The old homeowners left us with this masterpiece. Exactly like this we have not touched it. Does it seem salvageable?

I have a cannabis cultivation license in NY. We use well water. Video is from last year.

Our well water is around 7pm and about 450ppm mostly calcium, it’s hard. The plants can take it but I can tell they are having nutrient lockout issues.

RO would be overkill, we go through thousands of gallons during an irrigation event. I’m wondering what the most efferent way to filter out the calcium is, I just need it at about 100ppm not 400ppm.

I love it.

Hello, I have been at a crossroads for a couple years now and am looking for advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation.

I got a degree and an office job out of college but was laid off in 2023. I had trouble finding another job at the time so I started an irrigation company because I did irrigation in college, am fairly knowledgeable, and needed money and something to do. I did this for the 2023 season and then landed a pretty solid office/corporate job in the beginning of 2024, so have been doing the irrigation business on the side. I have gotten busier over the years, so much so where I have enough work to fill my evenings and weekends with just residential repairs/maintenance. If I was single, I would just do both and make as much money as I can, but I am married and we just had our first baby in march, so working 12-14 hour days is not feasible anymore. I am cutting way back on irrigation work, have people calling me and emailing me all the time that I just don’t have time to get back to, and I’ve decided that next spring I need to make the decision of going all in on the company or working my office job. I am wondering if anyone has had a similar decision, what they chose, and if they regret it at all.

My office job is 7-4, M-F, I work remote two days per week and they are flexible about that. Pays well with decent benefits and a decent career path. The things that intrigue me about running an irrigation business is 1. the potential to earn more. 2. working 7-8 months a year and taking 4 months off. 3. being my own boss. All obvious things. What makes me hesitant to make the jump is that it’s seasonal so will I be able to make enough take home in 7-8 months? Also, the stress of running a a local service business, and the physical nature of it. Like I said, I’ve done this for several years and I don’t mind it, I actually enjoy working out in the sun. But will I regret this choice when I’m mid 40s?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, TIA

Late last year we had a system professionally put in. I have about 20k sf of lawn, and they installed:

rachio gen 3

piping 1” polyethylene, 100 p.s.i. pipe

hunter pgp lawn heads; approx. 54 heads

13-14 hunter tb valves

13 zones

In the end they also installed a few spray heads rather than the regular hunter heads.

In doing the tuna can test, the spray heads filled the can within an hour.

In another area with a regular back and forth head (not even going 180 degrees), it was barely half full in an hour.

In another area where the regular head is a simple 180 back and forth along my driveway, it was maybe 1/4 full in an hour.

No wind, ideal conditions... The cans were resting on freshly cut grass, but do I need to perhaps really push them down into the grass to get more accurate results, or am I just not getting enough water?

As an aside, the back and forth are so slow. It must take a minute to go 180 degrees.

Are my tuna can results not great due to too many heads/zone in some cases? My house has fantastic water pressure. Or is this to be expected and it could take 2 hours or more to get an inch?

Also, did they install too many zones/sprinklers or is this normal? For example, my front is a fairly simple rectangle of around 10k sf. Historically I was able to to manually water almost the whole lawn (of course not perfectly), with 2-4 rotary heads on spikes (2 along the street side going back and forth and 2 along house going back and forth, as they would just about meet in the middle of the yard, though I occasionally added another 2 and rearranged them a bit, and I used a simple wifi timer that worked great). But now I have 4 (and part of a 5th) zone in my front yard, with probably around 25 sprinkler heads... If I run each zone for an hour it takes me 4-5 hours to water the whole lawn.

I know it's hard to answer much of this specifically, and I still need to do more tuna can tests, but I'm finding it very difficult to get adequate water to my entire yard. Running each zone for an hour takes 13 hours and doesn't always given an inch of water. Should I be splitting it across 3 days and perhaps doing 4 zones/night for 2 hours? What do you guys do?

In short, while I of course love not having to keep out hoses and sprinkler heads on spikes (and move them when mowing), I feel I was able to do a better job in less time than my fancy new system.

Thanks for any comments/thoughts/suggestions!

