00:00:00] Hey everyone. Thanks for joining the podcast today. I am Wade Carter, your host with the Sprinkler Tech All Stars. Just a little touch about myself. I've been working with homeowners for the last 20 years, so I work with homeowners. We do irrigation work for them, so think like we're the plumbers for your sprinkler system, and we've learned how to build a successful business, working 100% with homeowners by presenting overwhelming value.

[00:00:27] That we've succeeded. So we have over 15 service technicians that service our homeowners locally. And what I'm doing in this podcast is I'm bringing the lessons that we learned over the last two decades to you to help you be the best technician that you can be and make the type of money where it would, you'd feel crazy to do anything else besides doing irrigation tech and for clients.

[00:00:48] What we'll talk about today is why, what is some secret weapons for irrigation technicians? The MP rotator is one of my favorite troubleshooting [00:01:00] tools for homeowners. And let me explain, let me set this up. I went to a homeowner's house and they had this terrible. Water hammer.

[00:01:08] And what would happen is every time their irrigation system would switch between zones three and zone four, you would get this terrible pipe maing so loud. That my client told me that they were watering at terrible times of the day. Okay? Their irrigation system was programmed to water at 9, 10, 11 o'clock in the morning.

[00:01:29] Because if they watered when they should, which is the watering is completed within one hour of sunrise, we want 'em water in the early morning, just before dawn in our market. What would happen is it would wake them up. The guy even told me, he said, you feel like he's being robbed, like his house is being robbed.

[00:01:45] It would wake him up. He couldn't do that. He had to water at a terrible time of the day to overcome the crappy effects of water hammer on his sprinkler system. And he's calling me to help him try to figure out what the heck is going on with his sprinkler system. So I arrive [00:02:00] and I know that fundamentally, there is a reason why water hammer exists and causes issues within irrigation system.

[00:02:07] And why would it only be present between switching zones? Three to four. All right. So is that's when it was the absolute most present. The basic answer is water hammer occurs when the velocity of water is too fast inside of a pipe media. Now, typically for copper pipe, you don't want to exceed seven Q.

[00:02:29] You don't want to exceed seven feet per second of velocity. With PVC and polyethylene pipes, you don't want to exceed five feet of five feet per second of water velocity, so a water column flowing through a copper pipe. If it exceeds a velocity of seven feet per second, then what's gonna happen is you are going to get cavitation at your joints and elbows.

[00:02:51] And when that zone closes, you've got this column of water that comes to an abrupt stop and it, and it shifts the inertia, shifts the pipe and it causes. [00:03:00] Banging to the pipes. It could cause loud clanging. It could be water hammer that happens when the zone is operating. You hear it bang.

[00:03:06] When the zone is in operation and. What that is that's gonna cause premature failure of components of the irrigation system if they've overdesigned a zone and there's too much water flowing through the irrigation system. So I arrive at this gentleman's house and he turns on the sprinkler system.

[00:03:22] We're in the basement of his house. He activates zones, and then when it switches from zone three to four, I'm telling you, it sounded like you were clanging pots and pans in the basement. All right. And this guy he is a nice guy. He's a, he's retired and him and his wife have a nice home in a nice area of town.

[00:03:36] And I could tell that their landscape has probably been, at least it was done by somebody that knew what they were doing because the landscape looked like it, it was approved for the hoa. It had the correct amount of density of plantings in the beds, and the irrigation system at first glance appeared to be installed correctly.

[00:03:55] So what happened was, he's got this crazy pipe, bang. This water hem are between [00:04:00] zones three and four, and he's asking me to do something about it now. This is where it gets a little bit tricky when you're working with your clients because you are working with your clients and you have to demonstrate complete control of a problem that they might be having with their sprinkler system.

[00:04:14] And if you can't do that, they're gonna be hard pressed to accept your solution for what's going on. So as always, I've got a diagnostic fee that I've authorized up front. I've got my dispatch fee that I've, conditioned them for. I'm here today. It costs X amount of dollars to get me to your house.

[00:04:29] I'm drug tested, background check, professionally trained, blah blah, blah, right? Value presentation. Tell me what problems you've been experiencing. Now what you guys have to do is, this is where a lot of technicians really screw up. They don't ask enough questions. I drilled this guy for 20 minutes asking him questions, when did you move into the house?

[00:04:51] How long has this problem occurred? Were you the original owner of this house? Who was the landscape company that installed your landscape [00:05:00] system? Who is the irrigation company that you've been using to maintain your sprinkler system? Did you get your sprinkler blown out last year? Do you feel like your water bills are high, or have you seen them drastically change recently?

[00:05:13] Has this problem persisted for some time? How long have you been living with this condition? Things like that. So he's explaining to me all these things we're going up and down his stairs of his house, going inside, outside, and he continues to show me how when he's switching between zones three and four.

