Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For years we used a plastic watering bowl that had a "top tank" and filled the part the dogs drank out of. Eventually it got to the point where the plastic could no longer be cleaned and, having had some knee problems that complicated daily life, decided to replace it with this automatic filling bowl instead of a similar design (price is about the same). Size: This bowl is 13-14 inches across and about 5 inches high. That's big. I have a couple of stainless water / food bowls that are maybe 10" across and I assumed this would be comparable. It's not. We have a couple of medium-to-big dogs so it's fine but if you have a dog who is, say, 20-30 pounds or less, this bowl will look ginormous. Note that because the float valve and associated plumbing are enclosed in plastic the full "face" of the bowl is not available for drinking, so the available surface area is comparable to a smaller bowl. Placement: I wanted to place the bowl so that if any parts fail or get tipped over in some worst case scenario like we're heading out of town it doesn't cause any flooding. I settled on placing it by the drain in the basement that goes to the sump well (and only turning the supply on part way). This is out of the way floor space that isn't useful for much else anyway. I then ran a drinking water hose (bought locally to save a few $) to the washing machine supply. I leak proofed everything (see below), including a Y connector, put the Y connector on the cold supply faucet to the washing machine and hooked everything up. Leak-proofing: There is a very easy secret, actually 2 secrets, to making hose connections leak-free in general, and there's an extra gotcha for this water bowl. - General hose connections: First you need a decent gasket in the female connector. Soft plastic is okay, but some hoses and sprayers come with hard plastic gaskets. Replace them with a rubber one. You can get 12 of them in the lawn & garden section for like $3 and they will save you loads of time and hassle (and water!). Second you need to lubricate the gaskets. I have a kegerator so I have Lubri-Film Plus around anyway and it works perfectly (if you can find something like that locally it will cost about half that much, try a homebrew shop if nowhere else). You probably don't want to run around town for something called Lubrifilm though so alternately you can just use KY Jelly - it won't work quite as well, but it's a million times better than a dry gasket. You only need to squeeze about 1/8" inch out of the tube to do a gasket or two so one tube will last you indefinitely (been using mine for 5 years and counting) - This specific bowl: This bowl has a male GHT (garden hose thread) connector coming out of it and a female-to-female adapter on that to connect to a hose. BOTH female sides have a gasket. Lube BOTH of them. The included gaskets were soft enough to seal but before I connected the hose I removed the adapter, pulled out both gaskets, lubricated them both (it just takes a very light film of covering), and popped them back in. The whole process takes about 2 minutes and will save you a lot of headaches and screwing around. I believe that most of the users who have experienced leaks with this bowl can fix them by performing this procedure as maintenance. No matter how hard you tighten a hose on a dry gasket it will not seal! But a lubed gasket will seal perfectly with moderate tightening. If the connectors on the hoses in your yard drip doing this will likely help those too. I've used this stuff on other plumbing fixtures like showerheads too. It makes o-rings and gaskets and things like that seal the way they're supposed to. I can really believe that if the gaskets weren't lubed it would be impossible to get the proper tightness on both sides of the adapter and one or the other would invariably leak. I sympathize with the other reviewers who've had problems! No production line is perfect and I can believe some deliver that leak no matter what but I think an extra minute's care of the gaskets will prevent or solve most problems. Garden hose connectors are pretty low tech. They will NOT seal if you tighten them as hard as you possibly can but they WILL seal with a dab of petroleum jelly on both sides of the gasket. I check comments frequently so feel free to leave one with any questions otherwise please click Yes if helpful and thanks for reading!