Harbor Freight Drip Kit

[tbird]

  I was picking up a few cheap wire brushes Monday at the Alexandria, LA Harbor Freight and they had this 100 foot, 20 emitter drip kit on sale for $5.99.  so what the heck,  I bought it mainly to tinker with.  I figure if it works even badly it can help me with my container irrigation with the Blueberries and Citrus trees.  Right now I use a 3' soaker hose that Nancy moves from pot to pot.  I took a look at this thing and it worries me that the Chinese are building better and better things.  I mean they have no development cost because a lot of American Companies design stuff here and bring it to China to be manufactured.  The Chinese being so honest and upright in their honoring of American Patents then use these same designs to sell in competition with the American products.  No design costs, made on machines that used to be in America operated by Americans, and manned by the next best thing to slave labor. 

  I will see how this thing works next week when I install it in the container garden area and try it for a few weeks.     The quality is NOT like Rainbird or other popular North American brands but it isn't that far behind.   

[tbird]

  Yep!  That's the one.  Actually the way I plant a lot of my stuff like Okra and Tomatoes I always space them 5' now.  I didn't buy this for the garden,  but if you wanted to use it there you could just install more emitters.  The 100' of 1/4" Neoprene is not punched so you can place them at any space and add more.  The kit comes with 14 - 1/4" tees to use as branch lines.  I figure if I can get this to work with my 9 cut-off drums that I grow Blueberries, Citrus and spices then it will work in my 5'X 10' strawberry raised bed and the same spice bed.  I mean $6 on sale it is worth the try.  It comes with hose adapters and a regulator, hold downs and ground spike hold downs.

  The Neoprene is really flexible which surprised me.  I thought it would be like Polypropylene being real stiff and hard to get the coil out of it.  Come to think of it KDK,  I don't think I would want to run more than 20 emitters on a 1/4" tube in a 100' run.  Truthfully this kit would be OK as an add on to another Drip system to put few extra runs where you could use short 1/4" runs with an emitter or two.   

  Then again I might hook it up and when I turn it on it could blow all the diaphragms out the little emitter holes like poppers!         

[Texan]

T,

I second you on the situation with China. Life in the good ole USA is a double edged sword. You want to buy things as cheap as you can so you end up assisting the Chinese by purchasing their products. I'm no different and make regular trips to Harbor Freight to pick up shop supplies, both for home shop and my business.

When I try to buy American it's not so much price that hold me back but the fact of trying to find a product made in America. Rakes, hoes, shovels, their all made in Indonesia, China, or some third world country.

As for the drip kit, looks like a pretty good setup. I may have to make a trip down today and check it out.

[tbird]

  Texan,  that Lufkin Harbor Freight is the best stocked one I have ever been in period.  I have been in a bunch of them in quite a few states but that one you have there is tops!   

[Gary Farmall]

I checked this out also and will be buying one soon.   Lowes in East Wichita sells a kit for $36.00 and the kit contains (quanty)------LESS THAN HALF.   So its a great buy.   Where's the American competition?

[tbird]

  Why should they?  The American Companies sent their jobs overseas, sold their machinery to the Chinese and make profits without any investment.  So what if that cannot continue and everything winds up in the pooper.  Life is good for them now, and they mistakenly think that paper money is going to get them something when the bubble pops.  I would love an American competitor, the problem is though American Companies, not American consumers created the problem. 

[VinceSilverFox]

The Chinese products...  the way I see it is, if it weren't for the Chinese, I think we could have been in recession a lot sooner.  The low prices on all the consumer products have kept people buying, even if the economical foundation was falling to pieces all around us.  So people had for a couple of years an artificial buying power.  On the other hand, lots of people lost their jobs with the Chinese products invasion.  That's a fact.  But looking at the economical situation we are in at the moment, I think they would have lost their jobs along the way anyway.
What I don't like about China though is like you said, they don't care about patents.  They copy every products they touch, and that is a really bad business practice.  I would have nothing against them if they would develop and produce their own designs.
The other factor that is more complex, is the fact that the Chinese gov. don't want to let the Yuan float against other countries currencies.  That alone have been a big slap in the face of America.  Recently China has readjusted the Yuan a little, but it's nowhere near the value it should have.
But letting the Yuan float overnight would have catastrophic effect on the world economical situation.  That is not possible.  But they should readjust it more frequently.

Ok, enough...  I will stop my rant there...  

The drip irrigation kit was tempting.  I receive the Harbor Freight news letter by email, and the drip kit is often there.  I thought about buying it to put inside the greenhouses, but was wondering about the quality.  Since T think the quality is good, I will probably grab a kit or two to install in the greenhouses next season.

