Kevin Lewis, Sales Manager for Hunter Industries shares his Top 5 products for 2021.

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You know, it's a, it's a common thing for me to say to contractors when I'm speaking to them in a training, you ever have homeowners who complain about when you come to do your spring turnout and you hit them with a big bill, the whole room will say, yeah, of course we do. Yeah, we do. You know, I've said like, have you ever thought about explaining this to them and saying like, we noticed this stuff when we were here, winterizing in October or November, September, we don't fix them typically.

 

Then we make notes and we'd come back and fix them. But the point is that all of these problems have a broken head, a maybe a break in a pipe, a valve issue. These things didn't happen the day before we showed up here to winterize your system, they happened to all season long. And since there's nothing in place to detect it, it just went undetected.

 

You are an irrigation, professional, older, new who designs installs or maintains high end residential commercial or municipal properties. And you want to use technology to improve your business, to get a leg up on your competition. Even if you're an old school irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems, this show is for you.

 

Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to another episode of the sprinkler nerd show. I'm your host, Andy Humphrey. And this is episode 43. Today. I have a special guest. His name is Kevin Lewis and he is the sales manager for Hunter industries in the greater New York Metro area. Kevin welcome to the sprinkler nerd show.

 

So glad to have you with us today. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Appreciate it to have you on the show for a couple reasons. Number one, because I think you've got a pretty unique background in this industry and you've worked in various parts of the industry. And then number two, You know, we've got a lot of interest for Hunter hunters, you know, doing a great job in market nationally with new products.

 

And so I'm excited to kind of talk about the top five new products for Hunter this year. So before we do that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Okay. Well I grew up from a pretty young age working in distribution I'm from long Island and Around here. It's kind of pretty common for people to kind of bring their kids into the distributor branch that they work for.

 

And that's, I was one of those guys just working the summers with my dad.  who's a retired New York city police officer. And yeah, I spent the summers going in working, you know, running rolls of pipe around the building and carrying stuff out to contractors, trucks, doing warranty stuff. And now just around, around the business, kind of my whole life from that perspective, Worked summers throughout high school and then into college.

 

Um, my father actually became a contractor. He did a little bit of a reverse progression through his irritation career. He was working for a distributor and then ultimately went out to be a contractor at age, I think 51 or something. So I spent some time working with him in the field, installing and learning the business from that angle.

 

 ultimately after graduate in college, I ended up going back to distribution. I worked selling and supporting commercial projects throughout the Northeast.  we sold a bunch of your products at the time, but you know, Kevin, the the baseline guy of the Northeast for Atlantic irrigation. Yeah, for yeah.

 

And a successful there met a lot of people got introduced to a lot of people. Um, and then ultimately I left and was actually the Neta from rep for a year, and then that's throughout the Northeast and then moved over to Hunter and now I'll be coming up on five years as the rep for Hunter supporting long Island, New York city.

 

Westchester New York and Fairfield County, which is like Southern portion of Connecticut. So, wow. Yeah. And for those of you listening that aren't familiar with this part of the Newark, that there's a lot of people that live in that part of New York, but I relative to, you know the people I work with, I have a relatively small.

 

Territory physically, but just jam packed with action and projects and stuff. So, yeah. So when you say the sales manager for New York, Metro, can you, can you help us maybe more specifically, like where do you. Live or work out of? Yeah, I work out of, I live in long Island or on long Island, as we say around here, long Island, long Island on long Island.

 

I didn't long now live on long Island. I've lived here pretty much. My whole life kind of live in the center of the Island. I would say, which is good because there's a lot kind of happening on all ends of the Island, the East end of long Island, a big area for. You know, projects, biggest States and things being built out and constantly work being done over there on the, on the West side, you have Manhattan, New York city, which everybody kind of knows of some really big high profile projects going on in New York city.

 

I could jump on a bridge, get be in the city. I could jump on a bridge being get North of the city into Westchester County. So it's a good spot to be in. There's a lot of, a lot, a lot happening, a lot of work going on, fast paced and tense. But definitely rewarding and fun. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So take us back.

 

I'd like to kind of, and this is, I don't know this, how old were you when you say you first kind of started with your dad? You four or were you 14? I think I was like, you know, nine or so nine, 10, something like that. Nine, 10, 11. I honestly don't remember. I mean, I know my, I know when my dad retired from the police department, And by the time I was 10, he was definitely working in distribution.

