Just Another Turn 'Round The Sun...

Well, believe it or not it's been 364 days since I started this blog, and this is only my 16th entry...

It's also been a really busy year for sprinkler work... Enough to last through the end of November and maybe beyond if I wanted...

However, this is the time of year when my attention is usually focused more on lighting... So, let me wrap up the irrigation season with a couple of recommendations.

First, it's the beginning of the annual rainy season and if you don't already have a rain sensor connected to your sprinkler system it's a good idea. You could just shut off your controller when the rains come, but rain sensors work especially well towards the beginning and end of our rainy season, when the weather is still variable... some days sunny and warm, others chilly and wet.

It can give you the peace of mind of knowing your yard is being watered if you're out of town during the spring or fall, but at the same time not overwatering.

Second, if you have a Hunter brand controller, we can retrofit with something that goes beyond a rain sensor and measures temperature and rainfall, and combines that with other factors (such as hours of daylight) to determine how much water to apply and when.

It's called the ET System, and although I haven't tried one yet, I'm hearing good things about it.

Third...Suppose you don't already have a Hunter controller, and have been thinking about replacing that outdated sprinkler timer? Well, we have a great solution for you!

It's called the Smartline and it's from a company called Weathermatic, who have been around since 1945. It's expandable by modules in two versions, from 4 to 48 watering zones

This one I've installed, experimented with and have been certified for.

Weathermatic products have been installed in over 70 countries and notable sites including the U.S. Capitol Building, Buckingham Palace, America’s largest home-Biltmore Estate, and the College Football Hall of Fame. They're known around here mostly for their long-lived, reliable sprinkler valves. I'm truly impressed with all the features they packed into this controller for a very reasonable price.

ET- based controllers such as the Hunter ET System and the Weathermatic Smartline have been proven to reduce water consumption by as much as thirty percent. They require a little bit of initial set-up and occasional monitoring, but the general idea is to have a controller that automatically adjusts to the weather so that you don't have to think about it.

I'll post more details as I have time on the controllers page at www.sprinklersplus.com

HEAT WAVE!

Yikes! It's been a while since I've had anything to say. Now were in the midst of a heat wave and I thought I'd pass along some possibly useful tips to anyone reading this.

I drank a gallon of water and three quarts of Gatorade both Thursday and Friday of last week. Today was a little cooler, but that high humidity can be even more uncomfortable... So what about your plants? Are they feeling the heat?

Remember to water before 10:00 AM, or after 7:00 PM. Less water gets lost to evaporation that way, and your plants are happier when they are hydrated before the heat of the day.

Don't overwater. Too much water in the heat can be just as damaging to a plant as too little.

A heat wave will help you identify weak spots in your sprinkler coverage. You (or your housesitter if you're away on vacation) can usually compensate by spot watering with a hose until you can give us a call.

Remember to increase either the number of water days or the watering cycle duration (run time) when we go over 90 degrees F. This simple with Hunter controllers. Both the ICC and the Pro-C have a simple bar graph in the display and arrow keys for increasing or decreasing the watering run times across the board.

Other controllers like the Irritrol Rain Dial Plus or Total Control and the Rain Bird ESP-M have similar features, but involve more steps. Consult your manual or give us a call.

More Tools Of The Trade

It's been a late start this year, but we're finally getting calls about sprinkler problems. People are turning on their sprinkler systems and discovering problem areas.

When it comes to valves that won't open or shut off properly, controllers with blank displays or a message that reads "Short", we're the one to call.

When it comes to simpler tasks like repairing a broken pipe, replacing a sprinkler that the mower sheared off, trimming the grass around the heads or cleaning or replacing filters, you might feel like doing it yourself.

If so, I have a few recommendations for doing the job with the right tools and materials.













1.) Number one on my list is the Rain Bird Spray Head Pull Up Tool.
Use it to pull up pop-up sprinklers with or without a nozzle in place. (It will work with other brands of sprinklers too: Toro, Hunter and Hit for instance.)

Then use it to hold the pop-up piston in place for cleaning or changing nozzles and filters.

2.) Next up is the Kenyon Sprinkler Head Trimmer.

A simple push with your foot and a couple of twists, 90 degrees to the left and then to the right leaves you with a plug of grass you can pull up by hand.

