Mechanical Water Timer

This is the example of how low the orbit quality goes. Bought 2 about 4 months ago. One snapped from the hose connection after 2 uses. Other one snapped after 4 months of usage. While it worked, it worked good. But, snapping that flooded the yard. How can anything dealing with hose has such a poor quality!! Orbit needs to do quality control. says 7 year warranty on the still on tag!! I wonder if they can replace this broken one under warranty.

This timer cracked at the spigot connection, flooding my yard for many hours while we were out of town.

I have a whole slew of non-powered mechanical water timers that I bought years ago. They were fine for two sets of hoses used for sprinklers along my very long driveway. The other two I used on a side spigot (one for occasional lawn sprinkling and the other to fill my pond. These timers worked by turning a dial by time and as water flows through them, it turned the dial back to zero and shut off. However, these timers need a certain amount minimum water flow them to work properly. Recently, I updated my pond. Before I just had a hose that ran to the pond with a old-type flow timer. However, I recently added a skimmer, and I installed a dedicated line off the spigot running to the skimmer. In the back there is two filling valves. The manual valve will fill at the hose's full potential (4-GPM). However, there is also an auto-fill valve. This works by float. So when the water drops slightly from evaporation, the valve will fill anywhere from 1-GPM to a trickle). There in lies the issue. You can leave the line always on and the auto-fill valve will just keep the water topped off on the pond continuously. However, this is bad practice as if you have a leak, it will mask the leak. As water leaks, the valve will keep refilling!! Therefore, you should always use this valve in conjunction with a timer. This timer at HD was rated very high on multiple websites and has a 7 year warranty! Best of all it is an egg timer type. This means that the timer works not by flow, but rather by a spring. I was unsure after reading that on Orbit's site so I wrote them to ensure that it did work by spring timer and NOT by flow, that it would work in any orientation, and that it did not restrict flow. They wrote back and stated that yes, it was a spring timer, it would work in any orientation and it did not restrict flow. But they also mentioned that it needed 2.7GPM to work???????? I questioned them on this statement which contradicted their spring timer sentence. The person was unsure. So I went to HD, picked it up and did a few experiments. I have a water meter attached to my pond spigot that measures 10ths of gallons. I set the spigot flow on 1/6th GPM - the timer worked and shutoff despite the low flow. I tried it with just a trickle and it too worked. You can set it up to two hours (good enough to top off). And there is a manual setting of always on or off (no timer). This will work wonderfully for my situation and most when watering your yard with a sprinkler (2 hours is adequate). I wrote Orbits with my results as well to tell them to remove the 2.7GPM response. This is likely old data when most older timers worked on water flow and not a spring.

Good instructions, works as advertised.

Easy to use and helps prevent water waste.

Good product ! All needed is the extra rubber flap washer that needs changing after so many shut offfs ! If you don’t have the accessories it will leak !

Great for filling pool and not having to check every hour

I really use my timers. I have three and water my trees around my place with them. They don't last for ever but they aren't expensive so I get my money's worth.

I used this in-line hose valve to fill the water into my pool. Never need to worry about forgetting to shut off the hose to the pool now. This product works great for 2+ years and then begins to start leaking through the internal mechanics. Excellent product for the price!

These work nice, a good replacement for the ones from last year that leaked when I hook them up this year. I purchased 2 of them put 1 out back and the other one close to the house. These are very a easy to use and well made. They do tic-tic-tic while the timers is on but not loud. Make sure to shut the water off when it's done because the pressure will cause the water to drip. Low cost compared to other timers.