This is our 23rd season of doing sprinkler blowouts, and have done more than 25,000 blowouts in this valley. It is also the 10th anniversary of when we started using our blog to reach our customers quickly and efficiently. It is still the BEST way we can reach a LARGE number of customers at one time without fail.
If all goes well, we will be starting sprinkler blowouts on October 5. Since most pressurized irrigation districts will not be shut down yet, we will begin the season with those with city or well systems as we did last year. We highly recommend though, that when you are finished with watering for the season and you use a city or well system, you winterize your backflow preventers following the instructions on our site. Doing so will protect your backflow in case we get a quick freeze really early in the season like we did last year.
According to their website, the Nampa and Meridian Irrigation District will be shutting down their pumps on October 6, but it will take a few days for the system to drain. We currently do not have any information regarding the other irrigation districts in the area.
If you receive a notice as to when the pressurized irrigation is going to shut down in your particular subdivision, please comment here on this post and we will adjust our schedule accordingly.
Speaking of schedules, we have added a fourth machine to our arsenal, so this year we are going to try and keep one machine in Meridian the entire season switching back and forth between the 83642 and 83646. 34%-36% of our total completed blowouts are coming from Meridian, and many of our cancellations are as well. We will still rotate other machines throughout the valley including Meridian because I doubt one machine can keep up with Meridian by itself. At the time this post was written we have 125 sprinkler blowouts in Meridian, which under ideal circumstances is about 6-7 days of work for one machine. We expect 3 times that number or more.
I am looking for someone to run a machine for me personally so I can spend more time in the office taking care of the onslaught of blowouts we receive. With four machines running, it will be much harder for me to work on blowouts all day and then come home and do paperwork and routes for 4 machines. If someone isn’t able to go out on a particular day, I can then take over for them so those scheduled don’t get pushed to another day. We need someone with a vehicle that can pull a compressor, work with another technician for a few days to learn the job, and then go out on their own. Each technician rarely drives more than 12-15 miles per day. We get SO many blowouts that most are quite close to each other. A technician is rarely in his/her vehicle more than 3-4 minutes before arriving at the next stop. If you, or someone you know is interested in a good-paying fall job send me an email and I will get back to you.
We are starting to work on our schedule, but since only about 375 sprinkler blowout requests have come in at the time of this post, it will be hard to put together. We will likely do much of the scheduling on the weekend right before blowouts start. This schedule is subject to change, and will likely change several times over the 7-8 week period we will be doing blowouts. Daily updates will be posted on this blog as we have done over the last 10 years quite successfully. Texts and emails will also be sent the night before, but since we have no control on cell phone and email providers, the BEST place to look to see if you are on our route for the day has always been and will continue to be this blog.
That’s all for now. The next post will likely be at midnight October 5, with our route for the day.
Kuna sent out a notice that october 5th is when the irrigation shut off is.
Thanks, Andrea. Glad to hear it is early. It is quite frustrating it takes so long for systems to shut down when we only have a short 6-8 week window to get to over 3,000 blowouts. The sooner they shut down the better for us.
Signing up for your blog…hopefully
Hi Sheryl. The easiest way is to click on the orange icon under “Connect With Us” in the top right corner of the blog under the banner.
Hi as I noted when I signed up, Celestial Village in Star will turn off the irrigation water on 10/12.
Thank you for the info. I have put together a spreadsheet of all the subdivisions I hear from with shut-off dates.
Sundance in Meridian will turn off irrigation water on 10/7.
Thanks for the info, Marie. Happy to see many areas are shutting down earlier this year. It makes our job much easier.
Caldwell irrigation is turning off October 7th. When do you plan on heading to nampa and Caldwell
Thanks for the information. We haven’t planned much of anything yet, because it is too early. We currently only have 600 requests in, so it is hard to put an affective schedule together until more of our regular customers respond. We have played around with the schedule a little based on what we currently have, but it will no doubt change before we start, and change several times throughout the next 6-8 weeks.
We are sending out reminder emails to each zip code to remind our repeat customers to sign up early so we can plan better. No matter how hard we try, we still get repeat customers that wait until the last minute to sign up.
No worries. I am a repeat customer and I did get signed up. I was just wondering because I didn’t see my area on your schedule yet if you had any idea. 🙂
We have nearly 900 now of the 2,500-3,000 we are expecting, so I was able to put somewhat of a schedule together, but it is subject to change and can change quickly. I will update it as needed, and also continue making our daily blog post once we get started with any important information.
That’s a great stats chart … “What you don’t measure, you can’t manage!” 😉
Just wait and see what it looks like when we really get busy! 🙂