Drip Hardware Starter Kit Checklist

The most common phone call I get in spring goes something like this: a homeowner is standing in the irrigation aisle at the hardware store, cart half full, texting me a photo of a wall of parts and asking, “Which of these do I actually need?” It happens because drip systems are sold as a hundred tiny pieces, and no single package tells you the order they connect in.

So let me hand you the list I wish I could give every one of those callers. This drip hardware checklist walks through every emitter, fitting, and filter piece a first system needs, roughly from the faucet outward, so you can fill your cart once and not make three trips.

I have installed and repaired drip in Tucson for twelve years. The parts below are the ones that show up in nearly every residential job I do.

Start at the faucet: the four-piece head assembly

Everything begins where your hose bib (the outdoor faucet) meets the system. This little stack of parts protects your drinking water and gets your pressure into a safe range. Skip it and you will regret it.

Here is the order, faucet first: backflow preventer, then filter, then pressure regulator, then a hose-thread-to-tubing adapter. Some kits combine two of these into one body, which is fine.

A backflow preventer stops dirty garden water from being siphoned back into your home supply. It is cheap insurance, often 8 to 15 dollars, and many local codes require one. If you want the full picture on why they matter and which style to pick, our guide to backflow preventers for drip hardware lays it out.

The filter catches grit before it clogs your emitters. A 150 to 200 mesh screen filter is standard for drip. Well water and hard municipal water both need one, and choosing the right screen is worth a read in our piece on filter and mesh size for drip.

The pressure regulator drops that house pressure down to a fixed number, commonly 25 or 30 psi. Regulators are not adjustable in the cheap version, so buy one rated for your emitters. Our notes on matching them up live in the guide to pressure regulators for drip systems.

The tubing that carries water to your plants

Two sizes do almost all the work in a home system.

1/2 inch mainline tubing (sometimes labeled 0.700 inch outside diameter) is the black poly tube that runs the length of your bed. Buy it by the roll. A 100 foot roll runs about 20 to 30 dollars and covers most backyard vegetable beds with length to spare.

1/4 inch micro-tubing is the skinny spaghetti line that branches off the mainline to reach individual pots and plants. A 50 foot coil is only a few dollars, and you will cut a lot of short pieces from it.

Emitters: the pieces that actually drip

Emitters are the small nozzles that release water slowly, measured in gallons per hour (gph). This is where beginners freeze up, because there are dozens of styles.

For a first system, buy pressure-compensating emitters. They put out the same flow across a range of pressure, so plants at the far end of the line get the same drink as the ones near the faucet. Common sizes are 0.5 gph, 1 gph, and 2 gph.

A rough starting rule: a tomato or a young shrub likes a 1 or 2 gph emitter, while a small herb or a 4 inch pot is happy on 0.5 gph. If you want to size them properly by plant, our breakdown of drip emitter types and flow rates goes plant by plant.

A mistake I see constantly is buying one emitter per plant and nothing extra. Buy a bag of 25 even for a ten-plant bed. You will drop a few in the mulch, and plants get added.

Fittings and connectors: the small stuff that fails first

Fittings are the joints that hold your tubing together and change its direction. They are cheap, and running out of them mid-install is the number one reason my clients make a second store trip.

Here is what belongs in the bag.

• Barbed tees, elbows, and couplings for 1/2 inch tubing, to branch and turn corners. Buy a handful of each.
• 1/4 inch barbed connectors that punch into the mainline and accept micro-tubing.
• A hole punch tool made for drip tubing (about 5 dollars). Do not use a nail or a drill bit. The hole will be the wrong size and it will leak.
• Goof plugs to seal holes you made in the wrong spot. Buy a bag of 25. Everyone punches a wrong hole.
• An end cap or figure-8 closure for the far end of your mainline.
• Tubing stakes or hold-downs to pin the line to the ground so it does not wander.

A quick real-world example

Say you have one 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed with eight tomato plants. Your cart would hold: one head assembly (backflow, filter, regulator, adapter), a 100 foot roll of 1/2 inch tubing, a 50 foot coil of 1/4 inch, a bag of 25 two-gph emitters, a punch, a bag of goof plugs, a small pack of tees and elbows, an end cap, and a handful of stakes.

That is roughly 60 to 90 dollars, and you would have leftovers for a second bed next year. When I first built a system like this in my own yard, the leftover fittings ended up saving a neighbor’s setup two weekends later.

Where to go from here

Print this drip hardware checklist, or snap a photo of it before you head to the store. Fill your cart faucet-first, buy a few extras of the small parts, and you will have almost everything you need to lay a working system in an afternoon.

For the how and why behind each choice, lean on the connected guides above. And if you are unsure about your water, check with your local utility or a trusted resource like the EPA WaterSense program for regional watering guidance before you finalize emitter sizes.

Frequently asked questions