A1 Sprinkler Experts

I’ll leave the entire story below, but here is the two sentence summary: Lou is the most trustworthy man I’ve ever had work on my house. A job that initially looked quick, easy and inexpensive turned out to be a multi-​day, complicated job and Lou refused to accept anything more than his initial quote.
Here we go…
I was recently lucky enough to move into my big dream house which has a huge yard and lots of plants/​foliage. Unfortunately, this included three sprinkler timers with a total of 24 zones and about 100 heads, many of which were leaking from the first day. After trying to replace the heads one-​by-​one only to find the brand new heads leaking immediately, a neighbor told me the problem might be with the valves. I replaced a couple of valve diaphragms, which also didn’t solve the problems, so I decided to consult a professional.
I called Lou at 10AM and he was at my house before 2PM the same day. He immediately diagnosed the problem of a specific broken valve that needed replacement. The valve was in the middle of a 5 valve manifold squeezed into a tight junction. Looking at the rest of the system, he noted that most of the valves would probably need replacing in the next year or so, but I explained that dealing with all of the mounting moving/​house expenses I was under a tight budget. He completely understood and discounted the work. He replaced the valve within an hour, but upon final inspection he noted that there was still a pinhole leak. He repeated his work and came back the next morning to ensure that it wasn’t leaking. Because there was so little space between the valve and the 20+ year old manifold, there was still a leak so Lou rebuilt a portion of the manifold. Again, he came back the next morning to find another tiny leak, so he ended up rebuilding the entire manifold. Please remember, even though he had to make multiple trips to my property and easily spend more than 10 hours on this job, he refused to accept any payment over his initial, already discounted, rate. Also, during his time on my property I was hanging around him asking all kinds of questions, which he was happily answering and giving me maintenance and cost-​saving tips.
Yesterday, after having a number of power outages and electrical issues with my new dream money pit, I noticed that one of the sprinkler timers wouldn’t turn on. Also, the sprinklers around the property seemed to be coming on at random times and staying on longer than their programmed times. Without hesitating a heartbeat, I called Lou. He came out first thing this morning, fixed the timer without having to replace it, replaced two more valves at his discounted rate and walked my property with me, zone by zone, to develop a watering schedule for the next year. He then showed me the best way to replace the handful of busted sprinkler heads we found around the property and gave me tips on replacing diaphragms on a couple of valves that weren’t currently working but didn’t quite need replacing — all to save me money that I would be paying to him! His final cost for spending all morning on my property was simply the discounted cost of the two replaced valves. Sorry, I don’t want to post his rate here but after reading rates from similar posts for other companies, I know that the discount was real.
Needless to say, Lou will be doing all of my sprinkler work forever.

My drip system was leaking and I could not locate it. I called and spoke to Lou in the morning and he was there in the afternoon. Great service, very fair rates. I’ll keep his phone number for next time i have a leak.