In article ,
wrote:

I have two soaker hoses, both Hozelock. One seems to work well, in
other words, when I switch the water on it gets wet and drips. The
other one seems much less porous and hardly "leaks" at all. Do soaker
hoses have a life span? Do they clog up or dry-out with age? Is this
what has happened here?

How do they compare with other methods of watering? What do you all
think about these tubes with drip attachments; are they better or
worse?

It could possibly be a long-term buildup of scale if you live in a hard
water area. Try bending/agitating the hose to break up any scale.

For all that the gardening media love to recommend porous hose for
efficient, water-wise irrigation, it is far less successful in these
terms than a drip irrigation system since a) you can't use it to target
individual plants (it emits water along its full length - including on
empty soil); b) it isn't as flexible/bendy as small-bore micro tubing
so is difficult to double back on itself, eg to water two rows of veg;
c) it is bigger than micro tubing so is harder to hide on hard
landscaping, eg if watering patio containers.

Its advantages over dripper systems are that it is virtually
plug-and-play (no piping network to assemble) and that it can be buried
in soil to almost eliminate evaporation (so can micro tubing but the
dripper arteries have to break through the surface).

However, much depends on the application. Porous hose would be better
suited to a new hedge which would require a very big micro network.

Neither is particularly well suited to watering a veg plot (porous hose
is too unwieldy, micro would require a great many drippers). Here, I
would go for a standard sprinkler with area control settings -- or
Hozelock's Sprinkler hose which waters a larger area and can be turned
over to soak down into the soil (see
http://www.tooled-up.com/ManProduct.asp?PID=121989)