Water timers for your outdoor faucets are wonderful time and water saving devices. They can cost as little as thirty five dollars and allow you to set up watering schedules that free you to do other things with your time instead of standing in back of a hose.

I prefer to use the simple timers, which have a single wheel that allows you to set it to as little as five minutes, once a day to an hour twice a day. You just have to install batteries and set the clock and the timer will come on each day at the same time. The work great when connected to a soaker hose that stays in the same place in your garden or flower bed.

One thing you have to watch out for is tension on the hose. Water timers are all made of plastic and if the connection to your faucet is broken and the timer comes off you are left with a fully turned on faucet spraying water. It may happen when you are not home or on vacation, resulting as it did in my case in a horriffic water bill. The solution is to drill a couple small holes in your home's exterior and attach a one foot extension of water hose (the kind with a spring over the hose) with a C clamp to the house. Now if you pull on the garden hose attached to the extender the C clamp keeps it from pulling on the timer. Another method might involve hammering in a T post and affixing the garden hose to the post with tie wraps. In any event you need to keep the hose from pulling on the timer and cracking the connection to the faucet.

Water timers usually last a couple seasons. Because they are exposed to the weather and elements the plastic tends to crack. You can remove them in the winter for longer life. Batteries need to be replaced about once every three months on most models.

Water timers have a safety feature that when the battery dies the valve has a spring that keeps it closed so you don't have to worry about a dead battery leaving you with an open faucet.

Because you can set schedules that water before mid day heat you can save water that would have been lost to evaporation.

Be sure you follow your city's watering schedule if you have one. Most timers, even the cheap ones, are capable of every other day schedules if you are on an odd or even system.

Water timers are available from Amazon.com