 

So it was probably somewhere around that age. Okay. So he w he retired from the police department, went to work for the irrigation distributor.  which one was that? Atlantic irrigation. Deer park. Atlanta. Okay. And which branch? Specifically? Deer park. Long Island. The original store. Yep. Deer park. Okay right there near highway two, three, one, right?

 

31 traffic. You got a lot of friends. That's a side joke. So you were nine or 10 and your dad was going. He just started working for the distributor in retirement, right? It's just kind of stay busy is a lot of retired, New York city fireman. A lot of New York city police officers would retire. Listen, think about it at my age, I could have 20 years in on the job.

 

I have a friend of mine has got 20 years as a cop. Done. I mean, he could retire right now at 41 years old. So it's, you know, my dad was a little older than that, but not by much. Yeah, absolutely. That's mid-career for a lot of people, you know, Yeah. So what kind of things were you getting yourself into at Atlantic when you'd go in to help him in the beginning, it was we've, we've got a warranty been or return a bunch of back in the day, used to be garbage cans, you know, with just dirty heads and stuff thrown in there for warranty.

 

And I used to have to go through and, you know, check the dates on them, write up a list, Mark them all up, put box them up. And then Get ready to ship them back. It was pretty dirty, disgusting, disgusting job that they give a 10 or 11 year old. Dude. I, I was in a irrigation distributor branch two weeks ago and they still had the trash can full of RMA.

 

They still do it. You're right. That's funny. Yeah. So I guess I wanted to, it's important, you know, you and I have known each other, I've kind of known that you worked in the business, but this was just a chance for me to ask you a little bit deeper questions, because I think that when you're working in this industry, it is important to know.

 

How our customers what it's like to stand in their shoes at all levels of the business, because then you know what it's like to do their job and you can relate to them. So often someone will, will start working at a manufacturer that, you know, came from selling something completely different and they can't relate to customers.

 

And so I think your streamline relatable person. Can't agree with you any more than what you just said, and I'm not trying to paint myself out to be so great, but you, you see people come in the industry and they just can't relate. They don't speak the same language. They haven't been there. A lot of sales guys like to tell you, you know what the, you know, the marketing pieces that the company is passing off, this is how it should be.

 

Well, have you ever tried doing that in the field? Do you know about. You know, X, Y, and Z, these challenges that we face. And I do have the experience of, of kind of tackling this industry from all angles. And I think that does it, it makes it a lot easier. Like you said, for me to relate to contractors, people who are actually using our products, kind of know the pain points even with, with the people that work in distribution and as a manufacturer's representative now, I, I think I tend to know when, to, you know what, let me just take that off his plate because I know it's going to drive him crazy, you know, whatever, whatever the case might be.

 

Um, I understand the position that most of these people are in. Well, I think, you know, that's why I'm asking you to kind of join me today because you're not just a sales guy. I would, I would believe that your customers think of you as almost, you know, for lack of a better word, their trusted advisor.

 

They're going to go to Kevin for help and expertise. Not just because you rep Hunter, but because you know things yeah. They can help them. I think that's true. I think that there's something to that and I don't. I tend to think of myself very much as a bit of a sales guy. I'm not that type of person.

 

I'm not going to jam product any throat. I'm not going to sell you something just to sell it to you. I, I, you know, I I've advised people to use maybe different product. Cause I thought it was a better fit, but I, you know, as, as we've talked about that, I think that comes back to you in the end. Just to kind of summarize, you worked in distribution, processing, RMAs, sweeping the floor, doing whatever else, whatever else your dad or, or Atlantic wanted you to do at that time at nine or 10, then you said you helped your dad with his contracting business.

 

He moved out of Atlantic and started doing irrigation contracting. And then I know you worked for Atlantic as their commercial sales and sort of central control and specification, right? Yep. Then onto to Netafim and now to Hunter. So what you have covered is like grunt work from the distributor, the bottom of the totem pole, right?

 

Um, through each aspect of the industry all the way up to right now, where now you get to influence. The business because Hunter is manufacturing, new products that did not exist before that's changing the way these guys, this industry works, you know, I think it's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, if I, if I told her it, wasn't having fun, I'd be lying to you.

 

I mean, I genuinely love my job. If there was a one job in the local area that I could choose, I, there would be this one. So I'm perfectly content love dealing with the people I deal with. And it's fun. I have a good time. Yeah, there you go. You guys heard it here. First. We're going to get this, this we're going to, Kevin's going to shoot straight from Hunter.