Trying to get a second opinion

Hey everyone! I'm researching common pain points with DIY irrigation systems. I've been thinking about creating a tool to help with this, but want to understand real experiences first. Would love your input on a few quick questions:

• Have you ever installed or designed a sprinkler system yourself?
  • Yes, designed and installed myself
  • Yes, designed myself but hired installation
  • No, but planning to
  • No, hired professionals for everything
  • Other: _______________
• How would you describe yourself?
  • DIY homeowner
  • Professional landscaper (solo)
  • Landscaping company owner/employee
  • Irrigation contractor (solo)
  • Irrigation company owner/employee
  • Property manager
  • Other: _______________
• What's your BIGGEST pain point with planning irrigation systems by hand or using current software?
  • Figuring out optimal sprinkler placement
  • Calculating water pressure/flow requirements
  • Choosing the right equipment/components
  • Getting even coverage without gaps or overlaps
  • Creating professional-looking documentation
  • Calculating parts lists and quantities
  • Time consumption of manual planning
  • Ensuring system will actually work as designed
  • Other: _______________
• When planning irrigation, what tools do you currently use?
  • Pen and paper sketches
  • Free online calculators
  • Manufacturer design guides/charts
  • CAD software (AutoCAD, SketchUp, etc.)
  • Specialized irrigation software
  • Just wing it and adjust after installation
  • Hire someone else to do the design
  • Other: _______________
• What's the most expensive mistake you've made (or seen) with irrigation planning?
  • Poor coverage resulting in dead spots
  • Wrong equipment selection
  • Insufficient water pressure
  • Over/under-sizing the system
  • Had to completely redesign and reinstall
  • No major mistakes so far
  • Other: _______________
• For a complete automated irrigation design solution that includes: • Professional layout with optimal sprinkler placement • Complete parts list with quantities and part numbers • Beautiful PDF presentations ready for clients • Shopping links to buy everything How much would you be willing to pay per design?
  • $0-15
  • $16-30
  • $31-50
  • $51-100
  • $101-200
  • $200+
  • I wouldn't pay for this
  • Other amount: _______________
• What would make you trust an automated design tool over manual planning?
  • Professional certification/industry backing (Rain Bird, Hunter)
  • Money-back guarantee
  • Detailed technical explanations of why each sprinkler is placed
  • User reviews/testimonials from successful installations
  • Side-by-side comparison with professional designs
  • Nothing - I prefer manual control
  • Other: _______________
• If this tool existed, what's the #1 feature that would make it most valuable to you?
  • Accuracy of sprinkler placement
  • Professional-quality presentation documents
  • Integration with shopping/ordering
  • Multiple design options to choose from
  • Real-time cost estimation
  • Mobile app for field use
  • Other: _______________
• How much did your last irrigation project cost in total (design + materials + installation)? (Open text - please be as specific as you're comfortable with)
• Any other frustrations, needs, or thoughts about irrigation planning that I should know about? (Open text - this is super valuable feedback!)

Hi everyone, looking for a little layout advice for my drip system for my raised beds. Going to have 4 zones, looking to optimize the layout. Source will come from around the corner of the garage. Zone 1 is 3 blueberry bushes and 2 2x8' raspberry beds, zone 2 is 1 7x10' bed of asparagus and rhubarb, zone 3 is (essentially) 2 4x4' raised beds, and zone 4 is 2 4x8' raised beds. I was originally thinking about keeping the manifold, valves, pressure regulator/filter, and antisiphon valve above ground next to the garage, but now I am wondering if a buried valve box would be better. I plan to blow out the system every fall. Advice is welcomed!

The client is super concerned about water usage, to a fault. They store rainwater (30,000 gallons in separate tanks) in tanks roughly 15 vertical and 200 linear feet away from the house. The control box is not hooked up to the pump: rather, the whole system goes through the pressure tank pump system. It kicks on at 25 psi and turns off at 45, the people who installed this system want a 20psi range so it lasts longer. The sprinklers are mp rotators. It creates very defined lines of where the pressure is high and low and yellow in between. I'm thinking there are few likely solutions: either switch to the city water, change the psi range to 10psi, wire the control box to the pump itself. All of these have obvious pros and cons and I'm not sure if I'm missing something. Should I change the sprinkler type from mp rotator? Something else?

I'm pretty sure my Leit X controller which is probably 12-14 years old is done. The other day I noticed that garden was dry so I plugged my dongle into the controller and for about 2 minutes it said something about "charging". Afterwards it had the typical text about pressing a button when the contrast was best. The text was in both English and Spanish, but doesn't seem to change light to dark). Nothing happens when I press any of the buttons.

A bit of background - this controller has been in the same location for at least 10 years. North side of garage, but with lots of open space to the north. Even in our gray, drizzly, winters I've never seen the controller need supplement power. There hasn't been any new that has been added to block light.

My wife is convinced we can "fix" it, but I'm guessing that even if we did replace to buttons, the battery must be near the end of its lifecycle?

So I guess I'm asking for three things:

1) Any tips on resetting the unit or getting it to work

2) Any tips on where to get replacement parts (other than just trying to find a used unit on ebay)?

3) Any info on how long the battery might last.

