{"id":4095,"date":"2020-09-11T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovativepixel.com\/IGIN\/?post_type=features&p=4095"},"modified":"2021-12-29T18:10:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T23:10:37","slug":"defeat-the-freeze","status":"publish","type":"features","link":"https:\/\/innovativepixel.com\/IGIN\/features\/defeat-the-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Defeat the freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"While many winter events have been canceled, the season itself has not. We can count on it to roll around right after fall. If you\u2019re an irrigation contractor in a part of the country where the snow falls and the ground freezes, you\u2019ll still need to prepare irrigation systems against the coming cold season.<\/p>\n
Efficient scheduling is crucial, though. Scheduling software helps a lot. Mathew Wendell, owner of The Sprinkler Guy, Anchorage, Alaska, a one-man operation, uses HindSite Software to make sure he gets to all 270 of his commercial and residential clients.<\/p>\n
You have a short window of time to service everyone, and you\u2019re racing against the weather, which can always blindside you. \u201cOne night of freezing temperatures isn\u2019t a big deal,\u201d says Ty Van Ryswyk, owner of Hawkeye Irrigation LLC, Marine, Illinois. \u201cBut if it\u2019s going to freeze hard for four nights straight at the end of October or very beginning of November, we\u2019ll be scrambling.\u201d<\/p>\n
How early you start depends on how far north you are. For Wendell, the start date is Sept. 10 \u201cso I can be all done by Oct. 1. Some areas will already have started to experience freezing temperatures by then.\u201d He still gets caught by the occasional early snowfall, though.<\/p>\n
Van Ryswyk also starts in September. \u201cWe\u2019ll send out mailers or blast emails reminding people about it in August. We\u2019ll do some in the last couple weeks of September for snowbirds that leave town by the beginning of October. We like to have everybody shut off by the first or second week of November. But that depends on Mother Nature and how much of a push we get from her at the end. If it looks like she\u2019s going to start freezing quickly we have to move quickly too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Ryswyk says some of his clients will claim they won\u2019t need winterizing until Thanksgiving. He reminds them that just a few years prior, the area saw an early hard freeze in the first week of November.<\/p>\n
How it\u2019s done<\/h2>\n
Winterization is a simple concept. It\u2019s all about blowing as much water as possible out of the system with an air compressor before it can freeze, expand and break something.<\/p>\n
Whether the water comes from a lake pump, a well pump or a city main, the first step is to shut that water supply off at the source. \u201cThe air chuck on the compressor fits into one of the holes on the pump or one of the test cocks on the backflow device,\u201d says Van Ryswyk. \u201cWe just hook the compressor up to that and then start running through the zones\u201d setting the controller to run a two- to five-minute test cycle for each zone.<\/p>\n
![\"irrigation](\"https:\/\/innovativepixel.com\/IGIN\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/defeat-freeze-2.jpg\")
\u201cIf there are five heads in a zone, you wait for all of those heads to start blowing air. Then you go to the next zone, wait for all those heads to blow out and then you go on to the next,\u201d says Van Ryswyk. \u201cBy the time you get done with however many zones there are, you know that the main and lateral lines are blown out at that point. Then we\u2019ll turn the irrigation controller to \u2018off\u2019 or unplug it if they prefer.\u201d If the backflow device is left outdoors, the test cocks should be left halfway open, at 45 degrees.<\/p>\n
Winterization includes a full inspection to discover what needs to be fixed next spring. \u201cBe consistent and use a checklist,\u201d says Wendell. \u201cExamine all the heads and look for leaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pounds per square inch of pressure the air compressor produces during a blowout is crucial. James Makris, owner of The Waterboys LLC, Manchester, New Hampshire, usually sets his psi at about 80. \u201cBut the volume of air \u2014 the cubic feet per minute \u2014 is actually more important than the psi,\u201d says Makris. So he keeps the cfm between 135 and 185 depending on the system. If it is too high, it can cause too much friction, and friction produces heat that can melt pipes and couplings.<\/p>\n
In reality, you have to watch both the psi and the cfm. \u201cYou have to be careful not to over-pressurize the system,\u201d warns Wendell. \u201cI once hooked up to a system and failed to correctly shut off the house main. The pressure in the pipes in the house was normally about 50 psi. Well, I pumped 60 psi into it during a blowout, and it caused a leak in the basement ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about a drip zone or system? Those should be blown out at a much lower psi, around 35. \u201cI often do the drip part last, and I either pull the caps off the ends and blow out the dripline the regular way, or turn the psi real far down on the machine and let it run longer to clear the lines,\u201d says Dustin Reitzer, owner of Abiqua Irrigation and Backflow LLC, Salem, Oregon. \u201cOtherwise, you could definitely damage something, especially if your compressor isn\u2019t sensitive to pressure changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pitfalls and pain points<\/h2>\n
