Everyone off christmas shopping? I'm working for a few more days and then I'll take until the new year off. With temperatures around 38 during the day in 25 at night, I'm ready for a mini break. Just to keep this irrigation related, we do a lot of work before the landscapers have the final grade, or topsoil done. Most of the time, we just poke our swing pipe up out of the ground where heads should go until they are done, and then install the heads. Does anyone else do this? Its saved us considerable time trying to locate buried or broken heads.
I think a lot of the guys that are done winterizing check out until March... bicmud... this is from a different post but I usually have pretty good success from the new homeowners calling just from the sticker I leave on the timer. I find most homeowners take a stab at it themselves and then if there's a problem they call the company on the timer figuring they know the system. sometimes the new homeowner will call right away and ask "how often or when the last time the system was serviced"
I'll do the same when doing a yard. Trench and place all the pipe/swing fittings for each head. Mark with flag, grade the yard after backfilling, amend accordingly, then go back and place heads. Sucks that it is so cold everywhere. We are hovering around 70, may reach record high of 80 on X-mas day. Beautiful season for some new sprinklers and grass planting. And yes, the grass is wonderfully green here, the rye that is.
Going back and putting the heads on later???? God bless you, we would do that for an additional price. But otherwise we are a one day install (avg. 0.5hr per zone) the only landscapers that ask us to go back and put the heads on are ones without experience.
Was accused of not having a life so I for one cut back on posts except in the off topic forum. On rare occasions we'll do this. Most of the time we set the heads to the rough grade. Then we may have to go back in and reset some of them. If we've moved on to other critical projects or repairs then the boss will have groundsworkers raise/lower the heads because they're all on swing joints. This was done last week where a complete renovation of a varsity baseball infield was being completed with the sod laying and we were tied up on main line leaks at other sites. Of course, we're in a different situation here.
On a little different note... We run into many instances where portable buildings need to be set for say a six month period while another school site is being completed. Then the portables will be removed. They are often put down on a thin layer of asphalt. We'll remove the sprinkler heads and lower the swing joints so they won't get broken during this process. However, we'll leave the swing joints uncapped and turn off affected zones. When the portable is removed and the asphalt scraped off then we can fire the zone and find the swings by the leaks. Makes life easier.
Yeah were about the same. If the landscaper burrys them we charge them each head to raise. if we know how much higher the top soil is going to be we leave the head up 2"-3" .
The issue out here isn't usually a buried head, its the guys with skid steers and soil conditioners taking them out. You can run over a swing pipe tail with a harley rake and it wont destroy it, try that with a PGP.
I have probably posted this before but what the hell. We install probably 90% on new properties. We want the finish grade to be done except for grass seeding. This is usually either hydroseed or is drilled in. Either way, they will rake with tractor before seeding, to level what we leave. We try to leave the topsoil on the surface of course. We have had good luck with this procedure and most irrigation contractors in the area do it the same way. John
I guess I forgot to mention I am the irrigation installer and the landscaper. No one to blame or answer to but myself. Easier for me to put them on last right before seed.
