GARDENA 31169 | Mechanical Water Timer with Flow Control

I was looking for a hose-bib mounted mechanical water timer that would not restrict my anemic city water pressure and this did the trick, in spades. Our city water inlet is only 1/2 inch and results in about 50 PSI at the bib. As a result, I have had all sorts of trouble with impact sprinklers. I started with Melnor's then tried GIlmour's then finally Orbits. I tinkered and fussed but to no avail. If no one on my city block was so much as flushing a toilet, they MIGHT work a few times, but then would no longer spin hard enough to trip the return levers. I tried shortening the hoses that fed them, no luck. I tried using a smaller diameter hose hoping to raise the water velocity. No joy. I grew up on farms so I knew deep down that there's really only one brand of impact sprinkler worth anything and that is Rain Bird. I yanked out the old heads and dropped Rain Birds on. Still no love. I tried everything, I adjusted, I tinkered, I fussed, I meddled and twiddled. I even resorted to some rather colorful language which did nothing but cause my blood pressure to rise. However, it did nothing for my water pressure. It did cause the dog to give me a rather mournful look however. In desperation, I decided to swap out the timer I was using to see if maybe that was the problem. I have used Orbit and Melnor timers, but unfortunately the diameter of the pass-thru is about the size of a pencil and I can only run one impact sprinkler at a time with them. Like a bolt of lightning (Or possibly a rather large, well-thrown bolt) it hit me. The timers were throttling the water pressure down even further, below the threshold that even my beloved Rain Birds could operate. While the timer function was great, the pass-thru water pressure was not. Off to Amazon I went. After a few failed attempts at searching term usage, I found another timer that promised "High Volume", but the reviews were less then hearty even discounting the obvious "Pilot error" in some of them. Then I found this Gardena. At double the price that I had paid for mechanical water timers I was a little hesitant, but I was tired of standing next to a non functioning sprinkler head, getting soaking wet trying to get it to run and for the price of a couple CD's I was willing to have dry pants and no longer cause the dog great amounts of consternation at the vociferous language being used when he obviously hadn't peed in the house anywhere. Not that day anyway. I engaged the "Prime Directive" and two days later the magic box appeared on my porch. Irrigation bliss. Lo and behold my Rain Birds spun in near frantic ecstasy happily spreading water hither and yon across the yard. This Gardena works great. I can run both my Rain Birds and the lawn is thoroughly and evenly watered. The dog was rather non-plussed at first as he was not able to time his forays between the jets of water and got thoroughly soaked. He was at least kind enough to not sully my mood by likewise watering the living room rug, so all is good. Ignore the nonsense about variable pressure in some other reviews and simply bask in the glory of your sprinklers running at full pressure. The "Soft Off Feature" is nice I suppose but I personally don't care if my timer slams off as hard as my front door does when a political pollster shows up so long as the sprinklers are running at full bore and soak those wretched time vampires as they scurry down the sidewalk.

This purchase is a replacement for an identical timer that I bought on Amazon 7 years ago. It gave me 6 years of trouble free service. I cannot exactly remember what it was that failed, but I was excited to see that I could replace it with the same. In the interim it was replaced with a Dramm which has been iffy at times. The Gardena was unavailable for some time and I thought gone forever from the market place. The new unit comes to you on a bubble card with every language except English, so the features are up to you to figure them out. The timer operation itself is easy enough, but the flow control was not explained on the original packaging and if it is on the new packaging, it remains a mystery. An email contact to [email protected] produced the answer that the flow control, a tiny hour glass icon, is between the O and 120 minutes with a wide to narrow ribbon/arrow that determines the amount of flow. So you can get flow control but only on the continuous mode and NOT the timed cycle. I can regulate the flow with the faucet, so there is basically no need for the engineered feature. Over the years this product has saved us a lot of wasted water in filling the horse tub and in watering a young tree near the barn. Before putting this into use, we frequently walked away and forgot that we had the water running. I do not operate this timer in the cold winter months, as frozen water inside the unit tells me that it will forever damage the mechanism. The reminder in our few winter months is a clothespin clipped to our clothes when the water is turned on and removed when we remember to turn it off! A nice additional feature is the quick connect, one of which comes attached to the timer - I have previously purchased more of these, especially the Y connector, which has also had a long life. I would highly recommend Gardena based on personal use of these products.