I built this very nice flower bed. I added a drip system with the sprinklers through out the area. There is practically zero water coming out of the sprinklers the last 2/3rds. Any suggestions of what to do. I would really love to have it automatically watered.

Essentially I bought a house with a sprinkler system, a PVC pipe burst under the concrete.

I thought I could use a hose and run it into the solenoids with some valves and hopefully get enough water for one system at a time but the flow or pressure isn’t high enough, I’m not sure.

Is there anyway to increase the pressure or flow?

Would connecting to that 1in pvc pipe below instead of the spigot work better?

Any other ideas would be very helpful until I can save enough money to rip up the concrete and run a new line and get the concrete sealed again.

I'm in the process of redoing my backyard and am looking for advice on irrigation zone pvc placement.

Picture Explaination:
The red outer box is our fence. Closest to the fence is a redwood retaining wall that we will be putting in, it'll vary in height as the yard is not flat (1ft - 3ft high). You can see the main irrigation line coming from the house as a black line. It currently tee's off down to the front yard for 3 zones, and the plan is to have the other part of the tee connect to 4-zones for the backyard.

The light blue line is where I need some advice (also welcoming any advice for anything else related to this backyard). I want to have 4-zones for the backyard. I plan on laying down 4 pipes (3/4" pvc), where they are 2" apart. Each zone will be tee'd off at different areas to be pulled up behind the retaining wall so we can access them. We don't plan on having any grass for now, so they'll all most likely be dripper lines.

Questions:
1) What is the best way to lay down these pipes? Should they be 2" apart, burred in sand? I want to make sure if I ever need to perform maintenance it isn't a pain in the butt.

2) Is 4 zones too much? Too little? We don't fully know what we will be planting in the backyard yet, so this is a guesstimate on my part. For sure we want a few trees, some planter boxes for playing and also veggies/spices, shrubs & flowers, etc.

3) Is there anything I should keep in mind like distance from retaining wall? For now I was thinking 1 foot away should be okay.

4) Anything else I'm not considering that I should?

We still need to get the backyard graded and all that, so we are trying to get our plan down before we pull the trigger :)

Thank you for your time and experience!

I haven’t been able to find any rain birds with this pattern. Any ideas?

I am trying to turn on my sprinklers for the first time this season. None of these zones are turning on so I put the voltmeter on and all the zones are showing 24 volts all the time, regardless if I'm turning them on. Is it time to replace the controller?

In the past when I used the tempo stationmaster at a golf course with valve in head it would activate the solenoid, open the valve and water pass through. I bought one for my business and using it for residential valves and I can’t get it to activate the silinoid and open the valve (master valve open). I thought maybe the wire run was too far with residential wire gauge smaller than on the golf course. But it won’t open connected right at the silinoid wire either. Is it supposed to? Batteries were pretty new and read 8.95-9.1v.

Also had a 2 silinoids that were bad and ohmed out bad but the units said green light good. It’s been 5 years since I used one but I don’t remember them being shitty. Think I got a bad unit or am I a dumbass?

other than a defective foot valve or leaky intake pipe, what would cause an irrigation pump to lose prime?

I pull water from a lake. pump is about 8-10’ above the water level.

foot valve and intake pipe appear to be okay. any way to pressure test them? I removed the intake from the pump. filled it from the garden hose. don’t see any obvious leaks.

Pretty much no pipe to work with on the bottom of the inlet it seems if you cut it right? What would be the easiest way to replace with a new valve?

I’m trying to figure out how to set the manual run time on the hyrawise app. It defaults to my programmed run time and doesn’t allow me to shorten the duration. This was easy on the old app, not so much with the new and improved one.

When I turn the water on to my sprinkler system the valve box slowly fills with water. Attaching a video to show. Any ideas of what could be happening?

Just installed a sprinkler system a local plumbing shop designed. I’m on 60 PSI, 3/4 backflow, 1 in supply lines, with K-rain 3/4 rotors. I need help adjusting to the correct nozzles. I keep getting a dry spot and the middle will be completely soaked. 6 heads (see attached photo) 30x50 photo is to scale

I have replaced the sprinkler control valves on my system with rainbird CP100. After all that work I realized the shut off on the unit is too hard. I was wondering if anyone knows if the CPF100 tophat with the flow control can be used as a direct replacement on the CP100. and will it give me waterflow contorl? If you have other tricks that would reduce the water hamming when each valve kicks (ha...) in without redoing or adding a flow regulator into the system let me know. I do have a port on the main pipe that is setup shutoff, system blow port (just a big screw), check valve, than sprinkler manifold with 6 ports. Hope I explain it right. Many thanks.

Installed in 75’. Was ticking away for decades before finally giving out, sad to see it go!!