 

When we jump into the five, his, his top five products for 2021. So I know Hunter has got a lot of stuff coming out this year and I've asked Kevin to share.  from, from your lens, what you think are the top five products. And again, this will be the New York Metro area, but there's a lot of crossover nationally.

 

So let's get right into that. What's a what's product number one. Yeah. Well, every every year for the past, I think three years our marketing team has put out a document called what's new for, I think it started in 2019, went to 20, 20 and 20.  now 2021. So this year yep. We have the document again.

 

Um, it has definitely served as a talking point. You know, everybody can refer to the document. This is what we've got, kind of bounce through all the new stuff.  like you said, I've kind of chosen the five coolest. Products that I think from that document and yeah, we'll go through them now. So we're coming up on five years actually, of a Hunter having and selling Hydrawise controllers.

 

But if you saw what we started out with five years ago, versus what we've got now, it is wildly different. I mean, I'm talking from a hardware perspective to a software, you know, the app, how it, how it operates the whole back. End of it. It's actually very cool to see how this thing has progressed. And one of the things that we've been pushing is flow meters for Hydrawise and it's just kind of takes care of the whole hydraulic troubleshooting and notifying of problems with our Hydrawise systems.

 

If something breaks in the field, we'll get a notification about it. So it's a great great product, great theory and everything. The issue is that. A lot of times when you're retrofitting a controller back into an existing system and installing a flow meter can be difficult. And mainly the biggest issue is getting a wire path to that, to that flow meter.

 

So for years we've been telling people, listen, you have to use a separate wire path. It should be shielded cable and know we've got plenty of guys who were doing it. But again, like I said, that the issue has been the Getting that wire up there. So this year we've actually launched a wireless flow meter.

 

And what it is is it's basically, if, if anybody's used to the Hydrawise flow meters, they are brass constructive flow meters, three quarter, one inch inch, and a half, two inch. We're still going to sell you those same solid flow meters differences that there's going to be a communication piece that goes with it.

 

So you're going to have a 915 megahertz, a dome antenna. On the side of the, of the meter itself. And then you'll have a fin antenna. That's gonna hang off the side of the controller. It's good for a 500 feet line of sight. And yeah, the dome antenna we're suggesting taking a three and a quarter inch hole saw drilling through the top of the ballot box.

 

There's you'll stick the dome piece on that, through the top of the valve box. And then there's a nut to tightens down to a hold the the communication piece in place. So I think we're officially, it's officially going to launch April 1st or something like that.  everybody has speak to it's the first thing they asked me how's that, you know, it was the wireless meter out.

 

So we should roll a lot of excitement from that. Right. Right. So let's talk for a minute. Let's just step back. So when we talk about a flow meter with Hydrawise, can you still wire one to the country? Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, it's, again, we're still, we're selling you the same meter. So if you've got the whole shielded cable, separate wire path worked out.

 

Definitely go on and keep doing that because as everybody knows, a wired connection is better than wireless. Yeah. And then inside the Hydrawise app or the controller, which model controllers does this work with? Any of them that read flow. So it's going to be the HC, the HPC, the PHC and the HCC. It's everything.

 

But the external, I think it is. And then what capabilities does this unlock beyond, you know, reading. 16 gallons a minute. What does the, what can the Hydrawise do with this? Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, we've been doing training classes all week and you know, I think the majority of people, their approach to selling flowmeters is off.

 

We don't care. I mean, we w we can figure out the gallons per minute. We can do all that. That's not the benefit in it. The benefit in it is to find out problems with the S with a irrigation system as they're happening. You know, it's a common thing for me to say to contractors. When I'm speaking to them in a training, you have to have homeowners who complain about when you come to do your spring turnout and you hit them with a big bill.

 

The whole room will say, yeah, of course we do. Yeah, we do. And you know, I've said like, have you ever thought about explaining this to them and saying like, we noticed this stuff when we were here, winterizing in October or November, September, we don't fix them typically. Then we make notes and we'd come back and fix them.

 

But the point is that all of these problems have a broken head maybe a break in a pipe, a valve issue. These things didn't happen the day before we showed up here to winterize your system, they happened to all season long and. Since there's nothing in place to detect it. It just went undetected. So you had a, a landscape that wasn't receiving the proper irrigation.

