Quote Originally Posted by jwingfield2k
you soooooo funny. Hey Steven, man I gotta show you this new Weathermatic controller. This is insane. I've been at Weathermatic for about 10 hours in the past two days meeting with the President, VP, and 3rd guy in charge (whatever his title is).

Also, I found out why Putt likes Rain Bird so much, and not Weathermatic. Rainbird pays him money to put in their stuff, thats why they have the biggest market share or irrigation products. I dont know if your dad knows that or not, but that Stonebriar and Willowbend were completely spec'ed for all weathermatic parts, but rainbird paid Putt Choate to switch over and use all of rainbirds stuff. Somehow they worked around the whole "kickbacks are illegal aspect I'm guessing." Theres no argueing that fact, because Putt will straight up tell you Rainbird pays him to use their products. We figured out a a way yesterday to give the contractor/customer a warranty for this Smartline stuff, but the catch is that they have to use all the new parts from the Smartline product lineup. Mike Mason, the Weathermatic President put together a 10 year warranty for all jobs that use completely Weathermatic materials, and are designed by my dad. I don't know what the warranty is if the design isnt from my dad, but it's not 10/yrs. Kinda cool eh? Works out for everyone there And our products are the same price as Rainbirds, and the availability is the same. We just don't pay contractors off when they use the materials.
Although, Rainbird won't be able to touch a controller and weather station like this for another two years. You need to come to my house in richardson and check this thing out, it'll blow you away. (hows that for keeping the thread on topic)?
there is a lot of things that Putt does that are out there. He sued home depot because they wouldnt give him credit. doubt he won but still. he has his own check cashing company that comes around on pay days and for a small fee they cash the messcans checks. also he has his own company in mexico that takes care of all the green card BS. The company sends them over here and brings them back every so often only to send them right back to the states.

as far as kickbacks from rainbird, this is true. they often send owners on trips for using their products, and using a lot of them. my dad got a trip to cancun or some mexican place like that. he also said that another reason he is currently pro-rainbird is that weathermatic products just dont sell at the supply houses. he got a controller for a job from john deere and couldnt get it to work. after several days messing with it he called the weathermatic rep out. The rep said it was out of date and should have been pulled from the shelves some time back. they apperently have a shelf life of only so long.... weathermatic simply cant touch rainbird in sales right now. not to say that wont change.

i was talking with my dad this weekend about wethermatic controlers and he sais he likes the weatherstations. told me that they measure a little as 1/100 of an inch of moisture to change the station times so that they only get the required amount of water a week. i also noticed that there were 6 deep cycle batteries sitting in the garage. when i asked him about it he said he has a sprinkler somewhere running off the batteries hooked to an inverter because there is no electric meter at the job yet. said two car batteries last one day


yes a six page thread on hightech watering of plants....thing is you need some technology when you have thousands and thousands of dollars worth of plants that your responsible for. If you install a system and it gets too much water your screwed...too little water and yolur screwed. these plants arent cheap...