[00:05:29] Now, when you switch between zones five and six, it would happen two, but it wouldn't be quite, it wouldn't be quite as bad. Okay? Now, interestingly enough, if you turned off zone number three, say you went to the timer and you manually operated zone number three. And then you turn it off, the sound wouldn't happen.

[00:05:49] It would only happen during that split second when you had simultaneous zone operations between zones three and four. If you ran zone number four by itself, [00:06:00] he wouldn't get the pipe noise. If you ran zone number three by itself, he wouldn't get as much of the pipe noise. Now, I know what you're thinking.

[00:06:08] Maybe you can program a station delay between your zones and it would solve the problem. In this case, it was it. It wasn't a matter of being able to do it that way. We weren't gonna program a station delay to resolve the problem. What we needed to do was we needed to reduce the amount of water that was used when that zone was in operation to slow down the velocity of water traveling through the pipe that was causing the pipe noise.

[00:06:32] Zone number three was a spray zone that was in the front yard, and it had a lot of. The Van Series nozzles, which can be opened and closed. So I have this idea in my head, I think I know what the problem is working with this client. So how can I test my idea or my theory to prove that I know how to fix the problem for the client.

[00:06:54] So what I did was I explained to him that pipe noise has everything to do with the velocity of water [00:07:00] traveling through the pipe, and if we can decrease the velocity of water traveling through the pipe. We may be able to make the noise go away. So what I did was, I took those van nozzles, I ran zone number three.

[00:07:13] I closed the nozzles on one of the sprinkler heads. Okay, so that's gonna reduce the amount of gallons per minute for zone operation for that zone. And then I went in the basement and I activated the control valve and the noise was still there, but it wasn't as bad. Okay, so then I went upstairs and I closed an additional nozzle.

[00:07:33] Now this sprinkler zone had five or six sprinkler heads, and before I could get that noise to completely disappear, I had to manually shut half of the sprinkler heads on that zone. Now what happens if we don't do anything but that? Half us yard's gonna freaking die and he we're gonna have a pissed off customer, right?

[00:07:50] But so that's not a solution, but it does demonstrate to the client that I have control of making the symptoms. Disappear [00:08:00] and reappear by affecting how much water the zone needs to operate. So what we do is, after I convince him that, so I take him in the basement I switch from zones three to four, and he can hear that there's absolutely no pipe noise after I've capped three or four of the five or six sprinkler heads operating in the front yard, right?

[00:08:23] I've gotta be 100% absolutely sure that this is gonna solve the problem before I present options for what it's gonna take to get that fixed to the client. So then what I do is I go back downstairs, we listen to it. Do we get the pipe noise again? Yes, we did. Now I go upstairs. I open up the control, I open up the sprinkler heads, the nozzles on that zone.

[00:08:43] I go downstairs, switch to the zones, pipe noises there again. So I am able to close cap those sprinkler heads using the van nozzles and demonstrate full control over the symptom, which is this banging loud pipe noise. So [00:09:00] after I've got my client fully convinced that the solution to his problem is to reduce the amount of water operating on that zone, how are we gonna fix that?

[00:09:10] How are we gonna prevent. How are we gonna reduce the amount of water that zone needs to operate in order to solve the problem permanently? That's when the MP rotator steps in, because an MP rotator is a match precipitation, rotary nozzle that uses a very low amount of gallons per minute. So if we've got spray nozzles, a spray nozzle, that's 180 degrees.

[00:09:34] If you look up the nozzle performance data sheet on the Rain Bird catalog, or the Hunter catalog, You're gonna see right at it's 1.98 gallons per minute. You're gonna see right at two gallons a minute. So for every 90 degrees of static spray at 15 feet, you get approximately one gallon a minute, right?

[00:09:52] So if I've got six sprinkler heads on this zone, they're all perimeter, they're all throwing in. Some of our are a little bit more than 180 degrees [00:10:00] because there's bins in the landscape. Some of them are less than 180 degrees because maybe they're, closer to 90 degrees, but not quite that small.

[00:10:07] Then what's happening is how can I reduce the amount of water that zone needs to operate? If I'm dealing with static sprays, then having an assortment of MP rotators inside of your service truck is an absolute must. Now, this is where you gotta be careful. You're gonna answer five. The client's gonna answer five questions in their mind every time they're going to make a decision about what they're gonna buy.

[00:10:33] What do I need? Where can I, all right, I'll have to come back to the five questions.

[00:10:43] You're gonna have to answer a question for the client is not just that MP rotators will solve the problem, but I've got a suitcase of these MP rotators in my service truck. And you gotta make sure that you pick the right one for the right application because there's a lot of different ways that they can be installed.