[tbird]

KDK,  I don't know if you have ever been to this site run by teh CIA but it has a lot of info on every country in the world.  The link is"


https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html


  According to them, this is the economy breakdown of the United States.


agriculture: 1.2%
industry: 22.2%
services: 76.7% (2010 est.)


  Kind of hard to produce yourself out of debt with those numbers huh?   

[Texan]

T and KDK,

I think this loss of jobs and decline in U.S. manufactoring is hard for guys our age to stomach. We are a generation that grew up in the hay-day of U.S. dominance in world manufactoring. If you think about it, we had a relatively short but powerful run from the 40's through the late 70's where U.S. manufactoring was kicked into overdrive. Spurred first by WWII and then by the coming of age of all the babyboomers.
I am not knocking the contributions of manufactoring in the early 1900's, they laid the groundwork for those who followed.
I recall days when almost every man I knew made his living in a blue collar job that provided well for his family. Those days are quickly slipping away and it is sad to see them go.
Those who are in charge of national defense had better take heed. We won WWII because we had heavy manufactoring capabilities to switch to weapons of war. If we lose that, and we just about have, and we are a sitting duck. You have to have a manufactoring base to be a super power. And you can't turn your nose up at those who do those types of jobs and think of them as second class citizens. Just because a man makes a living by the sweat of his brow does not make him inferrior. Some of the greatest ideas and innovations came from ordinary men looking for a better way.

[Pjames]

I'm sorry but we did it to ourselves as a society. Post WWII there was a push for kids and young adults to get a good education. Before that, alot of people had very little formal education at all.

This was not to just get an 'easy' job but to become innovators, developing new technologies. Almost all fields jumped ahead at a fast pace.  And generally the better education would generate a better income.

Then we started rewarding the kids who did not push for an education but entered the work force, at least at a big company. We let unions (which had their virtues and served a purpose in their time) push wages of the manufacturing labor force to run amuck. I had a neighbor who worked at the local General Motors plant. His base salary was $35/hour working the line. And he did not have to sit out for several years, going into debt to pay for an education.

One of the anesthesists I work with has a son who went to work for that plant and was paid $20/hr to park cars as a summer job. He told me that he couldn't really argue with the kid who did not want to go back to school. Finally the kid decided to go back.

This was not uncommon around the country. When the job crunch really hit hard, I was astounded how much assembly line workers were making. They had news segments how families could not exist on a job that paid less than $15 an hour when they had been making over double that. I did not realize how much some of these plants paid, especially if unionized.

What you produce has to not only priced right, but has to have quality. I owned 2 general motor vehicles. Both had the same stuff breaking on them.  Both were garbage compared to my honda and my Dad's toyota and the price was NOT cheaper. I have a little Dodge that I got from my brother who was moving overseas. I will drive it until it starts costing me more to fix than to replace. But it is noisy, does not get great mileage (only about 25mpg)-basically a poorly engineered vehicle.

I also find it strange that people complain about our dependence on foreign oil and then not support renewable energy. Most of those developments are found in other countries where the price has driven the need. Instead we have a media that feeds the drive to just drill for more. And if that drilling pollutes, oh well....

Sorry for the rant, but I will buy the cheaper product as long as the quality is sufficient compared to price. If the quality is NOT there, I won't buy the product anyway.

[VinceSilverFox]

(by the way, I know we are not suppose to talk about politic and things like that, but from the beginning it has been a very respectful and civilized conversation)

I agree with both your statements Texan and Pjames.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the US manufacturing super-power was clearly seen.  I think the US of today would have been more shaken by such an attack.  It would have risen again, but slower.  And I agree that a country, in that case the world's most influential country, SHOULD have great manufacturing ressources.

And I tend to think like Pjames when it comes to unions, and the ridiculous salaries.  I also think the unions were necessary at a certain point in time.  When there was abusive employers.  Today, they should still exist to exercise a certain control, so not to let employers come back to an abusive attitude.  But they should definitely have less power.  They should NOT be able to dictate how a business is run, or even have their words in politics.  That way, salary would be negotiated business by business, sector by sector.  Capitalism would automatically maintain a control on the salaries paid on a "needed" basis.  That way, when there is a shortage of workers in a particular sector, the salary would automatically climb to attract people.  The opposite is true when there is too much workers for a particular sector, the salaries would tend to decrease.
That way, the competitiveness of the country would be greatly improved.
But it's not the case.
And by the way, we have the exact same problems here in Canada.  Except that here, we can not build armement.   

[TN_GARDENER]

i bought the same kit from HF
Not bad. I've supplemented it with stuff from local do it yourself stores and online stores.   One thing you'll notice is that the HF kit does not contain a filter. This can lead to clogged emitters.  Don't expect miracles, but for just a few bucks it's not a bad deal.