Work your way around the yard with a bucket handy for the plugs you remove. You can turn on the heads to make them easier to locate, but don't try to trim around them when they're popped up or you'll get soaked.

See this tool at: http://www.kenyontools.com/sprinklerheadtrimmers.html

3.) Third on my list is the Quik-Fix by KBI. There are other similar products by other brands, but I like this one the best. Get it at Lane Irrigation. What it does is allow you to make PVC pipe repairs that insert fully into fittings, even in tight spots. Basically, it telescopes.

Careful measuring is important. (Remember the old carpenters' adage: measure twice, cut once.)

http://www.kbico.com/downloads/pdfs/QF-Specs.pdf

4.) Fourth item is pipe cutters. In the ''old days'' pipes were often cut with a hacksaw and then sanded, both to remove burrs and clean the end of the pipe. Ratcheted cutters leave a nice clean and even cut, and faster too. (No loose burrs to clog sprinkler filters.) I haven't found a better brand than Victor.

5.) Last item for today is commonly known as pipe glue, but is actually a solvent cement, melting pipes and fittings so they adhere together. Always use in a well ventilated area and follow the instructions.

I use primer to clean and soften the pipe before using the glue. Always have paper towels or rags on hand to wipe off excess glue right away and always wear latex gloves when using these strong chemicals.

I recommend IPS Weld-On P-70 Primer and WELD-ON 2721 BLUE or WELD-ON 2725 "WET 'R DRY" AQUA BLUE Solvent Cements. These are commonly available at any irrigation supply house (of course I recommend Lane or Ewing - see above for contact info.) BTW, I prefer these Low VOC versions - fewer volatile organic compounds to pollute the air.

Spring Forward

Spring? Sure doesn't feel like it yet. I seem to remember temperatures in the 70's for a short couple of days a few weeks ago... and then way back in what?.. early February? late January? Unseasonable warmth for about a week... but jeez, it's been extraordinarily wet and cloudy.

I'm getting really tired of it.

There are a few people who have called about sprinkler work nonetheless. And some are planning far ahead, knowing that I'll be busy and wanting to reserve some time in May or June.

For the most part, the end of last year and so far this year (for me) has been all about outdoor lighting. I don't work on it in the pouring rain, but when the ground is wet I can still get in and get the job done.

Anyway, it's time to adjust clocks, which also means sprinkler and lighting timers for Daylight Savings Time.

In a normal year, I'd have a lot of sprinkler timers already running and so I'd have to return to those jobs to make time adjustments. This year however, I think I'll be doing it all at once.

Call if you need help with yours. And see if you can make up that hour of sleep we lose tonight.

The Visual Connection To Our Night Landscape

This past week I took the time to attend a seminar given by Janet Lennox Moyer, author of The Landscape Lighting Book, the definitive textbook on outdoor lighting from both the aesthetic and practical points of view. It was in Sacramento, sponsored by the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District. The original topic was to be Commercial Landscape Lighting, but it morphed into something bigger and better:

The Visual Connection to Our Night Landscape

"Exterior lighting provides an extension of our livable environment at night. We should create this environment through an aesthetic composition that respects safety and security. Discussions will include lighting issues critical to the design and installation of successful, cohesive landscape lighting systems. Focusing on issues to think about when evaluating the other garden elements that make up the overall landscape, and visually connecting the landscape with interior spaces.

Change is a constant in all gardens. Understanding the seasonal variations, how plant materials mature over the years, and the tendency of gardeners and owners to continually rethink and revamp their gardens helps a designer plan the needed growth-flexibility into a lighting system. Day and night comparisons, the effect of lighting from one season to another, both subtle and radical garden changes over a number of years will be shown as well as practical application information.

A successful landscape lighting system begins with an installation that the customer raves over, but continued success depends on maintenance. Maintenance depends on accurate and current documents. Documentation provides a record of communication. It illustrates your initial vision to a client; demonstrates necessary installation information; and then records critical data for maintenance."

Look for Jan's book (the revised and expanded second edition was published May 2005) in the library, at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com.

She had a great slide show and is a dynamic speaker/ presenter. She covered all of the above and more.

Jan has some strong opinions and shares them.