I paid. For me, not a free-product. Real usage. After only three uses, my expensive Gardena mechanical water shutoff timer stops working. Won’t shut off. My city has mandated that everyone must “immediately” reduce water usage 20%. No recommendations – ‘Just do it.’ Thanks to this ‘water saving’ timer, I waste too much water. I have been cited, must pay for excessive water use plus their mandatory administrative fees & penalty costs. This hurts. And, worst part is, thanks to this timer, they are right. I waste a lot of water. To backtrack: this timer gets lots of free-press, great reviews and expensive. What is not to love? Must save precious water for our only world to survive. For my four orange and one guava tree, I connect the timer on my newly installed low-pressure drip hose that is covered with mulch. I’m proud. Initially the mechanical timer works great. Turn on water, timer assuredly clicks down to zero, gently shuts off water. Great! I am happy! First failure. Twist the timer to 60 minutes then back to 40. Timer clicks but sounds weak. It sounds anemic. Give it a shot. I leave to go shopping. Timer counts down then sticks on the 5 minute mark. Water is still flowing. Floods my fruit trees for 2 hours. Maybe I did something wrong? Second failure. Next week, try again. Set it and I can hear the now a very weak anemic timer clicking. I go away. This time it sticks at 40. My trees are flooded for 14 hours. I hold my head down, close my eyes and do face-palm. My neighbors are happy because I am watering their property. I can manual move the dial but that is silly. Maybe it is paranoia: I have to keep one eye on it. Is it still counting down? Yes, weakly and slowly. I’m sure you understand that I don’t trust it. A final test. I run it dry. Watch it closely. Still sticks at 40. Turn on my water faucet. Of course, faucet & valve are still open so water flows freely. Sucks. Useless. I quit. Another useless product got-ya. Paying more gets the same results as the cheap ones. The cheap ones fail to work and these expensive ones do the same. Even my electronic one from another reputable company failed after one use. Says low battery every time and shutoff failures. They don’t work. I’ve had enough. Getting way to expensive to save. Back to using my cheap but reliable egg timer or phone/tablet timer. I’m usually good at keeping the original packaging but this time, because I threw away the original box, no returns. If you try it, keep it with your growing mountain of boxes. I stopped looking. Too frustrating. I hope this review helps others. Thank you for reading this.

I have used these types of timers for 30+ years (you turn the water on - they cut it off after a certain time/gallonage) - perfect for so many situations - turning the water on when you're going to work, turning the water on before dark (and you don't want to get out in the yard after that), and just plain half the work - it keeps up with the time and you don't have to. Now, why is this a better "wheel" than the others? I used to buy the $10 - $12 kind and just "understood" I would have to buy 2 new ones (1 for front and 1 for back) every year. If you tried to make them last more than a year, they leaked, and sometimes they leaked before the year was out. I have kept records since I started using this model in 2008. They last from 5 - 10 years for me, with NO leaking! It is definitely worth the difference in money to get some that you just don't have to worry with. I live in East Texas and you never know what our winter/spring (sometimes snow in April, ha!) will be, so in November I turn off the faucets, in December I cover them (with those styrofoam covers) and then when I need to start watering the lawn, I take off the covers and put on the timers (it depends on how much the Lord waters for me - smile!).

Sick of overwatering, but even more sick of battery operated timers with too many settings, this Gardena seemed like a great solution for day to day watering needs. Feeding off the end of a highly pressurized 3/4" water line and fully open ball valve, the mechanics of this timer have no problem shutting off the flow of water after the preset time has expired. And I can reliably leave the ball valve open, effectively using the timer as my on/off control for the faucet, without any leaks. I'm not a fan of Gardena's plastic quick connect fittings. That's not to say that they don't work well, but I use Orbit's reliable brass quick connect fittings, so have no use for Gardena's. Thankfully, Gardena made their quick connects removable on this timer (screw off to expose hose threads), unlike their Retractable Garden Hose Reel that has the fittings permanently attached to the hose. Turning the timer's dial counterclockwise opens the valve without the timer functioning, the same as turning on a faucet. But in this mode, the rate of flow is adjustable (from closed to wide open, just like a normal faucet -- or more like a ball valve) so it's important to remember to turn it all the way if I'm going to be using the sprayer. This feature isn't present in the timer mode, where (I presume) the flow is either wide open, or shut off completely. The plastic construction is a compromise. It's brittle plastic, so I wouldn't expect it to survive repeated drops onto the concrete patio. But the plastic keeps it relatively light weight, which is great since I use mine mounted straight out horizontally, not hanging vertically. And the plastic exterior certainly staves off rust or corrosion. Obviously where this timer wouldn't work is if we're away on vacation, since it does need to be manually turned on (and of course, the hose moved to multiple locations around the yard). But for day-to-day watering needs, this is about as simple (and, as it turns out, reliable) as it gets.

