32ETI

This product was simple to install. It just takes a few hours of manual labor. I believe it took me around 3 hours. then I spent another hour adjusting the sprinkler heads. Over the next few days, I continued to adjust the sprinkler heads until I got them exactly the way I wanted them to be. The adjustment for the heads isn't as simple as I'd like as one little tweak would sometimes send it further than desired but after some time I finally got how they were adjusting and it became easier. I did have some problems but was able to fix them myself. There were some leaks in some places when testing the system after installing. For starters around the faucet connection the connections had to be adjusted to stop the leaking. Then one of the sprinklers wasn't working. I dug it back up and it turned out it was leaking so I had to adjust those connections as well. I watched and monitored the sprinklers for the next few days. One of the sprinkler heads would not pop up. I would gently pull it up and it would work. Turned out it had gotten some dirt in it that made it stick so after all the dirt was cleared out it pops up every time. I've been using the sprinkler system for about a month and it is running great. I love the programmer. It was simple to program and it helps to have it automatically start watering my lawn twice a day. I just laid down new sod so having a system that waters the entire front yard without moving sprinklers around saves me time and ensures all of the sod gets thouroughly soaked. I purchased a splitter so that I can still have a hose attached to my outside faucet. I read all of the reviews before buying and some people said it's cheaply made and the hose won't last long....well, compared to the thousands it would cost to install a professional pvc sprinkler system this system saves money and does the job for which it is intended. The hose is made of plastic and of course it's buried under ground (except for the part near your faucet) so I can see it lasting for a few years. IMO, a couple hundred bucks instead of thousands when I just spent thousands on new sod will give me time to save up for a more professional system by the time this one wears out. All in all, I'm very happy with it. My sod is filling in nicely. Everything is watered even the flower beds without having to lift a finger...well now that the installation is done.

I purchased this product because we (my spouse & I) recently planted about 4,500 square feet of grass and needed a cost-efficient way to water all of it. We were quoted many thousands of dollars for a custom in-ground sprinkler solution, so we looked for something that we could set up ourselves. The requirements: it had to be compatible with standard outside faucets, installable without special tools, and not require any sort of custom plumbing work. After going through the well-written manual and reviewing the installation steps, we took our time to measure and mark the spots where the sprinkler heads would go. We quickly realized that one system would not be enough for our square footage and ultimately purchased two additional systems, but not before setting up the first one and testing it. Laying down the hose and setting up the sprinkler heads was about as easy as one could hope. You just run the hose to the sprinkler spots and cut it, using the appropriate included connectors to attach everything firmly. It requires some strength, but can be done by hand without any special tools. Attaching the system to a faucet using the included timer or any other timer is also simple. Once it's connected tightly, you can program the system to run on a variety of schedules, up to 4x a day. (One very minor complaint here: If you want multiple waterings a day, the schedule must be spaced evenly: every 6 hours, or every 12 hours. You cannot schedule it to run at 11am, and then 8pm that same day, as that interval is not included in the timer.) Once everything was connected and running, we adjusted the sprinkler 'throw' distance and rotation to account for our landscape. This too is very easy, although one minor 'quality of life' complaint would be that there is no visual indication on the sprinkler heads to show the current rotation in degrees. If you make adjustments you have to turn the appropriate screw and then wait to see the effect. This doesn't merit docking a star however, since this setup is one-time-only. It's been several weeks since we installed our 3 Rain Bird systems and everything is working great. Highly recommended!

