Anyone here run a soaker hose near their foundation?

[spacejamz]

if so, how often?

do you run the hose right next to the foundation or away from it? how far?

 

[arcas]

The following is from a landscape irrigation point of view but my objections to soaker hoses should apply equally well to foundation irrigation...

In general, I'd recommend avoiding soaker/leaker hoses -- the ones that are made out of old recycled tires and whatnot -- if only out of principle. They're not pressure-compensating so they don't give a uniform distribution of water. The farther you get from the spigot-end of the hose, the lower the pressure and hence the less water will come out (and the pressure drop is pretty rapid with leaker hoses). They're only useful if you limit them to no more than 8 or 10 feet otherwise you'll wind up flooding the spigot end in order to adequately water area near the far end of the hose. The upshot here is there's no way you'll be able to run a soaker hose all the way around your house and have good results.

I'd recommend you invest in some 1/2" landscape dripline tubing. It's more expensive, figure $30 per 100 feet depending on how closely the emitters are spaced. These emitters are installed at the factory into the tubing and are generally pressure-compensating. So, for a 0.6 gallon/hour PC emitter, you're guaranteed 0.6 gallons/hour from that emitter regardless of the water pressure (well, as long as it's between say, 5psi and 65psi which is almost always the case). The upshot is you can do -much- longer runs than you can with a soaker hose. Hundreds of feet aren't uncommon so going around your whole house won't be a problem.

The emitter spacing you choose will depend on your soil type. Sandy soil might need 8" or 12" spacing while you can get away with 24" or 36" spacing with clay soil. Even though 2-3 feet per emiiter sounds like a lot, you'll be surprised by the size of wetted area after running it for an hour or two. I have a clay-loam mixture at my house and a 1gph emitter will have a wet spot maybe 3' diameter after 45 minutes.

As for how long you'll need to let it run, it depends on how deep you need to wet and I'll defer to the structural engineers on that one. Don't expect the water to soak all the way down to the desired depth on the first day though. Water, say, an hour or two hours every evening and after a week, you'll have good wetness down several feet.

Do be aware that you'll need some sort of backflow preventer for your spigot any time you have a hose that lays on the ground (soakers hoses especially). Don't want a sudden loss of water pressure (a water main break or maybe someone opening a nearby fire hydrant) to cause the negative pressure to suck fertilizer or microbes into your house's water supply. Most modern hose bibs have a backflow preventer integrated onto them but if yours doesn't, you can buy a little vacuum breaker at Home Depot for about $4.