[00:10:58] So you want to have. [00:11:00] A question answered in the mind of your client of who should do this work for you? And it needs to be you. Because if you convince them the MP rotators are the solution, then what's gonna happen is they're gonna go, they're gonna go find that solution. They could potentially shop you and get somebody to install MP rotators for cheaper.

[00:11:14] Or they could go to, home Depot or Lowe's and buy their own MP rotators instead of having you replace their MP rotators be, put the MP rotators in to solve their overuse of water on that zone causing the water hammer. So what I say is, look, if we install these MP rotators, they're gonna use approximately one quarter of the amount of water to operate on that zone as your static sprays do.

[00:11:40] So it's gonna, thereby, if I take all six of those sprinkler heads, I changed the nozzles. Now we'll talk about changing nozzles in a second, but I don't change nozzles on sprinkler heads. If I'm going to put MP rotators in, I'm not gonna take that static spray nozzle out and just slap an MP rotator in, because I think what you're doing is you're selling the customer short.

[00:11:58] What I prefer to do, [00:12:00] Is to replace the entire sprinkler head with a P r s 40 with a pressure reducing stem and a check valve. So the regulated pressure per sprinkler head is at 40 psi, which is a sweet spot for MP rotators with an MP rotator nozzle. I present these options to the client after he's fully convinced that if he reduces the amount of water needed to operate the zone, the water hammer's gonna go away.

[00:12:23] He says yes to the repair. See, at that point, what I've done is I've correctly communicated to him the scope of work that it's gonna take to resolve his problem with the sprinkler system. His whole problem was the frigging pipe is banging so loud every single time he turns on his zone. That.

[00:12:40] It's waking up at night and he's not watering at a time of the day when he should be watering. He should be watering in the early morning hours in our market. The Colorado front range, you should be watering your grass so that your last zone is done watering approximately one hour before sunrise. It's the time of the day when typically the evaporation is the lowest.

[00:12:58] The temperatures are the coolest, [00:13:00] the winds are the slowest, and you're gonna get the best saturation in the grass, but also, Kentucky Blue Grass is an arid climate grass. It doesn't like to stay wet, so those guys that water their grass at nine o'clock at night and it just stays wet all night, they're the ones that get in nerotic ring and the mushrooms growing in their yard and all that kind of stuff.

[00:13:16] So I don't recommend to my clients to start watering right when the sun goes down because you don't want your grass to stay wet all night, preferably. You start your cycle run times so that when the last zone is done watering, that's approximately one hour before sunrise. He's not gonna water at that time of day because that's when the freaking pipes are gonna bang and wake him up and thinking he's being robbed.

[00:13:38] So what we've done is we've switched out, we've convinced him that by reducing the amount of water for the zone to operate, you're going to. You're going to prevent the sound, that banging pipe noise, that water hammer of your sprinkler system. So we switch out all six of the front yard sprinkler heads to MP rotators.

[00:13:57] I go down there in the basement, I switch between zones [00:14:00] three and four, and low and behold, there's absolutely no pipe noise. Now what I charge to, dig up and replace six sprinkler heads and my diagnostic effort, I'm walking out of there with about a $900 ticket. And I'm also leaving with a client that is immensely satisfied because I took the time to understand his problem, to give him a solution to his problem that's going to be lifelong.

[00:14:25] Now, interestingly enough, he had another zone in the backyard that was giving him mild pipe noise, but those sprinkler heads were rotors, and I couldn't decrease the amount of water that was used on that particular rotor zone by using MP rotators. What I instead, I would've had to done is to divide the zone into two zones by adding a control valve to the manifold and increasing this timer capacity.

[00:14:50] And because that sort of was at a threshold where he wasn't willing to make that investment, but the pipe noise, when that zone did that was so mild that he said, you know what, I'm gonna live with this zone, [00:15:00] but I'm gonna take care of switching out the MP rotators in the front yard. So this is one way that MP Rotators are a really good solution for over-designed or poorly performing irrigation systems.

[00:15:11] If you're going to keep the lateral zone intact and you're gonna install the MP rotator, or replace the sprinkler heads and put in the MP rotator, especially if you're converting from sprays, static spray heads to MP rotators, it's gonna be a slam dunk every time because you're gonna provide a solution for the client.

[00:15:28] Now, what you have to be careful of, and I'll caution you with the MP rotator, is. If the client maintains their programmed run times in their timer. After you've switched out the MP rotators, that is a big, fat, pissed off customer callback waiting to happen. And the reason is because the MP rotators have a much slower precipitation rate than a static spray head, right?

[00:15:50] So a static spray head with rated coverage, we're talking head-to-head coverage. One head here, one head here. They're reaching each other. That's rated coverage if [00:16:00] static spray head has rated coverage, meaning head-to-head coverage. You're gonna have a precipitation rate of one and a half inches per hour, meaning if you took a Folger's coffee can and you put it in the yard and you let the sprinkler system run for an hour when it was done running on that spray zone, you should see approximately one and one half inches of water inside that Folger's can.

