SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

I agree with wetboots 80 bucks for an I-20 is a ripoff.

It is endemic to this profession....and that is why I do so well. Just because we don't understand how a dinosaur sprinkler operates (in fact, I don't care how it works) doesn't mean we aren't professionals.

As for the I20 cost....tell us what part of the country you are in...I have heard that parts of the Northeast are higher than the Rocky Mountains where I am...and higher than my other company in Arizona. I get 35 for the I20 plus installation time. Even if I could get away with 80 bucks per...I wouldn't. I mark my parts up a set amount dependant on the part....and I charge my hourly rate to install them, more than fair and probably why I have always done so well.

I do not know of Home Depot selling Hunter products, if and when they do, I will probably discontinue purchasing Hunter products for my new installations. They do sell an Orbit rotor that is very close to the same as a PGP but without the 3 year warranty...but it does have a shiny green cap!

I wonder if many homeowners understand how much it costs us to be in business? Most of us are honest, hardworking guys that just want to make a living on our own terms, without taking a job making someone else money. There are some bad apples out there that make us all look bad; I assure you that there is a certain percentage of human beings that will make honest folks look bad in every service industry...ever watch Dateline and the Appliance repairman hidden camera sting?

I'm sorry you have a bad taste in your mouth about us, but don't lump us all in the same category as your incompetent sprinkler tech who didn't properly drain your backflow to prevent damage. Did you turn it on in the spring to find that, or did he? Hmmm?

That 'failure to clear the lines' might not have been winterizing incompetence. A leaking shutoff valve could (still) be the problem.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Wet_Boots</i>
<br />Your inquiry of 4/26 was a request for someone to write a how-to tutorial for you. Expect such posts to go unanswered. If you can't find the information online, then watch the next repairman you hire, and write your own tutorial.

I can't agree with a $80 price for a stainless I-20, but allow me to express my admiration and envy for that repairman's ambition. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

FYI the $80 price was for plain vanilla plastic, not ss. And what you profess to admire pretty much says it all: just what you would do if only you thought you could pull it off, right? As for my request to "write a how-to tutorial," what I asked was for information about the

"sort of parts and/or specialized tools I should order in addition to the rotors"

Doesn't sound like a request for a tutorial to me; it's not about system design, or coverage, or what sort of heads, or anything but the most basic question, tantamount to my asking "Are there any tips I should keep in mind in replacing an old broken rotor?" If that's the kind of proprietary information you're so loathe to share you ought to feel defensive.

Where we are is suburban Boston, but what conceivable difference does that make? An I20 is $12.84 on the website associated with this whatever you want to call it, and it's the same whether you're in Chestnut Hill or Colorado Springs. I likewise have no idea whether HD sells Hunter rotors; I was just reacting to heaviside's reference to a "big box store," by which I assume he meant HD, Lowes or Walmart. But they are pretty widely available on the web and that's the standard of comparison.

As for the backflow preventers it was incomptence or negligence pure and simple. The shut-offs are (and were) just fine, thanks. The lines weren't fully cleared in the fall; when the ice inside the preventers melted in the spring it just popped the valves and cracked the casing. We discovered it -- like a broken rotor it's hard to miss -- and our plumber -- who in contrast with the irrigation company is competent, reliable, and honest -- is the one who drew the inference about what went wrong.

We've spent two years rennovating a 100 year old house, mostly generalling the work ourselves. We've been really fortunate to be dealing with honorable tradesmen who pass through the materials costs directly and bill us for their time. We've had only two bad experiences, one with a painter who represented himself to be top drawer, then subbed out the work for a fixed fee of 1/3 the contract price to a crew of undocumented aliens who were unable to complete the job as quickly as their fixed fee contemplated, at which point everyone got tense, we figured out what was going on, and just fired the painter. The other is the irrigation work. The contractor at one level is fair: he charges an hourly rate for labor and is honest about his time. I'm happy to pay that fee. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable markup on the rotors in exchange for the convenience of not having to do it myself. I don't begrudge a business making a fair buck. And if I were installing a new system I'd expect to have to pay for the expertise and effort that went into the system design. But that is not what this is about, and it isn't what my earlier post was about. As for our existing system, everyone agrees that new Hunters are superior to 15-20 year-old Toro's, but even with the old Vision II control unit and replacement of heads as they fail the system as a whole pretty much does its job. We fix it only to the extent it's broke, which thus far has been all but confined to replacing rotors.

