Fleemo
For what its worth, my experience: very similar to yours. I find drippers
very unreliable and must be individually checked 2 -3 times a year. Usually
I find 10-15% of them not working correctly each time I check. I have not
used drippers installed directly in 1/2" line but on the ends of 1/4 " tube
off 1/2" line; lines are buried but drippers are not. If they were, checking
would be a nightmare. Besides, burying drippers means soil can get sucked in
under some conditions when water is shuts off e.g. suction caused by
downhill portion of line.
Have also had the same problem with 1/4" drip line with drippers in line
every 6". I don't dare bury that stuff! BTW almost all my equipment is
Raindrip.
Having drippers go bad on perrenial beds is exasperating enough but for
shrubs and trees it can be very sad and expensive.
For the latter, I always use a minimium of 4 drippers per location just for
insurance.
For individual plants/perrenial beds, I have ripped out most off the
drippers and gone to sprinklers, not just because of unreliablility and
placement and checking headaches but I also do not find drippers spread the
water enough for my soil (loam) and plant spacings.
For veggie gardens (and also hanging baskets and pots), I use 1/4" porous
soaker line from Orbit laid on top of soil off my 1/2" header line.. It
seems to work well for row planting and is fairly inexpensive too replace if
needed. Also it is easily moved out off the way for tilling each spring. Do
not use lengths of more than 10 - 15 feet as the output beyond that drops
dramatically. I also use these in conjunction with in-line 1/4" adjustable
shut off valves (Orbit) which I find very useful for regulation especially
in mixed dripper/sprinkler/soaker applications and with pots/ baskets.

Water is from a well and thus cheap! P.S. I would ALWAYS use a 150 mesh
filter for all dripper systems. They are inexpensive and do help here with
drippers clogging. You never can be sure, even on city water, when
maintenance crews (or nature) are going to send out a "shot" of particles. I
have very few particles in the water but it contains iron bacteria which
clogs drips. Filter seems to catch this but does nothing for my hard water
which I suspect also helps clog drippers.
Also I pay careful attention to anti-syphon devices. With "global warming"
(???) weather causing so much disruption of water and power services, and
the growing list of contaminants (SARS virus, giant pig farms, mad cow
disease, etc), I don't think the manufacturers of DIY irrigation equipment
emphasize this aspect enough.
Just my 2 cents worth of experience over 3 years and with 7 valved/timed
zones.
Zone 4 gardener
"jc" wrote in message
...
"Fleemo" wrote in message
om...
When I installed my drip-line hoses (Rain Drip Drip-A-Long 1/2" hoses
with emitters every 18") I buried them about an inch in the soil. I'm
having some trouble with them now, and on Rain Drip's website they say
to keep the emitters out of the dirt. What do folks in this newsgroup
do? Do you bury the hoses in the dirt, only cover them with mulch, or
what?

Drip tape and 1/4 inch drip line with inline emitters are run at 10-15
psi and the output will be restricted if it surrounded by waterpacked
soil - more of a problem with clay soil, less with sandy soil.
Dripworks' (www.dripworksusa.com) 1/2 inch drip lines with extruded
inline emitters are run from 25 psi up to line pressure and can be
buried but work better on the soil surface. Any drip system lasts
longer when it is protected (covered) from the sun with organic mulch
that does not block emitter output. -Olin