She does not like aluminum fixture housings (see her informative chapter on corrosion.)
She likes brass and said she thinks we might see titanium fixtures before long. She does not like well lights.

She prefers downlighting/ moonlighting to pathlights. (You should see her slides where she has 8 climbers working on a job to 60 feet up, or the other ones with the articulated lift.)

She does not like colored lights on any plants, but likes to use colors in architectural lighting, water features and sculptures.

Jan likes low light levels from 0.25 to 2.0 FC

(NOTE: FC= Foot Candle, the light output measured on a 12" by 12" surface one foot from a standard (3/4"candle.) Another measure, a Lumen, is the light of a full moon, which is also 1/10th of a Foot Candle.

Jan limits uplight angles to a maximum 30 degrees from vertical. (She used to think 35 degrees but she has changed her mind about that).

When it comes to line voltage she does not like mercury vapor (too blue) and does like metal halide.

I learned a bit more than I knew about planning for adding and moving fixtures as plants grow, lighting different kinds of water features, using a combination of uplights and downlights in trees, etc.

We saw pictures of jobs including the Chicago Botanic Garden and a couple of stately Napa Valley wineries (Far Niente Winery and Turley Wine Cellars for the connoisseurs out there.)

If you ever get a chance to see and hear Jan, do.

Check out her website: http://www.janmoyerdesign.com/

More About Tools...

Oops.

It's actually been a full two months since I've added anything to this darned blog.
Well, today I have something to say, so I hope someone is actually reading this..

It's not about all the rain, sleet, hail and even snow that have slowed the start of spring around here... It's not about politics, war or peace....

It's not about my new favorite TV shows (My Name Is Earl, The Office, Lost and Big Love on HBO) or the great new CD I bought this weekend (Songlines by the Derek Trucks Band) ...

It's about a tool company I discovered by accident while looking for just the right tool at Home Depot the other day. They're called Hound Dog Tools and they make a couple some well designed tools that I'd like to recommend.. if the ground ever dries out enough for you to use them...

Interesting story behind the company too.

http://www.hound-dog.com/about.htm

The first is one I plan to use for installing low voltage lighting cable. They call it the Edge Hound, and it can be used to trim turf edges and/or install the kind of black plastic extruded plastic edging material that comes in rolls.

http://www.hound-dog.com/edge_hound.htm

The second is one they call the Bulb Hound. It works like a traditional bulb planter but kind of crossed with a post hole digger, and with a comfortable molded plastic handle and trigger release.

http://www.hound-dog.com/bulb_hound.htm

Hound Dog Tools make a few other items, some of which look more practical to me than others, but truthfully all I've tried so far are the two I just mentioned.

Check them out at OSH, Home Depot or Ace Hardware stores.

And here's hoping the rain stops long enough for all of us to do something in the garden.

Chiaroscuro...And the art of applying light

I got back a few days ago from most of a week in Palm Springs. I was there at the invitation of Nightscaping®, and it was a welcome opportunity to share ideas with contractors, designers and other lighting professionals from across the U.S. and Canada.

Palm Springs is beautiful this time of year... comfortably warm and mostly dry, but with enough sparse vegetation on the steep rugged slopes that rise out of the desert to catch the glow of the morning sun. There was something magical and about watching the light shift across the rocky ridges and seeing shadowed canyons in between emerge into light.

One of things I've been thinking about since my trip were part of a presentation by a guy named Rod Tapp. Rod is a retired professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Cal Poly Pomona. He talked about the dark spaces being as important as the lit ones, and it reminded me of a term I'd heard used to describe works by Italian Renaissance artists such as Caravaggio.

Chiaroscuro, (literally "lightdark" in Italian) describes a bold contrast of light and dark. It's an important concept in painting, and one that also quite naturally extends to the art of outdoor lighting.

So, one of my goals this year is to approach each new job as more of an artist as well as a technician. Left brain-right brain balance I guess.


BTW, new technical developments and prototypes from Nightscaping and GE were presented too, and I feel comfortable saying that sometime in the near future the lighting world is going to change dramatically, with brighter light sources needing less power and lasting much longer in the field.

I predict that high quality, energy conserving LED landscape lighting will be a huge hit before the end of the decade... And that Nightscaping® will continue to be a major player.