruesious (Amazon Affiliate Link). The components included are actually stainless steel as well. Included are

• 30m nylon coated wire rope,
• 5 pcs M4 304 stainless steel turnbuckles,
• 3 pcs M6 304 stainless steel expansion hooks,
• 10 pcs M4 304 stainless steel screw eyes,
• 12 pcs M2 304 stainless steel wire rope clips,
• 3 pieces 304 snap hooks,
• 20pcs aluminum crimping slings sleeves and thimbles.

To cut a long story short: There is enough fastening material for every project.

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Fastening the wire ropes

The attachment is quite simple. First, I screwed the screw eyes into the wood of the climbing aid. Pre-drilled briefly, screwed in until just above the thread, done.

Alternatively, you can also use the expansion hooks for this. These are inserted into a suitably drilled and not too large hole and then tightened. By tightening, the end of the hooks mushrooms in the drilled hole and thus wedges in the wood. In my case, I have dispensed with the expansion hooks, the eyelets serve their purpose.

Now we can pull the wire rope through the eyelets first and check if our tensioning plan will open.

If the concept is right, we can attach one end of the wire rope to one of the screw eyes with a so-called thimble. To do this, we insert the U-shaped thimbles into the screw eyelet with a little bit of force.

Now we put a double-hole aluminum crimp sleeve onto the steel rope. We now pass the rope through the thimble and also insert the rope into the second hole of the double-hole aluminum crimp sleeve.
Nextwe pull the steel cable on the thimble nice and tight, and push the aluminum sleeve very close to the thimble. Using blunt pliers, we now squeeze the aluminum sleeve together so that it fixes the steel cables in front of the thimble.

That holds quite well. To be on the safe side, I still use the screw crimp sleeve. I place this directly behind the aluminum crimp sleeve and screw it tight. “Double holds better” – as we say in Germany.

One side of our wire rope is now fixed. Let’s move on.

Tensioning the wire ropes

Now we grab a so-called turnbuckle, a screw to apply tension to our steel wirens. We turn both sides of the turnbuckle almost completely out of the thread so that the entire turnbuckle gets its maximum length. Now we hang the turnbuckle with the hook in the eye hook where our rope construction should end.

On the side of the turnbuckle facing the rope, there is now a closed eyelet. Now we proceed again as above: Insert thimble, thread in rope with aluminum crimp sleeve and crimp tight. If necessary, attach an additional screw crimp sleeve. Make sure that the steel cable is already hanging with quite a lot of tension in front of the still unclosed turnbuckle.

If this is successful, we can now tighten the turnbuckle. To do this, we simply turn the middle part with the thread. The hook and eye side now turn into the thread, creating the tension on the rope. Done.

Der Beitrag Build trellis climbing aid from stainless steel cables erschien zuerst auf Pixelfriedhof.

We used to burn real wood in a fire bowl. But then we didn’t have a Bangkirai wood terrace and so we were not yet afraid of flying sparks and burning logs falling out. Nevertheless we didn’t want to miss sitting together at the fire and so we started to deal with the topic “fire table”.

Fire tables are usually operated with propane or natural gas. The gas burns without residue and odourless as far as possible – an advantage over the conventional fire basket. After only a short time at our old fire basket, our clothes had absorbed the smell of the fire, smoke was drawn into our eyes, ashes had spread in all directions. So it was not so difficult for us to say goodbye to the “real” fire, but we were still afraid that the charm of our fire basket could be lost with the purchase of a fire table.

Mania Gaskamin, Gasfeuer, Terrassenfeuer, FEUERTISCH Nice & Nasty RE. SCHWARZ, 1070x800x460*

690,00 EUR

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Fire tables are already available from 300€ at the DIY store. However, there are also productions from polished natural stone for more than 12.000€. Especially the natural stone variants look uniquely beautiful, but were too expensive and too big for the terrace. Due to the price alone, they are probably more suitable for the roof-top bars of renowned hotels.

The gas cylinder has to go somewhere

What we didn’t know at first was that with most fire tables the gas bottle is not in the table itself, but a few meters away from the fireplace. This circumstance has to be considered when planning. After all, probably only a few people want to look at an ugly, grey gas bottle. For safety reasons, the supply lines to gas bottles must not exceed certain lengths, so one is somewhat restricted in the positioning of the gas bottle.

There are also tables in which the gas bottle is built in, but these are mostly dining tables with a corresponding height, which were out of question for our outdoor sofa seating area.

In our selection we concentrated on manufacturers who offered suitable covers and housings for the gas cylinder. Table and housing should be made of one piece, so that it would not be too restless on the terrace.

Our Happy Cocooning fire table with teak and concrete-look tabletop

For the above mentioned reasons we decided to buy a fire table from Mania / Happy Cocooning (Amazon Affiliate Link). For the side panelling we chose teak wood in the look “Nice & Nasty”, which probably corresponds best to a kind of “Outdoor Shabby Chic”. For the tabletop we chose a tabletop in grey concrete look, which is cast out of a glass fibre concrete mixture.

Incl. attachable side tables, side table for gas bottle cover, glass surround, pressure reducer and matching covers, this version cost 2085€.

So the table is quite expensive, but the cheaper alternatives from DIY stores and Co. had big deficits: Either the gas bottle would not have been hidden or the materials used would have looked extremely cheap and plastic for not even a few 600€. Thus, for us, there was no way around teak wood and concrete slab, even if the price already hurts.

In my eagerness I overlooked the fact that the glass surround was already included in the delivery and reordered it in a second order together with the side tables the same day. The next morning I received a call from Mania. A nice lady informed me about the scope of delivery and asked me to cancel the over ordered part and to send both orders together. Great customer service. After all, in 2020 you are not used to people thinking in the interest of the customer.

The delivery took place within two days of the order. I informed the shipping company about a time window for delivery and this was perfectly adhered to. The table was then delivered on a Euro pallet.

After unpacking, we found that the concrete cover of the side table had broken. After a call to the manufacturer, a replacement was sent to us by DHL within two days, we did not have to send the broken cover back, the support was again customer-oriented and friendly.

For all the enthusiasm, however, there are also three minus points for the table:

1. The additionally ordered side tables must be drilled and screwed together by yourself. With a product of this price I would have expected this ex works.
2. The fire table cover cannot be placed over the table when the side tables are hooked in. They must therefore be removed again and again.
3. The individual boards of the side panel of the table are not painted on the underside and thus provide a point of attack for water and moisture. You can repaint it yourself, but with a table at this price I would have expected more.

Real campfire feeling

We had the concern that the gas fire would not live up to the charm of a real campfire for nothing. The enclosed ceramic logs almost look like real wood and yet you don’t need to worry about the textile covers of the garden furniture.

After 3 weeks with our fire table we were invited to a couple of friends. Later in the evening there was a campfire in the garden. At the latest in this evening we noticed again that we did not miss the stench, nor the flying embers and smoke that burned in our eyes. Only the cracking of the wood and the typical campfire sounds are missing at our guest table – but you can hear the hissing of the propane gas.

The ceramic logs radiate the heat of the fire well in all directions. If you don’t want this, because there are cool drinks on the table, for example, you should place the glass top around the fireplace.

We especially like the possibility to roast marshmallows (Amazon Affiliate Link) in the evening over the flames of our fire table. This has almost become a little weekend ritual for us.

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Der Beitrag Fire Table On the Terrace: No Smoke, No Smell, No Dirt erschien zuerst auf Pixelfriedhof.