I Just Got the ROLLS-ROYCE of Irrigation Systems

when it comes to having the best lawn possible there are two issues that almost everyone faces inconsistent watering and inefficient watering so in this video we're going to show you how we streamline both by installing one of the best irrigation systems on the market by well-trained professionals so we're back with our buddy kevin from hunter industries and he's going to walk us through step by step on what exactly goes into having a professional in-ground irrigation system installed all right guys this is going to be a good [Music] [Music] for transparency purposes i do want to give an extra special shout out to hunter industries and rainmakers irrigation for supplying the parts tools equipment and labor in order for us to make this video so we could get it out to you guys believe it or not kevin before i met you last year i was thinking about doing this irrigation system as a diy project but the pre-installation process alone scared me away from i would say it scares a lot of homeowners away you know what many overlook are the things like permitting that has to transpire as well as head layout and proper hydrozoning making sure that we're grouping like areas together and then in addition to that you also have to consider the volume of water and the pressure of water you have available to work with that in combination with the actual layout the guys did the morning of most of that's right over everybody's head so kevin when i was researching how to do this myself as a diy project i didn't realize that i would have to have this special plumbing device that's up to code here in illinois can you tell me a little bit about that yeah for sure what we're looking at here is a backflow prevention device and essentially this is the protection on any irrigation system that ensures water that's already in your irrigation lines aren't going to make it back into your potable drinking water supply just to get you to this point no further an irrigation system you've got to be a licensed plumber number one and you have to have a cross connection license because after the installation of this it has to be tested in this neck of the woods that's going to cost you 1500 to 2 000 so if i was to do this myself i would actually have to pay out of pocket for that plus all the materials just diy you got it and don't forget about the pipe puller and augering machine to get the pipe into the ground along with it i wasn't even thinking about that yeah there's a lot [Music] so kevin i actually want to ask you earlier today when they had that like big machine cutting into the ground i was wondering what that was it was a little loud earlier but can you tell me what that did yeah for sure the device is called a vibratory plow as well as a what we call an auger giving us the ability to go under sidewalks as well if we want to be as minimally disruptive to a yard as possible and a pipe puller is always the best option if the ground conditions allow for it the other option is hand digging no one likes to do that or trenching trenching creates more disruption in your yard requires more manual labor to put the dirt back into the hole the pipe puller is just that we are pulling the pipe underground leaving just a minimal slit you saw the fellas walk it over tamp it down surround and drown for a couple of weeks and it's like we were never there [Music] now we're going to take a look inside what we call a valve box open this one up right here they open pretty easily with a pocket knife especially on a new install it takes a little longer after it's been in the ground a bit come on in and take a peek in this particular valve box we have three solenoid valves now the solenoid valves manage a relationship between the irrigation timer and itself so the irrigation timer sends an electrical signal just like our brain sends to our heart and that electrical signal once received by the solenoid valve actuates a diaphragm inside of it that turns on a specific grouping of heads so anytime you see sprinkler heads running at your house in a fully automated system that means one valve is currently running at that point in [Music] [Applause] time what you're bearing witness to right now is franco doing what we call the hookup now when i started an irrigation you had to do the grunt work first right that's the digging that's the back filling that's what you see going around the rest of the yard this was the glorified position this is like the doctor of the yard you're doing all the connections which is extremely important connecting polyethylene pipe together with insert fittings and crimp clamps and then going to something we call flex pipe it's funny pipe silly pipe franco what do you like to call it oh flexible flexible pipe yeah that would be the accurate term for it and the flexible pipe is what bridges the gap between your sprinkler head and the pipe in the ground the reason that it's not super rigid and semi-flexible is that when you're stepping on the heads in the ground used to be a rigid nipple connecting it directly to the polyethylene not giving it a lot of wiggle room and easily could break at the base of the head or at the fitting in the ground the flexible pipe allows for some forgiveness we're in a climate where we have freeze thaw there's a little bit of upheaval heads settle things of that nature and flex pipe allows for that to happen so now franco's going to do what is the most important part of a hookup and that's called setting the head so once he makes his connection from the flex pipe to the polyethylene you're going to find that he puts the dirt all the way around the sprinkler head because we want to make sure the sprinkler head is perfectly level so that when it pops up it pops up straight and the mp rotator can omit a water evenly so setting that head making sure that it's secure in its location is very very important piece of the puzzle so he's got actually two heads going in this particular trench because of your landscape and some obstructions if we attempted to do it with one head with a 180 degree nozzle we'd be getting your whole back patio wet george so instead we're using two heads with specific nozzles that will avoid your patio and cover your turf area more accurately you know if you want to cut corners you would have used one head opened it up to 180 degrees gotten your back patio wet but that's not what we're about here and that's not what rainmakers is about so they're putting it in doing it right this is something that would easily be missed if it was a diy installation the struggle's real here george again your di wires above ground irrigation have at it below ground fully automated professional you can see this man working extremely hard this is labor intense work right here [Music] so george now that the lines are flushed what we need to do is remove the flush cap and insert the mp rotator we're going to take our mp rotator hold the riser with one hand thread it on clockwise with the opposing hand so when we have it on there you want that left set edge near what you call the domination line right the difference between you and the neighbor so that's going to be where we adjust from so it adjusts clockwise