Irrigation problems

Started by DavidF6 • 14 replies • 1654 views

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DavidF6 (Florida)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Hello, we are a community in Florida with a HOA and an elected Board. Our issue is how we should proceed in holding the irrigation company, that installed our system, accountable for all of the problems we have incurred in the last 2 years. Our community is 3 years old and we do not believe there is anything at this point in time that we can do! However, it has cost us many dollars to fix and repair all of the problems. We believe the company did not perform and is responsible for most of the break downs.

DavidF6

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

David,
Get with Board and find any documents that deal with the developer turning over complex to association. See what was turned over and who is responsible for what. Get all your irrigations bills and explanations together and a couple of Board members met with Irrigation Company and mediate the past performance. If you can prove misbillings or anything out of relm of good resonsible good business, go to court house and take out mechanics lien. Go to better business and get their record of doing business, use the leverage of expected future business, lien, and be a little hard nosed about it, but do your homework.

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DavidF6 on 08/30/2007 7:51 AM
Hello, we are a community in Florida with a HOA and an elected Board. Our issue is how we should proceed in holding the irrigation company, that installed our system, accountable for all of the problems we have incurred in the last 2 years. Our community is 3 years old and we do not believe there is anything at this point in time that we can do! However, it has cost us many dollars to fix and repair all of the problems. We believe the company did not perform and is responsible for most of the break downs.

DavidF6

David:

That is a pretty broad statement on having problems, what type of problems are you experiencing? If it is pump then there should be a manufacturers warranty. What type of warranty did the company give on their work? Are you dealing with pipe leaks, defective heads, bad control boxes, etc? Since your system is fairly new if you can prove the problems are from bad work you might have a case. With any system you will have heads that go bad, occassional breaks in the pipe, etc.

DavidF6 (Florida)
Posts: 4

Posted:

We continue to have breaks in main feeder hose lines, control boxes needing replacement, soaker hose failures, missing soaker hoses, main valve failures.

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

David, the obvious thing to do is to contact the company that did the work and try to get them to correct anything still under warranty. If not under warranty, and they are licensed, I would still try to get them to make corrections.

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

DavidF6 - Document the repairs and money spent to correct them, and seek reimbursement from the Developer in any Transition settlement or negotiations. Seems the problem's started on the Developer's watch.

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

David:

I would do as everyone else has suggested, work with the company to get them to pay for part or all of the repairs. It is expected to have some repairs every year on a sprinkler system, especially a large one. But if they are reputable and things seem to be a recurring issue they should stand behind their product.

GloriaM (North Carolina)
Posts: 829

Posted:

Especially after 3 years, what happened in year 1 or 2, why wasn't this brought to their attention then?

DavidF6 (Florida)
Posts: 4

Posted:

There was some minor issues the first 2 years that were brought to the attention of the contracter and resolved with some satisfation. However this summer things really fell apart!

GloriaM (North Carolina)
Posts: 829

Posted:

David:

Then can you really assess that the problem relates to faulty work after 3 years? If there were minor issues year 1& 2 then perhaps you need to figure out why there are so many problems now. Are they PVC pipes break problems? Or are the heads being damaged by the landscapers? Has there been any work done by any utility companies that perhaps could have cut some of the lines. Do some investigating to figure out what went wrong and where.

TankT (Texas)
Posts: 2

Posted:

get their lic# turn them into the state/ or threaten to with your contractor, if they revoke his lic# he cant do biz legaly. please call me if you need more help, Tank 940-365-2341

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

Tank:

Why would they get their license revoked? Unless they have a warranty on the product they are not obligated to fix it and it sounds like they have worked with the HOA in the first couple of years. You can't assume it is from faulty work, it could be from misuse of the association as well. Or it may be one of those freak things that happens.

Threatening to turn them in will do no good and will cause the walls to go up. If they want the company to work with them if the product is outside of its warranty then the best approach is being nice.

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

We had a sudden rash of irrigation system problems this year. We've had ours for 10 years.

However, what we discovered is the former head of the Architectural Committee was sabatoging the system.

We had heads getting chopped up, rotors freezing in one position, etc.
When we discovered that the programming had been changed from program A to program B, twice (Program B waters 2 times a day, which jumped our water bill significantly -- the FIRST time we discovered it turned to Program B, we erased Program B altogether -- then it occurred again, reprogrammed.)

We had our attorney write him a letter indicating that we have a new security system and we have noticed he is accessing the controller box without authorization and asked him to stop.

We have had not incidents since the letter.

AnthonyC1 (New Jersey)
Posts: 2

Posted:

Hello David,

My company has been involved in this type of irrigation installation transition many times over the years. If the installing contractor is not repairing the issues you are speaking of, their is a way to handle it. Have your management company hire another party (irrigation) contractor to run through the system and develop a detailed transition report with pictures and detailed explainations of damages and/or areas that were not completed.

This report from a third party that is familiar with providing transition reports on irrigation will ensure that these repairs get paid for. The contractor that developes the report should also fix these problems. Once you pay the new contractor for these repairs that the installing contractor repaired, you can now bill the installing contractor or developer back for the repairs. The report is the key.

If you need help let me know.

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

David,
Where are they getting the water from? A well, pumping a pond/lake or city utility company? Some of your problems might well be from the scorce of the water. We have 14 lakes/drainage ponds and with the last 2 years of drought, the lake waters are down and have been having some health problems which cause the pumps to pick up matter that causes more breakdowns than we care to pay for. But Florida is just another world and we have weird problems so other than a rotten installation, there might be a different problem.

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