This timer was replacement for Orbits timers that were reviewed well, but had issues delivering enough water pressure. I've never been disappointed with Gardena products and this is no exception. The timer's spring mechanism is fairly accurate and has a positive shutoff. Stop wasting your money on repeat purchases of Orbits, Melnor or Vigoro timers that last one season. The Gardena quick disconnects are a bonus if you have other Gardena (or Claber) products. The hose connectors fit standard hose thread. Update, July 2017. After owning of these over the past 5 years, I wanted to replace two older ones that were failing. So I purchased 4 more these Gardena 31169 timers. I was so disappointed that the new ones failed to shut off the water. They both got stuck sporadically around the 15min. mark and didn't go to zero. In one case, it ran all night and that's the last thing I want. Sadly, I'm forced to return all 4 and look for a replacement. I've already tried and been disappointed with most of the brands (Melnor, Nelson, Orbit and Vigoro). I wish I could contact Gardena Support and report this because I really do like their products.

I used this unit for half a year. It was working well as a timer, when I had to mechanically set the time for refilling water into my waterfall weir into my koi pond, But when I converted to an automatic refill system based off a 24vdc control valve running off a magnetic level float switch, I started to use this unit as a water flow control device downstream of the control valve. This was a nice feature of this water timer, which other water timers didn't have. But this water timer (not the timer itself) started to malfunction, as shortly after it stopped flowing water at a volume it used to, no matter the setting. There were no manuals that came with the unit on how to deal with such a situation. I had to do a google search and found a half-baked answer on fixya and had to spend a little thinking time on this. It turns out that there is a diaphragm mechanism at work that allowed for water flow to be controlled. The fix was simple. A rubber diaphragm had gotten loose from a retaining notch on the plastic disc that held a spring, and this made the diaphragm stay fixed at a very low flow setting. I slipped the diaphragm back into place, and soon this water timer was back in service. This is a German design and manufacture. I didn't expect the diaphragm to slip off its place that easily. Disappointed, and I took off a star. It didn't provide a manual, nor an online answer to the fix. Another star off. But to its credit, the design allowed for a fix, even if I had to figure it out. So a star is put back in. Then again, it's not selling to Germans, but to Americans. And Americans are too busy to want to fix things, generally, and the education system and the throw away culture, for the most part, I think, didn't allowed much room for intuitively finding a fix. For being presumptous about this, I take back another star. Overall, a good unit that can be better designed a little bit. And a manual or online solution to a fix is not unimaginable for Gardena to do. This unit is meant to last. A shame if Gardena couldn't just dumb down a bit and provide an online fix it assumed could be figured out intuitively by the general US population.

We have approximately 175 rosebushes in nine different beds that have soaker hoses in them for irrigation. Several beds are hooked together forming five separate circuits. To irrigate, a hose is connected to each individual circuit, and duration of flow is controlled by a timer at the faucet. The timers we have had experience with all had one common problem. At the end of the timing cycle, the timer would shut off with a huge hydraulic shock that could be heard throughout the house. BAM!!! That sort of hammering can't do the plumbing any good. So I did some research and found the Gardena timer reviews had no complaints of hammering at shutoff. I purchased this timer even though the cost was twice as much as that for the last timer I bought, and it was absolutely worth it. It is very accurate, easy to use, and when it shuts off, you can barely hear it. We use it a lot, so time will tell how durable it is, but I suspect that it will last a long time, since it appears to be well made.

Sie macht was gewünscht. Nur immer im Trockenen überwintern, sonst leidet das Material und damit auch seine Funktion (Dichtungen, Uhr etc.).

Aunque este temporizador Gardena era nuevo (comprado en agosto de 2024 en Amazon.es), se averió a mediados de mayo de 2025. Fuimos informados por nuestro hombre de la piscina que la piscina se había desbordado y el agua había estado corriendo durante aproximadamente una semana. ¡Se perdieron 201 m3 de agua! Recibí una factura de Hidraqua de 738,00 euros...

Installed ok and worked for a while but timer stopped working, didn’t budge. Pork from a quality brand

Hubby and I have been using this water timer for a couple of months now. It does what it is supposed to do without any issues. Would buy again.

the best quality can be found in online shopping