fixed edge here and we open it up towards the other edge of the hardscape all right george so when we're looking to select which type of irrigation product we want to go with in your setup i took in a couple of things to consider number one water is really expensive in the midwest and it's also a precious natural resource we only have so much of so that said we're using what's called a pressure regulated spray body the pro-spray psr 40 which is specifically designed to pair with the mp rotator that means regardless of how much water pressure is coming to the head the nozzle is only going to see 40 pounds of pressure and after the head goes off the water that's in the lateral pipe will not go and puddle around the sprinkler head and run off the check valve traps the water in the irrigation pipe and actually utilizes it on the next irrigation cycle beyond that we topped it off properly with the mp rotator the most efficient short radius irrigation product in the industry today for a couple of reasons number one efficiency when we compare the evenness of distribution of water with the mp rotator versus what we call a traditional spray nozzle the mp has shown to be as high as 30 to 35 percent more efficient in its evenness of distributing water then the application rate the mp rotator has the one of the lowest application rates of the industry at four tenths of an inch per hour the average amount of infiltration rate for soil is about a half inch per hour so anytime we're laying down more than that it's going to run off it's going to go down the curb and it's going to be wasted water that you're paying for so we don't like to see that so that's why we like a product like the mp that has that slow application rate of four tenths of an inch per hour the third and final one is these individual streams if you take a close look at them each one has a specific different trajectory so they're covering a set area in the yard as it rotates there's one that comes out and is an enclosed sweet sweeper stream that's a negative 10 and then one that's going out to the full 18 foot distance in this case also these individual streams have been proven to hold up in its wind speeds as high as 25 miles per hour so that's a big deal too because as you know most short radius spray nozzles are easily distorted by wind and anytime that happens and we're not putting the water where we want it we're wasting water that precious natural resource and a very expensive one in this neck of the woods vince i noticed you're running these heads separate from the ones in the front part of the yard but you had enough water pressure and volume of water to run both is there a reason you separated them out correct we did have plenty of pressure to run the whole front yard in one zone but the sun rises from the east over here and this half of the yard gets way more sun exposure than this half of the yard so what we did was broke it down into two so you can really customize that runtime nice so we're using the right amount of water because otherwise you'd be over watering in one area and under watering in another right you'll see dry spots in one side green on one side or the opposite one more reason to hire a professional all right kevin so honestly the thing that i like about this system the most is the smart controller capabilities where i could just turn on the irrigation system on my phone yeah you're talking to the right guy at hunter they call me the wi-fi evangelist because i like to make smarter decisions faster and the hydrawise software allows for that to take place a you have remote access right but that's simple that's nothing too impressive what's happening on the back side is the software is actually monitoring the electrical integrity of the entire system as well as the hydraulic integrity right so if you've got a broken pipe a broken head a short in your wiring you and rainmakers know about it right when it happens rather until it turns into damaged landscape or a high water bill so real time notification it's like rain makers has an extra tech right here at your home 24 7 monitoring your system in addition to that the savings in terms of water usage we use what's called hyper local weather where globally we're pulling from over 400 data points and every night at midnight that content gets uploaded to your irrigation controller to make micro adjustments to the run times or eliminate them all together if there's some rain and scheduled in the forecast but yeah when it comes to irrigation wi-fi controllers hydrawise is the only option i'm here today with rainmaker's irrigation and the mason family we have ed mason and who'd you bring with you today i brought my sons uh dominic vince we're all over the chicagoland area we take care of some pretty high profile species yeah we do yeah yeah we take care of the good friend of mine roger bastard over at guaranty right now oh the godfather the sod father everybody knows father yeah so roger and i have known each other for many many years and uh homes are very important to me as well you know uh designing a system is very important laying it out and just for george i noticed you went with the six inch pop-up as opposed to the board yep yep got a little bit higher pop for george i like that let's talk to the diy community about installing our own lawn sprinkler system easy task no not an easy task lots of digging uh having the proper machinery does make it a little bit more a little bit easier but again the professionals have the machinery but there's still lots of digging to do making sure utilities are not hurt you don't want to hit a gas line or an electric line or anything like that in someone's home but not an easy task i mean there's a lot of hand work involved with setting on an average house i'm going to say there's 40 to 50 sprinkler heads on an average hole for the diy community that's 40 to 50 holes that are approximately a foot to a foot and a half wide and 10 to 12 inches deep so we're removing that earth placing the lawn sprinkler in there doing a hookup and then from there backfilling it with all the dirt and stamping it down with the sludge hammer getting it level with grade correct yeah it's it's an investment in your home you know it's it's kind of like anything with decking and fencing and things like that um just you know unless you know what you're doing it's not an easy task yeah i mean you wouldn't uh take on putting in a new hvac system at your home or running the electric unless you were an electrician right or an hvac professional so installing a professional lawn sprinkler system hire professional rain makers mason family here give them a shout they'll take care of you all right kevin now that the project is over i gotta say there's no better feeling knowing that i have a fully automated professional irrigation system and i never have to use those sprinklers ever again i agree hose wrestling is always best kept a spectator sport and if you're interested in having a hunter preferred contractor give you an estimate on a fully automated irrigation system just click that link below it'll take you straight to our website you can fill in your information and we'll distribute it out to a professional in your area you

