Noodlehead N111C Flexible Lawn & Garden Sprinkler

This is the best sprinkler for small, oddly shaped areas. It is for precision watering. Buyer beware! There are cheap knock-offs that have slipped onto the marketplace. Genuine Noodleheads have the address (New Venture Technologies, Sisters, OR 97759) the U.S. patent number and trademarked name imprinted on the underside of each one. The address and other information has been omitted on the cheap pirated copies. The Noodlehead will reach 10 to 35 feet depending on water pressure. That information was provided by "This Old House" magazine in 2003. Average water pressure for a residential home is 45 psi. At that pressure the Noodlehead will throw water 20 feet from each nozzle. It is best to bend the tubes in the middle of the noodle. Inside each tube is a fully annealed stainless steel wire. If a wire is pushed, it will spring back. When a wire is bent, it will stay. First, bend all the tubes away from you before you turn it on. Then, set the Noodlehead at the edge or corner of the lawn or garden, get behind it and adjust it into the perfect pattern. It doesn't spin, wiggle, impulse or oscillate. It stays in the perfect pattern that you set it for and waters without wasting a drop. The Noodlehead doesn't mist. Sprinklers that mist waste too much. Each of the 12 Noodlehead nozzles have 3 holes. Therefore, it puts out 36 streams of water. They are steady, coherent streams that break up into small droplets just before the apex and fall like gentle rain. It provides deep-root saturation. You don't have to run the water for as long like most sprinklers. Each Noodlehead comes with two plugs and a spike. The spike functions as a plug and anchors the sprinkler firmly in the ground. The small plug could be used instead of the spike so the Noodlehead could be set on a flat surface, such as the deck or patio. And with the three screw-holes, it could be mounted to a piece of wood if the spike won't penetrate compacted, rocky soil. Also, it could be mounted to a fence, post or overhang. The large plug that is provided closes off where the garden hose attaches so it could be used on a 1/2" threaded riser of an in-ground sprinkler system. However, a ball valve might be needed for adjusting the volume for that individual riser. The Noodlehead could be used on the Extend-a-Riser so it could be elevated above obstructions or tall dense growing plants, in stages of, 8, 16, and 24 inches while attached to a standard garden hose. The tubes could be pointed at selected plants so you don't have to water between them. So, not only does it save water, it reduces the amount of weeding. The Noodlehead can be used with a timer on the hose bib. And the tubes can be pointed at potted plants while away on vacation. I have one that I modified by snipping off some nozzles, then I inserted a 1/4" double-ended barb and extended the tubes using 1/4" irrigation drip line into potted plants. Also a 1/4" shut-off valve can be attached to various tubes if needed. And there are many types of sprayers, emitters, and micro-sprinklers that fit on that tubing. Once again, beware of the cheap pirated copies. Those are made of inferior materials and have a very short reach. They will break if you look at them wrong. Real, genuine Noodleheads are manufactured using durable ABS plastic with UV inhibitors. Unlike most sprinklers, there is a one year warranty. You can make every drop count for many seasons when using the Noodlehead.

I have used this sprinkler now about 10 times. It solves watering problems for an irregular area.However, after only two months, I had two major problems:Problem 1:Noodlehead has two screen washers (one in the hose inlet, one on the base inlet), and both were heavily rusted away.Astoundingly, the screens were not made of stainless nor bronze, but some unknown grade of steel which corroded away, leaving pieces behind to clog several heads.Solution:I removed both washer-screens and replaced only the hose inlet with a standard vinyl/stainless screen washer. The bottom pipe thread washer I did not replace, but simply cut a flat neoprene disk to install in its place.Problem 2:The supplied black plastic stake, with a threaded top which screwed into the base of the sprinkler where the pipe thread inlet is located, was sloppily molded and easily cross-threaded. This allowed leakage at the base. Also, the plastic may not have sufficient strength to survive being pushed into firm or hard ground without bending.Solution:Using the vendor-supplied threaded pipe plug, I removed the stake and screwed in the plug (which now covers the neoprene disk I made described above) and the leak stopped. However, I now do not have a built-in stake for the sprinkler.I've now used an old long shank (12inch) Phillips screwdriver to push through one of the three mounting holes on the perimeter of the Noodlehead base, and this keeps the sprinkler oriented, and much easier to move.So I give this product a 4 of 5 for solving a problem, and 2 of 5 for quality of design and specification. I had to fix it to be satisfied. This should be a simple thing for the manufacturer to do right.

I am shocked at the negative reviews for this sprinkler! I expected something not so great, since I only paid about 12 dollars, but this sprinkler was exactly what I've been looking for for a long, long time. I wanted a sprinkler that could be positioned to water either a large circular area or something smaller and more precise, and this is it. It was NOT messy, and it was extremely easy to position the noodles - I never even got wet doing it while it was on, which is a lot more than I can say for all my other, more expensive sprinkler heads.First, it waters a pretty big area. You can spread the noodles out to water in a circle, and you can adjust them so that the inside of the circle is watered as well as the outside (eliminates the giant gap between sprinkler head and water fall problem that I have with many other sprinklers). I mostly used it in a half-circle to water a small garden and lawn about 20 x 20.You can also adjust it to avoid just one spot, or to focus on one spot. It was perfect for the part of my lawn that meets my neighbors - I could water all of my piece of the lawn and avoid all of theirs just by pushing the noodles around. With my other sprinklers I was constantly getting soaked trying to move them around to just the right spot so they hit most of my lawn and not the neighbors.The noodles are so easy to position that I could even aim one right at a specific plant, or even on several plants, and then deliberately miss a tree trunk.I didn't have any problem using the stake - it was helpful for keeping the sprinkler in place and everything the way I wanted it. It probably would not work as well without the stake.This is the best sprinkler I've ever had, and also the cheapest. I bought a very expensive lawn track system at the same time I got this one (one of those things that rides along a little track and waters different areas of the lawn), but the Noodlehead was so good that I never even took that one out of the box.