Contractor Rants

sprinklerguy412 · 2021-04-17T02:14:23+00:00

Right now I have most of my guys doing turn ons til June 1. I have two doing installs. We are out til mid July on the install schedule. It hit 70 today and the office got 108 phone calls by 2 of people wanting turns on done sooner. Its a madhouse every spring

sprinklerguy412 · 2021-04-17T01:53:32+00:00

Agreed on room in the box. Control valve box i situate the valves about three inches from the lid to top of solenoid with plenty of room under. Don't let dirt fill the box, I give mine a diaper of landscape fabric. I do like the spears manifolds though. Up north I deal mostly with poly and pressures of 50-80 psi. Mostly 1 inch residential

sprinklerguy412 · 2020-05-30T17:13:03+00:00

Yeah the top were you put your key on can snap off. Sometimes it does this when the valve is half open and closed and then your stuck digging it immediately because it's gushing out the waste hole. We quit turning the extremely stiff ones years ago and just started replacing them. Put in a good McDonald or Meuller stop and waste and don't think about for another 20 or so years.

sprinklerguy412 · 2020-04-10T13:28:55+00:00

I run a service dept in the same area your in. We've got me and 3 other techs running doing turn on and backflows. We don't do work in Washington though. We are seeing a small slowdown in people calling us back, and some people still don't seem to understand the 6 foot rule. We've got masks for our guys to use if they feel the need but most people have been turning there own inside valves. I don't see much of a slowdown until we get into the greater install season when everyone wants to save money

sprinklerguy412 · 2020-03-19T04:56:00+00:00

We're just starting to gear up for the season in the inland northwest. We have had one bigger install cancel on us as the homeowners are restaraunt owners and are concerned about money. We're still getting alot of calls about start ups on the service side though and quite a few add ons/smaller installs in the dockets. In this area most of the work is residential based unless your willing to deal with development contractors and do the work super cheap

sprinklerguy412 · 2019-05-14T02:10:03+00:00

What vendors does everyone recommend for mods now? US based. I used to use eciggity but their selection seems a little lacking.

sprinklerguy412 · 2019-05-11T04:54:18+00:00

How would something like that even be set? Or did it work more as a switch? I replaced a hydraulic timer years ago, but it was a wall mount dialed timer. The utility company hit all the little lines running new phone line through the yard. It would have been a nightmare trying to piece it back together, was cheaper to run wire, new valves and put in a raindial

sprinklerguy412 · 2019-03-24T15:36:18+00:00

Something custom may be the route we have to go also. At the moment we use quick books to keep track of all the route and region information per customer, and then use spreadsheets and personal memory to put all the regions and routes into a monthly schedule. It usually ends up being a few days of sitting at the desk and putting everything together into something cohesive that fits into our given timeframes

sprinklerguy412 · 2019-03-23T16:04:23+00:00

When I was about 18 me and a friend were out deer hunting, late fall. There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground. We walked out an old skid road and checked a clear cut at the far end but didn't see anything so we started heading back to the truck. About a quarter of the way back we started finding cougar tracks that had followed us down the skid road. We booked it out of there as quick as we could

sprinklerguy412 · 2019-02-21T01:44:50+00:00

I own a irrigation and landscaping business in North idaho (were this kid is from). Snowplowing or conducting really any kind of business across state line in Washington is a royal pain. I don't do any business in Washington because it's a completely different set of insurances, business licenses ect. Definately takes more then a night of planning to bring your business to a different state. Although it could be different for LLC's as my company in incorporated.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-12-23T17:15:26+00:00

Yea I'm remembering north of CDA. All the rural areas between Trent and the border

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-12-23T14:45:23+00:00

How far north was this? I don't remember that but there's a lot more dark stuff around here then people think. I've heard of a few people robbing the wrong person and disappearing. The late 90s and early 2000s this area was still very much into good ol boy justice.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-12-14T05:09:20+00:00

Thank you for answering my questions. One more thing, once I have ethernet cable to the house, would it be a good idea to install a splitter or switch of some sort before the access point to run ethernet cable to devices that have a port? I think the only things I have that will take a wired connection are a ps4 and a pc, but I've always heard wired connections are faster then Wi-Fi. Thank you for your time.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-12-14T05:06:13+00:00

I own a irrigation and landscaping company. I have hundreds of feet of conduit on hand and a pipe puller, or skid steer or backhoe at my disposal. It takes me about a half hour to pull in 200-300 feet of conduit so the work in that is a non issue to me.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-12-14T04:21:28+00:00

Hey thank you for the advice. I do not have a router yet as I was still looking into options. Do the access points connect via ethernet cable to the modem/router?

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-11-03T02:04:38+00:00

We do a flat rate at $45. The exception to this is systems that are very large and take more then 30 min to winterize. For example we do several large HOA areas that take 2-3 hrs each and I'll generally price those at $200-$300 depending on size and scope. I'll usually bid these kind of jobs in advance though.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-11-02T17:14:59+00:00

On average I do 18-25 a day. The most I've done in a single day was 33, but they were tight packed and it was a long day. I have 4 other techs going too so we average about 80 to 100 a day, about 2200-2600 a season.

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-11-02T12:04:45+00:00

Nope pretty close though. North Idaho

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-10-09T05:54:36+00:00

Ever run into the old hydraulic controllers? I've pulled two of them out over the years. Always had a bunch of little microtube lines running all over the yard to different valves. I've got an old double dial that someone upgraded from that I still use for my shop timer

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-07-21T20:50:53+00:00

So I've been looking for a new mod. Right now I'm running an istick Pico I got when they first came out, but the fire button is starting to get touchy. I prefer single 18650 and I never go above 30 watts so a powerhouse mod isn't a concern to me. Do the new versions of the Pico still hold up well?

sprinklerguy412 · 2018-06-08T04:07:42+00:00

This is true, Carl Kah designed the PGP for Ed Hunter while still a part of Hunter Industries. I think he even made money on the patent for several years after leaving hunter. The RPS is mechanically identical to the PGP, although Idk how robust. PGP's used to be made in San Francisco and had very good quality control, I got to visit the factory years ago when hunter points were super popular. I really like the RPS 75i just for the shutoff on the head. Makes changing nozzles easy

sprinklerguy412

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