 

You had things that were broken, you were wasting water. It's a lot of different things that you, that happened that probably happened and went on from for months unaddressed, because your system runs at three, four or five o'clock in the morning and no one's looking so you can pretty much real-time detect issues with the system, which is great.

 

Um, just things that are just running inefficiently. The other side of things is unscheduled flow. So our, our controllers know th they know the schedule for the irrigation system and the system is designed to run. You know, for example, it runs from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM. It's 1:00 AM, and there's water flowing through that meter.

 

So what's going on. I mean, w we will send you real time notifications to let you know any time, whatever the thresholds that you, the contract is set within our software. Whenever those thresholds are met, I'm going to send you a notification. So I like to explain it as almost like an insurance policy for landscape personally, I, I had an irrigation system, believe it or not flooded my basement.

 

So if I had hydrolyzed in place that wouldn't happen, I kind of positioned it that way to people too. But it's, if you're selling flow meters as a way to detect water usage or monitor or totalize, what are you saying? It's really the wrong approach. Okay, cool. And it sounds like there's a lot of irrigation systems out there in the world that you guys are retrofitting.

 

Right? Five years ago, 10 years ago. People had a pro C and ICC controller. Right. And now you're retrofitting them. They don't have flow meters. So if you want to retrofit and add a flow meter or flow sensor to an existing property, what you said, running that wire from the controller to the flow meter is the limiting factor.

 

So it sounds like this is going to unlock. Opportunities for not only the contractors to provide more services, but for the homeowners to enhance their systems or the commercial property that they couldn't do before. Yeah. Big time. I mean, big time. I, I don't, I really don't know what the split is. I mean, I have to think where I have to think we're selling more or Hydrawise controllers in a retrofit situation than in a install situation.

 

I think the retrofits got us in the door with the contractors. It gave them something to go out and sell at this point. Now the guys that are comfortable with Hydrawise there, it's pretty much standardized. That's what they're installing on with new systems. And in that case, they're getting a flow meter most of the time, right?

 

But as you said on those retrofit situations, it becomes tough to do, you know, contractors a little bit torn between, you know, spending a ton of time having to charge for it, or just a, you know, getting the controller in there and, you know, taking advantage of all the other benefits other than the flow meter.

 

But I do believe that the wireless will definitely open up a hole. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And all they have to do is find a suitable place in the main line right before the first valve somewhere. Yep. Install the flow meter. And then in this Val box that you said you drill a hole on the top of the lid, put the little dome antenna in the box and then put, what did you call the other one?

 

A fin fin antenna. Yeah, it's a fin antenna. It just, I mean, I have one over here, but when this is over, maybe a directional kind of antenna. Yeah, it's a, it's shaped like a fin like that. Yep. And then the flow meter can talk to the controller wirelessly. That's awesome. Exciting stuff. Cool. All right. Let's move on to product.

 

Number two. Well, product number two, kind of joined two products, one from Canada last year that. That launched and was wildly popular in this market, for sure. Popular both in sales and performance.  we launched a decoder module for our ICC two controller, which is the same chassis, the same controller as the Hydrawise version, the HCC controller it's, we're calling it the easy D easy to coder system or easy DM for easy to code module.

 

So we have that now that goes into the HCC and the ICC controller. Which will open up that controller, even in a plastic cabinet to a total of 54 zones, which is pretty incredible. It can use existing wire paths, you know, based on integrity. You could take any two 18 gauge wires, for example, and you could run, I think it's 908 feet on that 18, 18 gauge strand.

 

So you can keep, if you had a 10 zone system and you wanted to add on, you can leave all those 10 conventionals zones in place. And then grab two wires, convert them into a two wire path convert from there on, into a Dakota. And would you be converting the whole system to Dakotas or just that does just the new area.

 

You could do it either way, but I mean, personally, if everything, and eventually it was fine, I'd leave the conventional stuff alone. And now you're making a split hybrid controller. Cool. Um, again, up to that 54 station max, so there's tons of room to add on now that was so popular in the ICC and HCC. We actually brought that down to Prosi.

 

So on the pro see, now there is a Dakota module that you can pop in there and get to 32 stations. Got it. So let me step back again. So last year, what model controllers did the easy Dakota work with? Easy to code or module launched last year or possibly even the end of the year before for the ICC, which is our commercial control light commercial controller and the HCC, which is the Hydrawise Virgin of the ICC.