In short, if you want to save yourself thousands of dollars on a professional system and spend about half a day installing an OKAY system yourself (it is not without flaws) then definitely try this. The kit here is more like a starter kit, because if you have even a quarter of an acre, you're going to need at least one more but better to use 2 or 3 more for the best results. Reason being because if your water pressure is not insanely amazing to begin with, the more sprinkler heads you use per single line, the less performance you'll see. In fact, I have 3 total systems myself. Initially we went with one to see how it worked. Even though it isn't flawless, we added more, as well as had to get spare parts to replace pieces that were broken by winter snowplowing or being driven over, or just general leaking. Even though we have had to replace a few pieces, we will still never have spent as much on this as a professional system. INSTALLATION: Out of the box, it is pretty easy to get this going - the only other tools you might need include a shovel, something to cut the tubing with, and perhaps a lighter to help you fit the plastic pieces into the tubing. You will first want to test your water pressure so that you know how many heads you can really use and which nozzles to attach when you start. I will say, from the start, the plastic parts leak right from the controller. The kit comes with plumbing tape, but it doesn't help. Once you decide generally where your system is going to be laid out, you'll want to try and uncoil the tubing and take out the want for it to re-coil up, so we straighted them out while weighed them down with blocks. We did this for a while out in the sun which seemed to work best. We didn't use the test-setup stakes that they provide, but it is a good idea to use them if you are unsure of where everything will end up. If you don't have a trencher or want to rent one, the best way to install this is with two people. One person can use a large flat shovel to kind of slice into the earth so that you can lift out that piece, and while you're holding it up out of the ground, the second person can tuck the tubing down into the space before the person with the shovel lets go and you re-cover that section. It does take hours to get through a large yard doing it this way, but worth it because in the end you can't even tell the earth was disturbed and once it is finished you can run the sprinkler and the grass heals itself pretty easily. QUALITY: As I said before, the parts essentially leak right out of the box. But for the price and ease of use, we deal with it. However, it seems that sometimes they work great, other times one of the heads will stay mostly down and just leak everywhere. It seems to be a water pressure issue, but sometimes it happens and other times they go off just fine with no human intervention. Other times, I have to go out and physically lift the offending sprinkler head long enough that the rest of the system pressure builds and all of them hold themselves up together as a good little sprinkler family. All of the systems except the one that we only installed 3 heads on do this. So for us, that is 2 of 3. Again not sure if it is the systems fault or more my water pressure, so I don't complain too much. As I said, the more heads you add to a system, the less performance you'll get, so we have 3 systems, two are on the left side of my driveway and one is on the right side. I only have one hose hookup in the front, and one in the backyard, so the system that covers the lawn on the smaller right side actually covers the entire backyard and the front on that side. Because of this, we purchased extra hoseline for that second system. Again, this can be contributing to the pressure issues we have, but it was really the only way we thought it could work. There was no way to place the hose underneath the driveway so this just has to do. We have hard and cold winters here, and normally we take the controllers inside and off of the spigots so that nothing happens to them. This year, we didn't bother, and we didn't even blow out the system. They work just the same this year, so it didn't seem to affect them by not bringing them in or winterizing the lines. That is impressive. CONTROLS: The controls themselves are pretty intuitive but rather basic. Of course, cannot complain for the ease of installation, and the low price, it does more than what I really need it to do which is schedule at least 2 separate watering calendars per unit. In addition to the basic controls, there is also an option to WATER NOW which is nice. I use this often when I am trying to test the pressure and figure out what is going on. The only annoying thing is that there is no water sensor so of course, if you have them scheduled to go off, they're going off no matter what, and your neighbors will laugh at you when it is downpouring and your sprinklers are going off all the same. I try to be mindful of the forecast so that I can just switch them to "off" when I know it is going to storm, but then it is harder for me to remember to switch them back ON after the weather clears! OVERALL: I am really impressed with these kits for the price. Yes, they will be better if you have more systems and do not exhaust the sprinkler heads, but there are plenty of workarounds for this and overall I really would recommend this for the homeowner who is handy enough, isn't afraid to put in a hard day's work, and wants to save some money. It has made a HUGE difference in the look and health of my lawn having this system in place.

Great cost effective DIY sprinkler system. I needed something for may fairly small front yard that gets baked every summer, and this did the job. I installed as directed in the instruction manual, and the results are as expected. The coverage from a normal garden spigot is better than expected, and the coverage is great. I’m a bit concerned about the connection quality when I blow the system out this winter, but we will see next spring. Spray distance and coverage area are fully adjustable, and easy to adjust. Don’t be fooled by the the video though, this installation process isn’t as simple as stick your shovel in and push it back and forth to cover the tubing, it’s a full on excavation to 6’ or so. All that being said, I’m happy with the product and I’m buying another for my back yard.

Currently redoing our backyard with new seed, we still have to put this underground an all the other work of new seeding. To change the sprinkler range was super hard. We used all 6 sprinklers for my backyard and with the recommended coverage overlaps worked great. Other than that this system was really easy to set up. I did watch a bunch of videos online. I received all the parts with this order as well. The scheduling system was super easy to use.

Please.... Please... Please.... Siftcthrough all of the reviews and find this one. After following all the instructions, mapping everything out, gallons per minute test, and the rest of the minutia, I finally felt comfortable ripping up my manacured lawn to install this garbage. After setting up everything above ground I was pleased to see that everything worked as intended. I spent the next few days a few hours at a time burying the lines and the sprinkler heads. I tested everything before reseeding my lawn and everything seemed to work fine. For the next couple days the sprinklers were perfect and you'd never know the difference between this kit and a professionally installed irrigation system. Then... Just yesterday my wife came to me and said the yard was completely flooded. I went out to see and found that the sprinkler heads were only extend a quarter to a half an inch above ground and were pouring water out of them. Completely flooding and washing awaybthe seed that I had just sewn. After inspecting each head I noticed that one in particular seemed to be leaking water much faster than the others so I took the time to dig it up. Everything seemed fine, so before backfilling it again I tested the sprinklers, everything seemed normal. I bck filled and re seeded again. Tested the sprinklers and everything seemed fine. I just assumed it was a fluke and carried on. The nest scheduled watering, the sprinklers turned on and again only extended a quarter of an inch or so, causing major flooding and seed washout around the sprinklers. I escalated then again, in hopes of seeing a union in the tubing that had come loose and would explain the lack of pressure which would cause the malfunction in the heads but all unions were tight and not leaking from what I could tell. My next though was that maybe the drains were leaking and causing said low pressure so I crimped the tubing before the drains, and tested again. This seemed to fix the problem. I buried andnre seeded yet AGAIN. Now the problem seemed to be fixed. Two cycles later and the same problem occurred. I have troubles shooted this system to the best of my ability. At this time I have waited hours upon hours trying to get these to work as advertised. I so regret the day I decided to purchase this kit, and hope that you learn from my mistake. What a disappointment this has been.

