Review of WaterWand Automatic Watering System
Solar Waterer Uses Collected Rainwater to Irrigate Garden Plants
Aug 14, 2009
At £155 (about $250), all in, the WaterWand Solar Water Pump seems reasonable value when you look at what you get in the box:
- 40m of flexible tubing for containers or a seephose kit for beds
- A set of drippers with stakes
- The solar pump attached to a rigid PVC hollow pole
Water Butt
The PVC pole is designed to sit inside your average water butt, with the solar array and pump (which are fixed to it) sitting on the lid of the butt. The solar panel charges the internal batteries and the pump starts up every three hours, automatically delivering water to your plants through the supplied irrigation system.
Installation of the System
The first step involved drilling a hole, about 2in. (5cm) in diameter, in the water butt lid. Cutting a perfectly round hole proved tricky but neatness isn't essential as the hole is concealed by the head of the unit when it rests on the lid.
With the hole drilled, the lid could be replaced and the pole slid down through it and into the water in the butt. The unit is designed to cut out when the water gets to within a few centimeters of the base of the pole, to prevent the pump burning out. The inlet at the base of the pole has a fine mesh filter to prevent objects fouling the motor; the unit sat neatly on the lid so the next step was to attach the hose and dripper.
Drip Irrigation
This test involved drip waterers and containerised plants, but a seep hose is available to irrigate beds of plants. Some thought was required as to where to place the containers before cutting up the flexible tubing - ideally you need to group pots together, rather than leaving them in situ and wasting valuable lengths of tubing. So once the containers were grouped one end of the tubing was attached to the pump outlet and it was gradually rolled out to each watering station.
Water Pipe
Once at the desired length for each pot, a pair of scissors was used to cut the piping and a connector was inserted. Each connector is a three-way device that allows the water to continue flowing through the main pipe but also down to each dripper. A small length of tubing was cut to link the connector to the dripper, which fitted into a stake that anchored it firmly into the soil of the pot. This process was repeated until each pot had one or two drippers fixed securely. The last dripper is simply attached to the end of the line.
The WaterWand is designed to operate even on cloudy days but will dispense more water when exposed to sunlight, so the more water your plants need the more they get. A control knob on the side of the main unit can be used to alter how much sunshine is converted to pumping power - depending on the needs of your plants - from 2-100% in five increments.
Garden Watering
To prevent overwatering and wastage the pump features an anti-siphon device - even if your plants are lower than your water butt, irrigation will stop when the pump goes off. The WaterWand will irrigate up to a metre above the water source and an LED indicator lets you know when the pump is operating, whether the batteries are charging or if the water level is too low for it to operate.
Water Pump
After allowing the pump to charge for a few hours it started operating. Several of the connectors leaked and required reasonable force to stop water escaping, but once done a sufficient amount of water flowed through the system. Adjusting the knob to increase or decrease water flow was trickier to judge. Some pots were deep so were given two drippers, others were shallow and had one, but with the knob on position '3' all had dried out after two days of bright, windy weather with an ambient temperature of 23C (73F). At position '4' the soil was moistened to a greater degree.
Conclusion
The WaterWand works best at keeping smaller containers irrigated. Larger pots can have several drippers inserted but the nature of the system means that while the top layer of soil will remain wet the lower layer of deep pots could dry out, so it is not recommended for containerised potatoes or carrots.
However, several months into the test the WaterWand continues to operate flawlessly and, as long as you won't be using it to water the aforementioned vegetables, is highly recommended for gardeners who don't have access to an outdoor electricity supply or mains water. It is likely to appeal to those who do not have an outdoor tap and those with a household water meter, and as the WaterWand takes its supply from a rainwater-filled water butt it is exempt from enforced hosepipe bans.
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