 

You can interchange those two faceplates in the same chassis.  so the module launched for the ICC or HCC, which was really well received. And then we brought it down into the. Privacy. So you can get to 32 stations in a prophecy. There's also a conventional model just for, for what it's worth.  there's also conventional mind for the procedure.

 

That'll get you to 23 stations in a proceed. Okay. Rumor has that. The proceed version will end up on Hydrawise as well. Okay. And all of these controllers that you mentioned, ICC HCC prosy are all Hydrawise compatible or connected. Well, the cool, the thing about Hunter is, you know, we, we build it on a platform and we everything's kind of interchangeable, you know, we have a procedure which most people are familiar with.

 

It's a modular controller. We have a, each PC, which is a Hydrawise proceed. Faceplate, that'll pop right into that same process. Your controller on the ICC side, same, it's kind of built on the same dial and button programming as the prophecy. If you're an expert on a pro seat, you're an expert on the ICC pretty much.

 

And the same thing you got a an HCC panel. That we'll swap right into that ICC two and it becomes a Hydrawise controller. Okay, awesome. So easy to coders for the pro C controller in 2021, and then opening up that opportunity for hybrid, where you can take an existing ball field that has 12 zones, and they're building a new field.

 

You can then go run two wire, easy to coders out to that new expansion. Yep. Awesome. Great. All right, let's move on to number three. Number three. Well, pretty much everybody who ran out and started installing easy to coders. A lot of times they were familiar with our ACC controller and our ICD decoders that go with it.

 

We have an ICD HP, which is a handheld programmer and diagnostic tool for our ICD decoders. So I just jumped ahead, dumped a lot of acronyms on your right there, but I know man, ICC HPC, E Z, you need a, you need a flow chart to follow along, but people who bought into and started installing are easy to coders.

 

They loved it. There. The one thing that everybody would come out with right in the beginning was. This system is fantastic. When are you going to have a handheld program or a diagnostic tool? And obviously we went back to Hunter and, you know, they were already working on it. So we have launched an easy D T, which is a, the easy diagnostic tool.

 

Which you can get a bunch of diagnostic information, including Dakota status and station number and things wirelessly much like our ICD HP does this also has programming ports on it. So you can field programmed from Val box. So that's, that's kind of the scenario that I got hit with the most is No, we're building out to keep up with the landscape.

 

We're on a new project. We keep keeping it cold every other week to irrigate a certain area. And we're dropping easy. Decoders in irrigation guys are really specific of how their programming is and at the end, and they want to clean it up. They don't want one to be in front of the house, two in the back three on the side.

 

So they wanted to be able to go around and reprogram the order of those decoders from the field. So that way, I, that was one of the biggest callings for a programming tool. So we have the tool. Now you can do it right from the valve box.  you will have to take your two wire leads off the decoder, pop them in the programming ports, give it an address and then make your final connection right there.

 

Okay. A couple of quick questions, the first one, talk to talk to us about how the diagnostic tool works wirelessly. So what does that mean? I mean, there's an infrared end on the, on the front of the. Device and it just it is a yeah, it's wireless, but that's like a, it's not a a megahertz or a radio wave.

 

It's a, LightWave infrared conduction of electrical conduction between the bottom of the decode and not to, not to, not, to, not to crowbar on a six item in here, but we do, we do have Dakota steaks that we're launching this year, too. So those Dakota steaks are designed to be pounded into a valve box to keep that decoder, whether it's ours or pretty much fits everybody, every manufacturer's decoder.

 

And I'll keep the bottom of the decoder out of the mess. So you can come back around with your diagnostic tool, just pointed at the bottom of the Dakota and get all your readings right there. And what kind of readings are you getting out of that? What's it telling you? You're finding out decoder status.

 

 you can get stationed number. I think you get some voltage readings. Truth of the matter is I got this, I think yesterday shipped. Okay. I'm not an expert yet on using it because it's brand new.  does the decoder need to be powered up by the controller for this to work? The Dakota would need to be powered up by the controller to get the readings.

 

The Dakota would have to be removed from the wire path in order to program to program it is station number, right? Okay. So you'll get the readings without touching any, anything on the wall, our path. Again, if you're using those Dakota steaks on the bottom of that Dakota is facing right out of the valve box, flip the valve box over bone points and get your readings and Yeah, that's great, man, because sometimes with two wire, it's like troubleshooting in the dark with your clothes, right?

 

Sometimes field service technicians. Don't always know where to go. The experience ones. No, but the mid to junior level, sometimes don't know where to go to the slate and find the problem. And you know, I hear a lot that Dakotas are returned, this that are suspect that they've failed and they're not failed because it was just a wiring issue somewhere.

