Customer Reviews

Reliable Rain: A Practical Guide to Landscape Irrigation

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If "practical" means "technical" then the title of this book tells you just what to expect! With sentences like, "Whether you're working with galvanized, slip PVC, or threaded PVC, you will now need a stem to connect every manifold orifice to the orifice in the bottom of each of your irrigation control vales." you can see this is not a quick reference. This book is, however, a detailed manual on evaluating, building, and installing your own garden irrigation system. It helps to evaluate your watering needs and from there follows through to offer specific plans for laying pipes, installing sprinklers, using timers, and system automation. Black and white photos and diagrams help make sense of the more technical jargon (which actually begins to sound like English about half of the way through). A very detailed and specific guide.

This book had a lot of promise, written as it is by an English professor whose hands-on experience might easily translate to the experiences other do-it-yourselfers have. But it's disappointing. Concepts are poorly explained. There is little discussion about what pipe diameters (1/2", 3/4", etc.) are appropriate for what kind of job. He vaguely references working through moving from one diameter to the other, but does not explain why and in what circumstances each pipe is appropriate. Nor does he really put irrigation into a context that probably 90% of homeowners experience -- suburbia. There's discussion about micro sytems, macro systems, etc., but precious little discussion of the all-American suburban lawn. After reading this book, I have no idea what type of pipe and sprinkler is best for my suburban American lawn, and that's a pity indeed.