Sprinkler system question

[_RaT_]

Your wrong Mike. Saying nobody uses Rainbird, even your /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif "Big 4 installers" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif is analogous to saying no one uses Exxon. I don't buy your arguments or your contradictive costs. Go back and read them. You paid more for your I-25's then I paid for Rainbird Falcons which in my opinion does indeed have a much better water curtain, fewer parts and larger gears resulting in less clogging.

When did you ever use a non potable irrigation valve. I suspect you never have.

Fluid dynamics, you think you need some fancy fluid dynamics background to do irrigation layout. I assure you, you are taking your engineering far to serious. Get a Rainbird or Hunter irrigation book, look at the charts based on pipe size, length etc. Your valve size is based on GPM. To use a 2" valve on a circuit to low of flow does not work. It's all in the book with lots of charts.

<font color="blue"> Nope, not an expert but I have used Rainbird products in the past and now use Hunter for a reason. I never stated I was an "expert" in any field here or on any forum.
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Mike, I suspect there are plenty of us here that would say your attitude reflects on us far differently then you perceive.


Just trying to help clear up the usual trail of confusion Mike leaves. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[gsxr1100]

Again, in my area (since I live here) in western MA the large ones do not use them. I know 5 close friends that have large yards and not one has rainbirds and they all used the large contractors in this area. I had the same people install a sys on my parents yard 7-years ago. I can show you the repair bill from the wonderful rainbirds "fountain heads". I had the same issues with rainbirds. They were as bad as toro in my eyes.

I made a mistake here, the I-20 are around $12 and the I-25 are around $20. The rainbird also does not have the flow stop which is nice a feature.

I have never had a clogging in 6-years, ever. I know the charts and they get you there in a general idea. That are not for close numbers. I use the “fancy fluid dynamics” background since the charts are nice but I can take 5 extra minutes and figure out the real numbers and what I really have. Charts are good for people that want to look up the numbers, take the charts away and the people are clueless. I can figure out the data long before you need 5 charts, books etc.

I guess you are correct. Use Rainbird but I did and it all went into the trash. I wish you said something I would have given all to you. I got very tired on also fixing the rotors from h_e_l_l and the leaky valves. Yes, there were junk in my application. It was also weird that the same installers do not use rainbirds anymore and all went to Hunter..weird...I guess the installers and business are all wrong here. ON the flip side the rainbirds were great for extra $$ for fixing them.

The Rainbird falcons have a radius of 65 ft and I-25 are 71 ft. Rainbird Precip rates are 1.14 inches per hour & I-25’s are 1.39 per hour or high speed at 1.59 per hour. Rainbird max GPM is 21.9 and Hunters are 31.5 GPM.

Plus on the curtain on the Rainbird is nice but you still need head to head coverage. Parts are usless since you just buy new ones when the times comes. The parts are not even worth the time to fix. My time is worth more then a new rotor.

Hunter I-25 have 5 year warranty. If anything goes wrong you get another one free. After 5 years, if anything goes wrong, they are so cheap to replace why bother with fixing them.

The rainbird valves are again way overpriced. The rainbird rotors are a toss up I guess. I can buy the heads so cheap it is not even an issue. I do like the flo feature since I can mess with the head very easy since I am always adding landscaping to ever changing yard. Plus the nozzles take about 5 seconds to change.

To close, follow Rats advice on this topic since he is a sprinkler expert here and I am not even close to his level of expertise on this brainteaser topic. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[_RaT_]

Mike you don't seem to understand, I use both brands but do not with the stroke of a key condem the entire line of products from either maker. I know you can't help do this be it resentful remarks about Ford trucks, American cars, motorcylces, oil and now irrigation brands. It would seem anyone who needs to behave this way is either incredibly insecure or the epitome of dogmatic.

 

[_RaT_]

Lww05, back to your issue, I would suggest that if you are having clogging problems down the road, you consider going to impact. I have various heads at my place from rotors to impacts. As much as I wish I could go rotor, I pretty much use all impact save for about 10 large rotors that still need cleaning now and then even with a set of 1/32" filters. With about 120 sprinklers total, I keep busy cleaning the filters but it gets better each year. My pressure is 120 PSI static but I try to match as best one can on a irrigation party line the pressure down to about 70 PSI. The beauty of impacts is they handle low pressure much better then rotors. The down side is they generally need more attention and if are the pop up type, have quite limited height. I would suggest you attempt to run as many heads as you can checking the spray pattern on the heads to be sure its still getting the correct coverage. You can pull more then one valve with most time clocks. You also mention the pump fills a tank. What happens when the tank goes dry? Do you have to regulate the heads based on the tank capacity. 500 gallons would surely go fast for irrigation.

 

[gsxr1100]

I understand and I have used both brands. I even called 2 dealers in my area today and ask why they use Hunter vs Rainbird. One stated they did not like them from past usage and the other stated for durability or long term, hunter is better. Gee, shocking that I have no had one rotor go with hunter but the rains where like fountains in the spring…hmmmm.

Ps. I owned Fords for years and lets say now that I own foreign cars (Lexus and Mercedes), the quality is not even close. I would not take a motorcylce made in this country for free either (and you know what brand that it). Now those are overpriced and the only good parts on the bike are overseas parts installed on them.