 

So. Perhaps that tool will help service technicians isolate the problems quicker. Yeah. Well, when I, when I show up on site with an ACC or ACC tool with a handheld programmer, like you mentioned some of the guys that are less experienced with Dakota diagnostics, They see that and think about what they had been doing for the last three days at the site rep and Dakota that try and program them.

 

So that that tool is, is is very cool. And this one's going to be likewise and I forgot to mention, by the way, the easy decoder system is a 24 volt system. So it's not like a traditional decoder. So most of your diagnostics are going to fall in line with what your conventional diagnostics are going to be.

 

So not too special about diagnosing the system, which is another thing that makes it easy. Awesome. Cool. All right. Let's move on to number four. All right. Sounds good.  number four, I have for you is our amazing PGP ultra. We have now launched it in a six inch riser. So it's a really extremely popular head for us for the industry it's like hugely popular where, where we are performance is great.

 

You know, I think most people know a lot of the specs on it. It's got a part circle truthful circle in one.  memory arch return, which just snaps heads, right back into adjustment, all the same specs as a regular PGP ultra, just with the two inch larger rise up from the STEM. Yeah. So great. That opens, that brings up another question.

 

You know, the, the PGP ADJ, you know, is likely one of the most popular rotors of all time and you can still purchase it today. And why would someone. Still use the ADJ when they can buy the PGP ultra. You know, what, where I'm sitting right now is in, is everybody's very familiar that there are two heads out there.

 

And one is a, an ultra. Some people are just stuck in their ways. They liked the nozzling. They liked the spray pattern of a, of an ADJ. Just kind of, again, people just a little bit, not, not to make it sound like a bad thing, but a little bit stuck in their ways. And just like what they like and replace all that.

 

I mean, they'll both fit into the same cans, so it's not like you're, you know, you can't swap them out for each other, but some people just like them and they liked the nozzling. They liked the, the spray pattern. I think the ultra has a better spray pattern and it's a better head. It's got a better warranty that has a check valve too.

 

Right? Optional check optional. Okay. Six inches probably important because the turf grass, you know, we're seeing longer length of turf grasses, right? Yep. That's exactly what it's designed for. I mean, we'll S we'll still sell more of the four-inch I'm sure. Obviously, but the the performance is a nice option when you have those scenarios.

 

Yeah. And even I can relate to just my own property because it went in new construction and I have  love the . And you know, just over time, especially when the soil is new and it hasn't been, you know, compacted, the sprinklers definitely tend to settle the grass. If it's grown properly, grows nice and thick.

 

And before, you know, it, every time the sprinklers come on, you're seeing, you know, a little doughnut of the, of the turf bent over because the turd is just barely cresting the grass. So, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So number four was the PGP ultra Oh six. That's right. That's it? Oh, six will be the ultra and a six inch.

 

That's correct. Awesome. All right. We have got one left. You know, I, I asked Kevin only to give us five of the 200 new things Hunter has coming out. So did you save the best for last. Well, you know what I, I worked my way to the back of the Cadillac. I'm going to be honest with you. It is a good document.

 

So five is five because it's in the back, but I did want to diversify a little bit and I think we have a pretty cool product here. It's called the MP stake. So if anybody's familiar with our MP rotors this is going to be a 26 inch steak. That comes with 0.3, four, five tubing with a half inch male fitting connection.

 

And this is designed for temporary irrigation systems. You know, we sell eco mat, which is a great product for.  subsurface turf applications. So, you know, think turf, walkways, roofs, whatever, whatever you want, wherever you'd want to irrigate turf from below, rather than above, you could use that ecomap which a great product.

 

But we do tell ya when you install that, that you should use overhead irrigation. To get the roots to start growing. So that's one application that I can think of this product. Um, another one would just be just temporary stuff in beds. A lot of irrigation guys work for and with landscapers. You know, we've, we've given them, we've given our contractors a bunch of different kind of quick temporary ways to set up a quick irrigation system.

 

Because as we know, as a season kicks on and a landscaper's finishing up a project on a Thursday or Friday night and they need some water down there quickly, chances are you're busy too. So you could set guys up with certain products and they can just basically, you know, no thought, just go around, sticking them in.