Channel: Princess Cut Lawn Care

Views: 93,345

Keywords: Irrigation, Sprinkler, Water Lawn, Irrigation System, Lawn, Lawn Care, Smart Irrigation, Irrigation Project, Sprinkler installation, Hunter irrigation, Rainbird Irrigation, Rainbird Sprinkler System, Above ground sprinkler system, Best time to water lawn, Best lawn sprinkler system company, DIY, DIY Irrigation, DIY Sprinkler system, DIY irrigation system, Irrigation controller, Irrigation system installation, How to install sprinkler system, wyze sprinkler controller, mp rotator

Id: 3w3gq0_qsh4

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/CanIGetASourceOnThat]

I'm getting ready to DIY my own setup, I don't have an existing lawn so I'm not worried about tearing it up. I liked the instructional aspect of the video but almost 50% of it was them discouraging people from DIY which I think is a little disappointing. Yes, it's a lot of work and you need to research local codes and regulations, but not everyone can afford to pay an additional $3k-$5k in labor costs to get a professional. I get that the guy runs a business but you can focus on the work without putting down DIYers.

[u/Emjoy99]

What you may be overlooking is something beyond code. It is design. Assembling all the parts is not difficult for a solid DIY dude. You need to understand hydraulics so that your hard work of installing isn’t wasted.

Subtle differences in design can have a huge impact on performance. It’s way more complicated than most people realize.

My suggestion is to get a professional design. You can still save real money but it won’t disappoint. They calculate head spacing, location as well as pipe sizing. A material list is also included if you request it.

I see DIY systems regularly and they all suck to put it bluntly. The decision is yours so make a good one!

[u/Toxic_Throb]

Blow torching the funny pipe lol

[u/Outdoorlivin]

Pretty good video. Happy to see how I do it quite similar myself.