[Charlie]

HI T-bird

Can u give us an update on this drip kit? I've read the whole thread, and haven't seen any reports of how it worked out.  I just wanted to see how it worked for you.

Thanks

Charlie

  Yep!  That's the one.  Actually the way I plant a lot of my stuff like Okra and Tomatoes I always space them 5' now.  I didn't buy this for the garden,  but if you wanted to use it there you could just install more emitters.  The 100' of 1/4" Neoprene is not punched so you can place them at any space and add more.  The kit comes with 14 - 1/4" tees to use as branch lines.  I figure if I can get this to work with my 9 cut-off drums that I grow Blueberries, Citrus and spices then it will work in my 5'X 10' strawberry raised bed and the same spice bed.  I mean $6 on sale it is worth the try.  It comes with hose adapters and a regulator, hold downs and ground spike hold downs.

  The Neoprene is really flexible which surprised me.  I thought it would be like Polypropylene being real stiff and hard to get the coil out of it.  Come to think of it KDK,  I don't think I would want to run more than 20 emitters on a 1/4" tube in a 100' run.  Truthfully this kit would be OK as an add on to another Drip system to put few extra runs where you could use short 1/4" runs with an emitter or two.   

  Then again I might hook it up and when I turn it on it could blow all the diaphragms out the little emitter holes like poppers!         

[beanie57]

just purchased the 100'  drip  kit  @ harbor frt for $3.77  less 20% online coupon     -    just wanted to let all gardeners know  have a great day 

[Pjames]

Wanted to know who has set up the drip systems they bought from Harbor Freight. I bought 3 of them the other day. Went back a couple days later for some different stuff and saw they were sold out. I'm thinking I will use mine in my greenhouse this winter.

Some of my greenhouse stuff will be in pots and some will be planted in the ground. I had not considered doing that until I saw Mhpgardener's videos.

Goes to show what a great site this is...to share ideas and see what works for others.... (of course I also feel bad at times when my garden does not produce like others..... )

[tbird]

  I set mine up in my two raised beds earlier this summer Pat and I think they saved my gardens there.  Had I not had those in place I would have lost them to drought probably.  So they are performing well, and seem to be holding up with uniform water from all the emitters.  Now I ill say that I added 10 emitters from Lowes that were American made and higher priced, but the Chinese emitters are working well so far.  I think I will get another kit or two when I finally get my greenhouse together. 
 
  I think this is a good system or the price.  I don't think it compares to the American made systems,  but for 1/5 the price it performs well enough.   

[farmboy]

Not a criticism, but an observation. That is why the Chinese stuff is so prevalent. Less cost, even with less quality, we buy it.
Sad to say I have a lot of that kind of stuff around my house too.
My drip is USA. Drip is really the way to go. Less water and great to handle, put in place and use.

[Pjames]

Eventually I plan to use a bigger tubing system than the 1/8 inch in this one. Our water here has alot of minerals. Yesterday, I helped my Dad change out his kitchen sink faucet.

It was not more than 3 or 4 years old, but when we removed it, the lines were almost clogged with deposits.  It was almost fascinating that that much mineral could be deposited that fast on a line that gets constant use. The problem my parents had was a leak not a blockage, but I showed it to my Mom and said "Look!! This is arterioclerosis in your water line,..."

I may need to change my garden plots' positions or dig  in certain areas to bury lines so I can make an efficient use of a watering system. But I guess it will just need some planning and forethought... like everything else.

[hotuna]

T India China Korea Indonesia, they have the business acumen and workforce to get the job done. The quality if i may be so bold is "RAPIDLY" improving.
The higher wages and red tape of competing countries I believe will inevitably fail because at the end of the day the consumer will pay for the cheaper like product like you just did.

I remembered when I did my apprentice all CAT heavy equipment down here, now Komatsu. We have Holden (Chev) and Ford builds here, 8/10 cars sold are imports now.

I think the only way out for the US is drop the wages and start producing / competing oh BTW I hope you all like eating rice  

Tuna

[tbird]

  The reason I first bought this HF Kit was because I wanted to try drip irrigation and did not want to invest a lot in something that I may not like or would not work properly in my situation.  The HF Kit proved to me that drip irrigation has a small place in my garden operation when used with specific plants.  Now I will buy a few hundred feet of drip line, various emitters and fittings a few parts and pieces to complete the custom designs and then assemble the systems I need for the gardens I will use them in.  I could probably get by with the HF Kits but I am going to buy American Made parts.  The main system I am going to build will be in my Greenhouse.  That should be finally assembled in mid October after over a year of planning and having bought the greenhouse.  I was investigating drip irrigation for my large garden but to use it I would need to install a pressure pump to drive the emitters and I choose not to at this time.