 

Keep the area wet until you're able to get back there. And this is going to come with a pressure regulator at 40 40 PSI with a check valve. And then without that setup. So it's just, it's something different. It's pretty cool. I think that we probably don't even know. What a lot of contractors are gonna end up using it for, which is kind of cool to find out stuff from the guys who were selling it too.

 

But definitely something different, something new unique. I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, absolutely. So we got an MP rotator, everyone listening is likely familiar with the MP rotator, and then that is connected to a pressure regulator at 40 PSI. And then underneath that is the steak. You know that you used to Mount it temporarily and under w what hose is connected to the bottom.

 

Yeah. It's, it's got, I, there's gotta be some sort of polyethylene connected to the supply line. What or what kind of supply line is, right. So I was kicking around some ideas. I mean, around here, we're a big poly market. So the, basically the way I was going through with some contractors last week was I guess it depends how much you're using.

I mean, potentially if it's a real small area to run some blank, drip tubing over to it and get a half inch female by 17 millimeter drip to a drip fitting. If you know, you've got a bunch of these out there and your flow is going to be too high for that, half-inch a blank drip tubing. Then you can do some poly with some poly Tees and elbows to thread it in.

Obviously if you're in a PVC market, you can do the same thing with Pico PVC fittings, but you're talking half inch thread is coming off of the unit here. Okay. Yeah. So guys might, I could see them keeping a whole handful of them a couple dozen or so on their trucks. So if they're not able to bang in a zone for one, but he's in, by the afternoon, a new sod got laid.

They could maybe at the very least quickly connect a couple of those to the closest valve. And just to get some water flowing. Yeah. Hose bib, you know, if you need it to, with a little bit of hose, whatever it might be. But I mean, like I said, there's kind of a nursery applications. This will be great. You know, I mean there's yep.

Green roofs. You're right. Yeah. Tons of reasons why you'd use it. Like I said, I'm kind of interested in hearing how people are going to end up using it. So just as a reference, remind me, what's the flow rate required out of an MP rotator? Well, it depends on the like, Half gallon per minute or 0.2, roughly.

I mean, I can tell you exactly depending on what we're looking at, but typically you're looking at on a 1000 at 90 degrees. It's 0.2, one gallons per minute, and read more. Realistically is that's a 90. So if you doubled that to a one 80, he probably double that exactly on a 2000 same thing, half, half circle on a 2000.

Is  about three quarters of a gallon. Okay. Cool. Well, that's good, good, simple math. And you can easily if needed to hook up to a hose bed temporarily with adapter. And you know, if you got five, six gallons a minute that hose bib, you can run quite a few of them temporarily. Cool. So that's the top five products I think Well, let me ask you before I say, which of those five are you most excited about?

I mean, just, I mean, we, we sell a lot of Hydrawise around here and it's been like a personal mission of mine to get more of the flow meters out there. And I think this will definitely help us on that. And then the easy DT is going to be huge. We've got a lot of guys installing easy decoders to begin with.

And I think that this is just going to open it up for way more. I mean, I've got people waiting for these things. Yeah, totally agree. I think, yeah. If we have access to the data, the water data, the flow data, it will help raise the education level of the entire industry. Because right now people just don't know what they don't know, because we aren't able to see the data.

Or we haven't been able to see the data unless we were spending, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars on commercial and institutional type systems. And even then half of them. Barely worked right. If we can get more data at that entry level access, it'll it'll help everyone. So I think that would be what I'd most excited to see, probably followed by the handheld.

But I also think something that's innovative in the analog space, if that's the right way to call it, like the MP stake, I think that's kind of cool because it unlocks new new opportunities to provide water and irrigation services that might not have been there before. Yeah. I mean, we, you know, the, the exciting stuff now tends to be all controller, you know advancements and that's what people we'll talk about, but like, kind of, like you're saying, you could go back to old school, you know, throwing water around.

It's good. It's cool to see some new stuff. Yeah. The amount of requests that come in that I've had about temporary irrigation systems. No one has truly solved that question. And I don't know that this is the best way to solve it, but it's definitely a need that's out there that isn't addressed other than garden hoses and like oscillating sprinklers.

Yeah. Well that sounds exactly right. That's funny. Awesome. Well, that's great. Appreciate you sharing those top five hunters, a great company. I'm excited to see these come to market as well. And it was good chatting with you, Kevin, keep up the good work, man. I appreciate it. You too great being here.

Thank you very much. Yeah, we'll catch you soon. Take care. All right. Thanks. .