You have to decide for yourselves what's reasonable for that. I'd guess that, charging $35 for a $12 item, plus labor (probably a minimum of an hour), plus (probably, if you have to go out and replace a single rotor) some fixed start-up fee for th

Your question was too far-ranging. Asking <i>"How do I fix a sprinkler system?" </i> will get you silence. If you don't have the smarts to observe someone in action, or the patience to just do some investigating on your own, either by way of internet, or better yet, with a shovel in your hands, then you aren't ready to fix your sprinklers.

You still don't know if the lawn sprinkler system shutoff valve is not at fault. Old ball valves can develop very slow leaks, and a lot of systems have no provision for the leaking water to wind up somewhere other than in the outdoor plumbing. Pardon me for observing that you aren't experienced enough to know a very-slow-leaking ball valve when you see it. Repeated freeze damage is one indication. And it isn't always a constant slow leak. It might leak one winter, but not the next, if the leak were a small enough one.

I do dislike the term 'commercial' when used in connection with lawn sprinkler equipment. Either something is reliable or it isn't. It happens that a PGP has the same internal construction as the I-20, stainless steel or no, so I just use the PGP. I don't lose any sleep charging $25 for a PGP, since they list for more than twenty. My 'praise' for the outrageous price quote was entirely sardonic.

One possibility exists for a person being quoted eighty bucks for a I-20, and that is that the person receiving the outrageous quote is a royal pain in the a$$, and is basically being told to go bother someone else.

But that's just a possibility. An incompetent price-gouging repair guy could also be a possibilty. Professionals aren't going to praise or protect them. They aren't going to teach you their trade, either, so don't bother asking. Avail yourself of what is already on the internet, and proceed from there. Having declared yourself as not trusting anyone in the sprinkler repair biz is not going to get you much in the way of advice from professionals.

i like sprinkler guys response, concise and to the point.

hey wetboots and sprinkler guy, when is the next, "professional irrigation system servicers and installers association" meeting?

hey rtswis you sound like one of those guys that likes to do all the repair stuff around your house- and thats awesome, I do the same thing around mine.

But, don't get pissed off when you discover the "sprinkler repair guy" is actually making a living off the jobs he does- and you figure out you could have done the job yourself for much less. I'm sure the other guys on this site like myself get tired of customers wanting a repair made the same day they call and actually have the nerve to bitch about the price we charge. If you get a high price, call someone else!

Quoted

<i>Originally posted by Tom</i>
<br />hey rtswis you sound like one of those guys that likes to do all the repair stuff around your house- and thats awesome, I do the same thing around mine.

But, don't get pissed off when you discover the "sprinkler repair guy" is actually making a living off the jobs he does- and you figure out you could have done the job yourself for much less. I'm sure the other guys on this site like myself get tired of customers wanting a repair made the same day they call and actually have the nerve to bitch about the price we charge. If you get a high price, call someone else!

Quoted

Tom and Others, I think you guys have missed the Boat on this and all these Posts. this is a Forum to help others not run them down.
IF YOU GIVE GOOD ENOUGH <font color="red"></font id="red">HELPFUL<font color="red"></font id="red"> INFORMATION YOU WILL HELP YOUR INDUSTRY AND EVERY ONE ELSE WILL WANT TO HIRE YOU OR OTHERS LIKE YOU IN THEIR OWN TOWN! LET THE HOME OWNER TRY HIS LUCK AT IT AND THEN THEY WILL COME BACK TO YOU FOR HELP AFTER THEY HAVE FAILED AND WILL BE WILLING TO PAY THROUGH THE NOSE, AT THAT POINT!!!!!
LISTENING TO THESE POSTS I WOULDN'T WANT TO HIRE ANY OF YOU.
BESIDES I DO ALL MY OWN WORK TOO LIKE "rtswis" FOR JUST THIS REASON.
LATER....
MUCH LATER

[]

So, mister do-all-your-own-work, tell the nice man how to fix sprinklers. He's waiting.