The Dry Garden: armed for conservation
Posted on | July 3, 2009 | 1 Comment
If there’s one thing harder to get than a good garden hose, it’s a good nozzle to fit on it. Now that we’re in a drought, good nozzles we need. After testing 10, two leaked from the start and one exploded. The Dramm Revolver (above, in purple) performed best. Shopping for them offered an experience that felt more like going to a gun show than a garden center. For the full LA Times story, click on the image, which is by LA Times photographer Kirk McKoy.
Category: Landscape reform
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Los Angeles Times > nozzles > The Dry Garden
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Los Angeles Times > nozzles > The Dry Garden
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July 6th, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
In the Miss Information department, a correction: A civil engineer specializing in hydraulics wrote that what I took up as a build up of pressure in the nozzle was actually the apparatus de-pressurizing the water, not as I wrote, pressurizing it. “By the way, hose nozzles do not pressurize the water. They only shape and restrict the flow of water that is coming to the nozzle through the hose. By reducing the area that is available for the water to flow through the nozzle can make less water flow but make it flow faster. The restrictions in the nozzle actually cause a loss of pressure (due to friction), not an increase. It would be correct to say that nozzles depressurize, but so do hoses and hose bibs and shower heads and faucets, etc.
He added off nozzles, “I have a bunch of them and they do wear out as you say. What seems to actually wear out or happen is the spring inside the nozzle that shuts the water off when you let go of the handle or trigger stops working. The spring gets weak or too much friction develops and it loses its ability to shut off the water correctly.”
This tallies with what another reader wrote about nozzles. “Why do practically all pistol type nozzle manufacturers use zinc springs for their nozzle triggers? Zinc rusts out very quickly and most people simply buy another nozzle. It’s programmed obsolescence. I replaced the zinc spring in my $2 pistol nozzle with a stainless steel spring and have been using the nozzle for about 7 years.
-Emily Green