We are gearing up for the seasonal onslaught of sprinkler blowouts. We have two powered hose reels to install and all the wiring for the switch, circuit breaker, and solenoid, and then get 225 of hose attached to each reel. Jesse ran his “Orange Julius” all last fall dragging the hose back and forth for nearly 1,000 blowouts, so this year I decided to spend an extra $1,000 to get him a powered reel to make his life easier. He still has to drag the hose out to hook it up but can run the motor to bring it back saving time and energy. The guy is already an energizer bunny, but if I can save on his “batteries” it will benefit us all. The other powered hose reel is for the new compressor we picked up that Jacob named “Leroy.”
We have hired a new guy to run one of the compressors, and I am interviewing another in the morning to run mine so I can concentrate on database work, emails, and routing which takes a LOT of time out of my evenings and why I only get about 3-4 sleep a night for 7-8 weeks. Neither of the two has done blowouts before, so we will have a day or two of training to show them the ropes. Blowouts aren’t particularly hard to do, but it can be rough doing it day in and day out for 6-8 weeks, and they have to be taught how we do our online “paperwork” in the field, and how to take payments.
I will probably go out on Saturday’s while everyone else takes a break for the weekend. Since we have added another machine, we are going to try and take Sundays off for church attendance and to catch up on any paperwork I couldn’t get to during the week. If we see that doesn’t work well I will run shifts on who works Sunday so they only have to do it once a month.
We have received nearly 900 sprinkler blowouts so far, and are expecting an additional 1,500-2,000 by the time the season is over with. The 900 has given me enough of a base to create a tentative schedule for the next few weeks at least. Again, it is tentative, so it could change at a moment’s notice if we run into any issues during the day with our list. Plus new requests will be coming in every day that we have to work into our routes. We had 8 new requests come in during the last 30 minutes I spent writing this post.
Our next post will be on Monday, October 5, at about 12:01 a.m. with the streets we will be visiting for that day, and new posts will be set for midnight each night for the next days’ route. Drop us a comment so we know who is actually paying attention to these posts…….. See y’all soon!
Important links:
Sprinkler Blowouts Calendar: Sprinkler Blowout Calendar
Sprinkler Blowout Stats: Sprinkler Blowout Stats
Cancel Your Sprinkler Blowout: Cancel Your Sprinkler Blowout
You’ve got a great organization, Steve … go team!
Thanks for the kind words, Rick!
Thanks for the update! When is backflow testing usually done. Or is it included in blowout process?
Backflow testing needs to be done annually, and we usually do them in the spring when the water comes on for the season. During sprinkler blowouts, we can’t take on any other work because of our workload.
Ok thanks Steve!
Evening Steve – Another year, another return from this repeat customer.
Appreciate you as a LONG-time repeat customer. It means a lot.
Don’t know what I would do without you all!
Thank you, Roni. It has been wonderful knowing you, and great knowing you and my wife go clear back to Meridian High School band……