RICK CARNEY IRRIGATION

Very good except no advance call on service date.

I was very happy with the service we received from Carney. We had a bad experience with another popular irrigation company in Fredericksburg and Carney saved the day by getting our system installed quickly so we could lay our sod and avoid an HOA fee. They've since winterized and de-winterized our system and the technicians have been very friendly and prompt with all services. We will definitely be using Carney again when we add irrigation to the back yard.

Technician showed up on time and finished quickly.

At first they started off pretty good but I've had to call them several times since the installation to come to clean up tire marks they missed on my walkways and in front of my home. They finally cleaned it up yesterday but I had to threaten them with a call to the Better Business Bureau. I called them several times and left several emails with pictures so I was really disappointed in the fact that I had to repeatedly get them out here and finally I had to have them send me something in writing guaranteeing they would be out here or I was going to call the Better Business Bureau. They had a regularly scheduled appointment to come and check on my sprinklers but they never bothered to tell me that was when they were going to clean up the mess they left on my property. It took them over a month to come and clean up the tire marks they left. The price was okay. They did pretty decent work. The customer service was horrible.

The actual installation seemed to go pretty well. I was told that our water pressure was not adequate for the irrigation system and the we would need to add a booster pump ($350 not in the estimate). I was not home during the installation; however, my wife was. We did not receive any information on how to set up or change the control panel, but I figured it out. All seemed to work well. When spring of 2007 arrived, I immediately had problems with the booster pump and a sprinkler head that would not pump up. I made a service call and they came out to replace the head and booster pump. It cost me $150 for the service call and for them to replace the sprinkler head (I was told the sprinkler head had been run over). The fall of 2007, I winterized my system (it is very easy and not worth the money Rick Carney charges). Spring 2008 showed up and my booster pump is not working again and I notice water coming out of the ground (not even close to a sprinkler head). I make another call to Rick Carney and am told the booster pump is out of warranty and I would be charged another $75 service charge to come out since Rick Carney did not winterize my system and the water leak was most likely from a ruptured pipe. I decided not pay the $75 fee dug up the ground where the water was coming from on my own. I discovered that the issue was not from a burst water pipe, but from poor workmanship. Instead of properly measuring and cutting the PVC pipe, a modified T was snapped onto a full length and a hole was drilled into the pipe. The tee was never seated properly and had gravel in between the pipe and T (I still have the T and the gravel the prevented it to be properly seated and glued). As for the booster pump, I just unplugged it and ran the system without it. As required by Stafford County, I had my backflow tested by another certified back flow tester and learned a few more things about my irrigation system. 1.) My house has plenty of water pressure for the sprinkler system and the booster pump was not needed ($350 wasted). Additionally, Rick Carney installed a pressure reducer on my main waterline in the basement which affected the whole house. Based on recommendations, I cut the booster pump out (reducing the number of bends and increasing water flow) and removed the reducer placed on the main water line. All seems to be working well now, but I will never use or recommend Rick Carney Irrigation again.