Landscaping

One of the most profitable additions to your lawn care service business can be the repair of irrigation and sprinkler systems. Although plumbers may do this work, it is not their area of expertise and their hourly rates are often prohibitive for this type of work. There are irrigation companies that do installation that also do repair and maintenance and this is their specialty. As a lawn care operator you have an advantage with your immediate contact with an established client base, your own customers!

Most lawn care operators include minor sprinkler repair as part of the service. Parts should always be charged separately. Major problems should be handled as separate jobs and charged by the hour. The repair of irrigation and sprinkler systems is not something that can be estimated prior to the start of the job. The problems often lie underground and cannot be seen. You may be able, from experience, to look over the problem and give a rough idea of what is involved, but always charge by the hour for the work, plus parts.

What you charge will vary from area to area. Generally irrigation repair is charged at a slightly higher hourly rate than lawn care service, but much less than what plumbers would charge. An example would be:

Lawn Care hourly man-hour rate: $25.00 per hour

Plumber hourly rate: $85.00 per hour

Irrigation repair hourly rate: $40.00 per hour

Have a minimum charge of one hour's work and stick to it. Tell the client the minimum up front. Before you actually start working you never know if it will be a ten minute job or a whole day. I could fill pages with the stories of what we've found underground once we started digging, but at the same time it's been more than once that I found the problem was the time clock was shut off or had no power.

Buy your parts at a wholesale supplier that sells to the landscape contractor market. Mark your parts up a minimum of 30%. Always check the discount hardware retailers in your area, like Home Depot, as they will often have better prices. When you buy at the wholesale supplier you will not get the best discount unless you have a contractor's license, so sometimes places like Home Depot will have better prices.

Keep a small stock of the most often used sprinkler repair parts on your truck. Running