How to increase pressure when splitting garden hose?
I would like to water my front and backyard at the same time. I have two garden hoses and would to connect them to one spigot.
I tried it with a v-splitter but experienced very low pressure. If I turn one side off than one hose gets enough pressure.
Any suggestions or is this even possible???
If one hose is connected the pressure is fine.
Tagged with: hoses • low pressure • spigot
Filed under: Garden Water Hoses
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Unless you use two sperate spigots, you will see a drop in pressure at each hose.
This is because the pressure delivered is a function of the flow capacity (which is dictacted by the ID at the spigot) vs. the flow ID in the two hoses. In an open ended environment, or one where the total flow due to the discharge openings, as on a sprinkler, exceed that of the flow capacity of the the spigot, the pressure would drop. Additionally there is a pressure drop due to friction in the hose. Obviously with two hoses you double that pressure drop.
The typical garden hose int he USA has 3/4" GHT (Garden Hose Thread), but the hose itself might be 1/2", 5/8" (most common), or 3/4".
If you require pressure at the end of the hoses, and are willing to sacrifice volume (Gal/Min), you might try going to two hoses with a smaller hose ID than that of your current hose. Since this might bring down the flow capacity of the hoses closer to that of the spigot and thereby increase pressure.
You might consider as an alternative using a Valved Wye with shutoffs, and simply switch back and forth as needed. This would allow you to leave the hoses in place.
Conversely you could use water timers to control the flow so that the watering was done automatically, at slightly different times, so that you did not need to switch the valves maually.
I suppose you could feed the input hose into a pressure tank set to a higher pressure, then have two outflows from the pressure tank — but that’s an expensive way to do it.
Here’s the physics behind the problem:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99239.htm
maybe buy one of those sprayer attachments that increase pressure by narrowing the opening?
The problem is that the pipe going to the spigot is comparable to one hose. If you connect two hoses to the one spigot, and both hoses are wide open, the pressure will drop. If you constrict the hoses at both ends, so that the flow is equal to the flow of just one hose, the pressure should stay up; the more you constrict both ends (front yard and back yard), the more the pressure will stay the same.