Even the most efficient winterization schedule ever created can be confounded by locked gates, snarling dogs and homeowners who aren\u2019t home when they said they\u2019ll be. And there can be still other snags to what should be a fairly straightforward process.<\/p>\n
Van Ryswyk says many blips occur when you take over a system for the first time. \u201cThere might be a leg of main line that goes to a quick coupler with a hose attached that you don\u2019t know about. Then you\u2019ve got a whole stretch of main that\u2019s still got water in it.\u201d Or someone could have hooked up the system to the house or to the backflow without using a gravity drain.<\/p>\n
![\"irrigation](\"https:\/\/innovativepixel.com\/IGIN\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/defeat-freeze-3.jpg\")
\u201cAnother problem is when someone\u2019s system hooks straight up to a water meter, and the city hasn\u2019t gotten out there yet to shut it off,\u201d adds Van Ryswyk. \u201cYou can\u2019t really do anything because by law we aren\u2019t allowed to touch the meters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, in the rush to get everyone winterized, things can get overlooked, \u201clike skipping a whole valve box when they don\u2019t know exactly how many zones there are,\u201d says Makris. \u201cOr spigots \u2014 I have one house that has 13 of them all around the property. They have to be blown out too. And there are simple things like forgetting to shut the controller off, and it dry-fires the solenoids all winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there are the wild-card things that Wendell sometimes encounters, like an Alaskan moose stepping on a valve box and crushing the valve inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery once in a while, I\u2019ll blow a pipe off that isn\u2019t clamped down right, so I\u2019ll have to fix that,\u201d says Makris. But with 20 winters of experience under his belt, he\u2019s prepared. He carries an inventory of parts with him just in case.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem Makris faces is a seasonal shortage of rental compressors. \u201cIn the Northeast, when winterization time comes around, it can be very hard to find one,\u201d he says. Many contractors rent compressors, as they\u2019re only needed once a year, and they\u2019re expensive. Makris recently rented one that retails for $23,000.<\/p>\n
He is, however, planning to purchase his own soon. \u201cI\u2019m grossing $20,000 to $25,000 every winter with that service alone, so it\u2019ll pay for itself in one season. And the government is helping small businesses this year, so that\u2019s a plus.\u201d<\/p>\n
A major pain point for Reitzer is working with irrigation systems cobbled together by homeowners. \u201cYou have to try and figure out how the water gets to the system and how to shut it off,\u201d Reitzer says. \u201cIt\u2019s like they said, \u2018There\u2019s water to this bathroom, so I\u2019ll just access it from under there.\u2019 Then you have to crawl underneath the house just to shut it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The quarantine factor<\/h2>\n
Though it didn\u2019t directly slow down business, one impact of COVID-19 for contractors is a shortage of available parts, says Wendell.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe factories being shut down did slow the supply chain for irrigation parts, though,\u201d says Wendell. \u201cAs it is, there are no distributors up here in Alaska, so we have to have everything shipped to us from the Lower 48.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"irrigation](\"https:\/\/innovativepixel.com\/IGIN\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/defeat-freeze-4.jpg\")
Having virtually everyone at home has been both a good thing and a bad thing, Wendell says. \u201cIt\u2019s made scheduling easier,\u201d he says. \u201cBut people are bored, so they\u2019re going out and working in their yards, and sometimes they cause problems, installing things improperly or digging too deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n
As some homeowners have struggled with jobs during the year, it\u2019s important to be up front about the program costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell everyone, this is what the job is, I\u2019ve been doing it a long time, and I\u2019m giving you the best price,\u201d says Makris. \u201cI\u2019ll always try to give you the best value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offering multiple levels of service with winterization is an option, says Van Ryswyk. \u201cI offer four or five different service tiers,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey can have the bare minimum, just turn-on, turn-off, if they want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doing a winterization can be a gateway to providing other services throughout the year. If customers like how you did the job, they can become recurring clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially for a new customer using us for the first time, where the winterization is our initial visit, we\u2019ll go through the whole system and take notes so we\u2019re prepared for next year,\u201d says Van Ryswyk.<\/p>\n
A reminder that winterization season is ahead also doubles as a sales prompt. \u201cIn January we send out our spring flyer with our annual agreement that offers them all of our services,\u201d he says. \u201cWe tell all our existing customers to look for this mailer which we send by both email and snail mail to make sure they don\u2019t miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n