Insecure???? LOL. Next time I talk to some people I will ask for the old replaced rainbirds for ya! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I am not pretentiousness as some here as I see. I am just stating what I have used and now do not use.

The falcons you like are just normal, hunter pgp, with ss added and some nozzles. The rainbirds are good for nozzles and that is it. I would get whatever is cheaper and last longer.

I would talk longer but you need time to clean all the rainbirds you have.
/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Just to see if Rainbird has stepped up a level I will try the following and see what happens. I will order soon.

1. Hunter I-40 4 inch, Adj. Arc S. Steel Rotor about $40
2. Rain Bird 8005SS Rotor about $33

 

[_RaT_]

Mike, I know your waiting with baited breath for a response from me, so here it is:

Either way Mike, both companies are located right here in California so keep those dollars coming. We appreciate those well taxed dollars of yours. Suffice it to say, your personal experience is considerably different then mine.

PS, the bulk of my rotors (which is quite small at about 12) are 7005 SS series because they are universal, that is, are full circle or part circle. The is no fixed right or left so the nozzle direction right and left can be selected above ground. I have as much as 112 GPM of ditch water available to me, but choose to only run four heads to a circuit using 12 GPM nozzles on my 360 heads. My supply is 2" and from there goes 1.5" scrubber valves into 1.5" laterals dropping to 1.25" supplies for the last head which is with 2 PSI of the first head. I use 100% overlap. Each head ties in with 1" flexible PVC.

If your interested, I have a Hunter I-60 autographed by Mr Hunter, perhaps you would like to add it to your collection. It's yours for $150. It was a freebe for me to try out. I have some I-25's, 31's and a I-90 freebie's as well. All have had a good test in my very own lawns. All clog as easily as my Rainbirds. The Hunters filters are next to impossible to remove when caked with debris, the Rainbirds have fingers that a pair of needle nose can grab a hold of.

PS, PS maybe its your water, what are you guys putting in it? Rainbirds are known to fail with high levels of arsenic and selenium which might explain your problem.

I cannot tell you how much we get our irrigation supplies for, you would be envious. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[lww05]

Rat,

I had no part in installing the sprinkler system but did the water supply from the creek. The pump Dad used down close to the creek was a very old 1 HP 3600rpm jet pump which moderately supplied more water to the 500g tank than the sprinkler pump pulled out of the tank and sent out to the stations. I installed a float system on the tank to control the creek pump and also added a low level float to interrupt the sprinkler pump relay circuit for protection. That Teel pump was around $350 so we wanted to protect it.

This setup has been pretty much trouble free for a long time. When Dad was there, he kept a close eye on everything. The creek does get almost dry during the worst part of summer unless we get a lot of rain. Sometimes, I think maybe we should have had a deep well dug with a submersible pump. Anyway, he could be there to shut the system down if the creek got low. I think he would babysit it during the dry times by running the system for a while and then turning it off for a few days. Now that he is gone, I wish we would have installed a float on the creek with some type of off delay circuit to protect the seal in the jet pump. I had to replace it a couple of times in the old jet pump and now once in the new jet pump due to the creek getting too low. (The old pump finally had to be retired after lightning and the worn out housing.) I replaced it with a 1.5HP jet pump thinking it would outperform the old 1hp pump, but believe it or not, I'm getting a little worried about it keeping up with the sprinkler pump this year. I may try to see what volume I can get without the footvalve installed on the pump as the old one never had one on it.

You guys have me wondering about what brand valves and heads are in the system, I'll try to find out next time I'm there. I don't have much experience with them but when you live in a fairly small town and need parts right now, I go with what my local Lowes or HD have. My choices were Rainbird or Toro. I used 3 - 1" Rainbirds for replacements the other day.

I have learned a lot from the debate.

Just for fun, I invite you two to another thread I'm fixing to start on a question about hard to catch pond catfish.

 

[_RaT_]

They make a device called a pump protector. What it does is learn what your pump amperage is. When your pump at the creek is pulling water and pumping it, it has a amperage based on that condition. If for example you run out of water, the amperage will go down, the detector will discern this and flash a yellow light I think it is and shut the pump off. Same thing if it senses a over current condition which would probably not happen in your case but would if you had a valve close on you that would not allow water to be pumped. Both of these conditions can happen to homes that use booster pumps to get domestic water up to the house when the utility water does not have enough pressure to supply the home. Conversely, a low voltage situation or over voltage situation also kicks out the pump. If your remotley interested, I will get the manufactuers name. The protector has to be reset by hand.

PS check the Rainbird website for the various water filtration equipment they make. I installed a pair of Lakos sand filters which filter 250 GPM each. It was used at an orchard that eliminated 90% or its impact irrigation and went to a drip/emitter setup. That orchard by the way has ripe cherries and peaches already. Your situation does not call for that elaborate kind of a setup but could use a small 100GPM Spears type filter. Spears is the brand name, it uses a stainless steel screen that you select based on your filtering needs.

 

[lww05]

I would be interested in learning more about the pump protector device. Just for the knowledge if nothing else.
Thanks.

 

[_RaT_]

We have the Pumptec Plus models installed

Franklin Pumptec