Sharing the tips and tricks I've gathered together over my 35 years in the irrigation industry, with the hope of helping others save time, money, and water!
We'd love to hear from you on what issues and challenges we should tackle in the future! Happy watering!
My MP Rotator is misting, it seems like the red section is spinning very fast. If i put my finger on it it slows down and acts normally but if i let go it starts to mist... what would cause this? defective head? I have 6 total same style on this zone, none others have this issue.
When I use the longer throwing adjustable nozzle (15 ft one), I find that it sprays the areas further away from the nozzle much better while the areas just in front the the nozzle (like 3-4 feet away) hardly get any water and the grass turns brown here. It's as if the water is consistent across the entire 15 ft watering area.
That is correct the nozzel by themselves don't water evenly . They are designed to work in teams where one nozzle's spray gets to the other nozzle. This is called head to head coverage and you can lean more about it on our information website at smartirrigation.com. If installing another head or nozzel to reach back to the brown area is not practical for you, a Rain Bird HE-Van nozzel does water better closer to the head but less than the Hunter Nozzel in the farther distances. Each brand has it't strengths and weakneses.
Quick question I just had a sprinkler system installed a month ago and we have the fixed rain birds up along our house, but unfortunately, when the landscapers put them in, they also tied those to a side yard with grass so if I go lower on the amount of time I run them the grass gets less what I am trying to do is Have less water come out along the fixed ones in front of our house has bushes and rosebushes and other things By turning the screw clockwise, you describe in the video that it takes the pattern smaller is that also having less water come out of them? Thank you, sir
Thanks BUT I don't get how to set the left stop by turning the head with out unscrewing from pipes below. Mine is going to far to the left - are you saying hold the shaft AND turn the head to the desired position?
That was perfectly presented! How is it you are not soaking wet though? I even have water in my shoes! Thank you so much for taking your time to make this!
Sir, in my opinion it's a huge mistake to "turn the stem" to adjust the pop-up to the correct position for watering. Why? I used to do this but what happens is that you will strip the plastic inside so then when the sprinkler pops-up it doesn't stay in the proper position because it's stripped inside and then tends to travel by itself either too much to the left or right. I have seen it where I'm watering my neighbors lawn and Not mine. I have a better technique: 1) The base part that's in the ground, have slightly loose, meaning turned slightly left so it's not all the way tight. 2) Put the whole top part on: (plastic tube pop-up, spring, thread, head, everything), slightly to the left also. Turn right to tighten then when the thread gets tight, you keep turning so then the BASE bottom part (that's in the ground) is now turning - so now the whole thing is turning, and then just have the head go where you want it to go.
I was seeing numbers that I did not understand and could not navigate on the watering days. Turns out my 20 year old controller has interval option! TY very much.
Do they require more adjustment than the old style head ? Do they fit the standard Rainbird pop up bodies Do they justify changing out all your heads at a cost of two to three times more than the old style heads. They may save water but that means you are not watering your lawn as much. Reviews state they do not shoot the water (radius) as far as old heads Your video should really cover these details
I have watched your Irrigation controller programming video. Have been working with a Rain Bird TRU61 controller and thought that if that controller was set to run Program A, it would ignore program B. It appears that if I want only Program A to run, I must set Program B to the Off position. Is this correct?
Rotors are usally as efficient as R vans but I'm sure you have your reasons but that is something I would rarely do. I do however change sparys to rotators quite often.
Great video on adjusting the head. Do you have a video or advice on adjusting the spray pattern / distance? I have a few heads that shoot way too far. I know that there is a second hole to adjust this but I don't want to mess with it until I speak to someone professional first.
You can break up the stream of water with the screw in the arrow by turning clockwise. This is only for minor distance changes like 10 or so percent in my opinion. Changing to a low angle nozzle or smaller nozzle might be a better choice but here is were you get into design considerations. Experienced trained Technicains may be better at deciding this.
I’ll give it a shot and see if it changes anything. I just know that some have a nice mist and others shoot halfway across the lawn. Maybe there is something else going on that is causing this?
Great video! Do you have any advice on a Rainbird 5000 rotor that is getting stuck? I can keep it moving by gently turning it with my hands, but when it gets back to that same spot it gets stuck again.
Hello. I have the X CORE A two-zone control unit. My system has 4 sprinklers with 1 solenoid valve, therefore 1 zone. How can I set two start times with two different irrigation times on the same day? example: h 05.00 13 minutes h 13.45 5 minutes?? thanks
Thanks for watching! For the video we decided to use the actual terms used to describe the parts of a circle since these heads water in a circle (or part of a circle). So the radius of the circle is the length of the spray, and the arc of the circle is what portion of the circle is being watered (such as 90° arc, 180° arc, etc). This is typically the language used by manufactures as well. But I totally understand the confusion! I sometimes think of arc as distance as well (like the arc on an arrow, but then im not thinking in terms of a circle on a horizontal plane). Sorry for the confusion, we just though if there is going to be confusion one way or another, the technical language would be proper. But we'll try to make that more clear in future videos.
Rainbird has not helped me at all, but you certainly have. Thank you! I just have one question left for now on my basic set up. I have set up my watering days but I cannot figure out what "2 day cycle" means while I'm on "water days". I can make it go from flashing to still, but have no idea what it means. Thank you in advance!
Hi I would just scroll past that and set the days of the week to water instead . We have an advanced programming video on the Hunter Controlers that set the same. If you want to learn more about that more that advanced feature.