The value is amazing - this is working as well as any commercially installed sprinkler and cost less than $150 for us to purchase and install ourselves. Takes a few hours to install - your biggest time spent is digging. Challenges = you don't know exactly how the spray patterns and distance will work until you hook it up and turn it on, so you have to cut the hose and set it up before you know with certainty that you are getting the coverage you need. You only get one straight connector (to splice together hose if you need to add length to a section). We bought a couple of universal connectors at our local Lowes/Home Depot and those worked fine. Props = Rainbird customer service is great! They answer your call and questions before you even purchase the product. I had measurements of the yard, plus readings of water pressure and water flow (gpm) and they helped me with specifics about which sprinkler nozzles to use and how it would work if I laid it out a certain way. Bonus: We made it work with lower water flow. We have water pressure that matches the required specs (55 psi) but lower flow than they recommend. We measured 4.8 gpm using their method of timing the fill of a 5 gallon bucket. The specs require minimum 6 gpm. Our solution is to only use 5 sprinkler heads instead of 6. And use a few of the .75 gpm spray nozzles, and a few 1.0 gpm nozzles. It works, spray and coverage are great, you just have to do the math and lay it out properly. The 5 heads are covering 1200+ sq ft of lawn with overlapping spray in most areas. Because of the low flow we can't be running a dishwasher or taking a shower at the same time as watering, but we program the watering to happen early in the morning and it works great. So if you don't have 6 gpm, don't give up on this! You can still make this product work, you just need to be careful how you set it up. Would definitely recommend. Customer service is great. Install is straightforward (just be ready to dig your lines in whatever type of soil you have). Programming automatic sprikling is easy and then you can just let it do its thing.

1 YEAR UPDATE BELOW INITIAL REVIEW: Great system so far (been running 3 sets for about a week). But it took much longer in real life scenarios than the "couple of hours" that Rain Bird claims. Still worth it if you are looking for a solution in a box. If you are digging in perfect soil without trees, shrubs, and rocks, I assume that this system can be planned, tested, and buried in about 5 hours or less. However in the real world, you will be hacking through roots and excavating rocks big and small, increasing the time it takes by 25-50%. It took me about 30 hrs over 2 weekends to plan, test, and burry 3 systems. Amateur-Tip #1: instead of using a flat shovel as Rain Bird suggests (which admittedly would make a nice, clean strip of grass), use a spade shovel with broad areas to step on at the neck (this will save the bottom of your feet). Amateur-Tip #2: Before beginning, use a Dremel or some other grinding tool to sharpen the blade of the shovel to axe-like sharpness (be VERY CAREFUL, this effectively weaponizes an otherwise safe shovel). Sharpening the spade will allow for quick hacking through even moderately-sized roots up to 2" in diameter (imagine what it could do to an ill-placed toe—BE CAREFUL). Repeat the sharpening as needed as you work. I sharpened my shovel twice in 30hrs with a moderate amount of roots and very few rocks. Amateur-Tip #3: more planning, less digging. If you have to run multiple lines to a similar location, try to run all of the lines in the same trench. I used zip-ties to bundle 2 lines that I had to run in the same direction instead of digging 2 trenches. I used a few more feet of hose to do this, but I save HOURS of work. Amateur-Tip #4: a heat gun is a big help if you've got it. One the days I was laying the hose, it was cloudy and cool. Nice conditions to work in, not ideal conditions to soften the coiled vinyl hoses. Rain Bird suggests Un bundling the hoses and letting them sit in the sun for a few hours before attempting to lay them out. I used a heat gun to soften the vinyl enough to straighten out the hoses. Final Amateur-Tip: DEFINITELY run the system BEFORE burying the lines. Upon running the system above ground, I found that one of the hose lengths had a pin-hole in it. I bisected the section at the defect and attached the two parts with a straight fitting that is provided in the box. 1 YEAR REVIEW: The components of this kit are mostly great. Hoses, connections, tools, sprinkler heads are all still working great after a year of use and one northeast winter. I had the lines professionally winterized (blown out), well worth it. The timer/valve on the other hand were very poor quality. I had to replace all three (I ran three systems) by the middle of last summer, and then the replacements all broke by the end of last summer. This spring I invested in a 1" 3-valve manifold and the b-hyve smart timer both by orbit. I had to go to Home Depot to pick up some connectors to drop the 1" valves first down to 3/4" and the from 3/4" down to 1/2" (which is the diameter of the hose for this system). Overall I suppose I could've just installed a more professional-grade system in the first place, but I would still recommend this kit for anyone who has not installed an irrigation system before because this comes with pretty good instructions and everything you'll need to get the job done—just keep an eye on those timer/valves.