[00:16:23] Now, the precipitation rate of an MP rotator is much slower. The precip rate on an MP rotator is 0.39 inches per hour. Now. For the ease of math, I'm gonna round that up to 0.5, which means the MP rotator is applying water to the grass at a rate that's one third as fast as spray heads. So if you're gonna.

[00:16:47] Option this for your client. You have to also train them that these sprinkler heads take longer to apply the same amount of water to your grass, so you have to increase your run times if you don't. And that homeowner keeps a [00:17:00] 10, 15 minute run time that they used to satisfy the water requirement for their yard with their turf area with a static spray head.

[00:17:07] And you don't put that in for an mp. That customer's gonna call you back in, in like early July, late July, pissed, and they're gonna, rightfully so because their yard's gonna look like crap. It's gonna be dying because it's not getting enough water when you start to enter the peak watering season. So you've gotta condition your clients.

[00:17:24] I would say that's the Achilles heel of the MP rotator is the reduced precipitation rate. Has the potential to create callbacks, but if you're doing your job and you're conditioning it well with clients to have an understanding that they've gotta increase their run times, then it shouldn't be an issue.

[00:17:41] So the way that you build value with the mps is, number one, you talk about the plethora of mps that are available. I think there's 17 if you throw the SRS in there as well. And if there are, you let the customer know that, Hey, I've got every single one of these MP rotators inside my truck and I know exactly how to put 'em in.

[00:17:57] These are the Ferrari of sprinkler heads and they have to be tuned [00:18:00] accordingly. You're gonna get a lot of performance out of it, which means you're gonna stop op, overpaying the water company, but in order to make that performance happen, they have to be installed correctly. All right, and I'm the one that's gonna do that for you, bill.

[00:18:12] Okay, I'm gonna put in these sprinkler heads. You're gonna love them. You're gonna fall in love with them. Your life's gonna change. This is gonna be the best thing since sliced bread if I put in these mp rotators for you. Okay. Now, I don't actually say that to people but I do have some fun with them.

[00:18:24] MP rotators are a sprinkler technician's best friend, if used correctly to solve problems. The probably the easiest problem that a MP rotator solves is the over-designed irrigation system. Too many heads on his own not enough water capacity to pump the zone. Second thing, it solves water hammer.

[00:18:42] Overdesigned zones, increased velocity of water traveling through the pipe. Mp rotator's gonna be your solution. And the third thing that I really like about MP Rotators is get better balanced precipitation. How many times you go to someone's house and they've got static spray heads and they space about 17 to 18 feet [00:19:00] apart, but there's only 15 foot nozzles inside the head.

[00:19:03] Those 15 foot nozzles are not gonna achieve head-to-head coverage, and so you're gonna develop dry spots right in front of the sprinkler heads. MP rotators prevent that because number one, they can spray a little bit further achieving head-to-head coverage, but also you get the multiple streams of the far stream, the middle spring, and the really close stream.

[00:19:19] What can I say? MP rotators. I love them. I install them for clients. We dabbled with the R van but it, they have a precipitation rate of 0.62 inches per hour, and as a result, they use more water. So they don't they can't provide the same diagnostic efforts for my clients.

[00:19:34] Also, they have a higher dynamic running pressure requirement than the MP rotator. Instead of running at 40 psi, which the MP rotator's designed to run at. The R van wants to run at 45 psi, and since all I do is work with residential clients, that's gonna be a problem for me because oftentimes I don't have the water pressure that I need to pump the zone, and I'm trying to troubleshoot it for a client.

[00:19:55] To give them options. Now, option one is we get in there and retrofit their zone with mp [00:20:00] rotators, sometimes we can't do it. Guys, sometimes we got that crappy, cheap black poly pipe. You can get it. Home Depot or Lowe's. I'll caution you guys against using that type of pipe because what happens is when the insert poly fittings go inside of it down the road, they split, they break.

[00:20:13] And if you've got that chronically happening to zones at every single one of the fixtures where there's a crimp fitting and a poly barb fitting inside that one inch pipe. You're gonna have tons of issues. So MP rotators are a solution to reduce the amount of water required for zone operation. Guys, get out there.

[00:20:30] Present value to your client. Have full control of the problem. All right? So that you're collecting a diagnostic fee when you're presenting these options to your client. And then if they choose to do it with you, then take the order, do the work, live happily ever after and be a better service technician.

[00:20:47] So that was today's episode. Guys in the podcast, we're all about mp, rotators, the sprinkler technicians best friends. Tune in for additional podcasts with the Sprinkler tech, all stars as we just delve into. What we see with residential [00:21:00] homeowners and how to be a better irrigation technician to make life changing money.

[00:21:03] All right. See you guys.