Latest Work

July 14, 2016 in Latest Work

Tree Pruning in Leederville

This week the Property Care Guys did Tree Pruning in Leederville, in the city of Vincent, near Perth.

Among this work there was a large Bougainvillea. They are a popular around Perth, a beautiful flowering vine type bush, which grows fast into more of a tree and are good to shape into a hedge, privacy barrier or whatever desired really. They can even be used for security as nobody is going to climb through or over one – they’re basically like razor wire with flowers. Some bushes like the Bougainvillea need regular pruning or will get completely out of control quickly and take over your yard, shed or house in months and can be expensive to remove or prune from over 3 metres high as it is rather a nuisance to do so without ladders and pole saws. We like to keep them at a maneagable hedge type height. This one was a monster and was totally blocking the footpath, even growing onto the street! LOL. So it was a good half a days work and a couple of runs to the tip with a ute and trailer in this particular case. We can mulch anything like this back into your gardens also if suitable to both us and yourselves at the time.

Call or fill out an online booking for all shrub and Tree work, landscaping and reticulation around Perth. We can quote or do jobs by the hour.

July 14, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Glendalough

This week Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Glendalough, North of Perth

Although this was a relatively small job, it can be quite difficult for someone with no experience which was the case here as the hubby tried to do the PVC and Poly pipe repairs himself. Usually anyone can do one connection reasonably following advice from someone or watching a few youtubes, but when there are multiple cuts and junctions to be made in a small area it becomes a hassle for a newbie. You need to know which parts to cut and remake first, in order until the final piece and have every part and have the right glue and primer and know how to glue and prime. It’s not as easy as it may first look. Too much glue or the wrong glue or not using primer and you may have a blowout in time. Some owners actually even try to patch up leaks with Duct tape!.. It’s great for many things but not mains water pressure repairs.

Contact PCG for all your retic, garden and landscaping needs.

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July 1, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Churchlands

Today Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Churchlands,  West of Perth.

Another repeat customer with a similar problem as he had last time we were there – a solenoid valve leaking. He also mentioned he had to turn the mains off. Last time we were asked to replace a leaking station valve in which we did so. Gladly, this was a different valve under a tree. The mains shouldn’t have to be turned off though.

I looked about and found a manual PVC ball valve to isolate the system which the customer didn’t seem to know about and turned this off and then turned the mains back on. Suddenly something burst underground before it. An old PVC join with no sign of glue. I excavated and cleaned this up and glued it first to let dry some, then dug up the reported problem which turned out to be another poorly done connection at some stage by someone several years ago. The valve had a compression fitting, with barely enough PVC pipe pushed into the ends.. and before the valve, a pipe had detached from the PVC coupling.. obviously had also not been pushed in and glued right. So whoever had replaced the valve years ago, realised he had cut the pipe too short, and tried to compromise everywhere by using minimal surface area for all the connections, rather than simply joining on a bit more pipe which takes a minute and about a dollar!

Because I had glued PVC under mains pressure, I advised the customer that as per the manufacturers recommendations to not use the house mains water for 24 hours to let it dry and set as much as possible. If someone really MUST  use the water supply, you need to massively reduce the water pressure to the glued area. To do this you 1.In any room or outside, open a tap or shower. 2.Turn the mains on. 3. Use water. 4. Turn the mains off. 5. Turn the tap/shower off last. This will greatly reduce the chances of the repair coming apart, though not recommended nor is guaranteed.

By the way, we guarantee our repairs or inform the customer when something may need further work or is “on it’s way out” ..maybe like the guys who worked on this system before us!

July 1, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Carlisle

This week Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Carlisle, West of Perth

We are doing just as many retic repairs as we are installing systems even in Winter this year. Hopefully this is due to good feedback so we have more exposure! And even though I (Matt) run the business, I like to get out and about as it’s quieter in the off-season so I have more time allowing me to do some physical work, plus I enjoy working in cold weather rather than hot, even if I get drenched.

Anyway, this job was another Real Estate agent sending a work order to visit the property and rectify an issue causing “two” lawn sprinklers to leak water all the time. This will never actually be a problem with the sprinklers themselves, but something upstream. I went out to suss out and repair this system. Even though we notified the tenant we were coming, I had a look around and there was nothing visible apart from the weeping popups so I re-booked it in with the customer agreeing to leave the keys somewhere. On the next visit, accessing the controller it was apparent one station had been removed electrically. I foundthe valves with our Electro-magnetic solenoid valve finder within half an hour and dismantled them. Two were allowing water through when off so I replaced them and connected them to the control box, using Gel connectors in the wiring at the solenoid valve. The Master valve was sticking on sometimes and I found a jamming corroded solenoid so replaced this too.

Upon testing again, a burst poly pipe gushed water from the ground and I had no 13mm pipe so used 19×13 reducers and 19mm pipe. Retest: It was obvious the station which was disconnected was the leaking one and also had most of the sprinkler coverage and some of them weren’t coming up. The other station had only one popup and 3 micro sprays. Whoever last worked on it, clearly had no clue. Maybe they thought one station only had two popups and the other had one and some micros?..lol..without thinking to locate buried sprinklers. There was way too much pressure on the other station so I joined them together electrically which is fine as a quick fix. Now everything is on one station, with full front yard coverage.

These types of jobs usually only take 1-3 Hours and we cover most areas around Perth

July 1, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Banksia Grove

This Week Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Banksia Grove, North of Perth

Our customer Adam reported problems with his verge pop-up sprinklers not spraying and being broken by vehicles and booked us in.

Matt (Myself) went out and had a discussion with him in which he stated he had tried for hours to repair the sprinklers but with no success and asked if he needs all new sprinklers. These are quite straight forward jobs but I remember when I started working on reticulation I was a Gardener and I would take a long time to even fix one sprinkler and had to drive to Bunnings twice so I remember how frustrating it can be. Anyway his Toro-Popups heads were ALL blocked and full of sand. A lot of this was actually caused by his attempt with repairing and had gotten sand in the pipes while trying to replace one sprinkler. I checked the popups condition and they were ok. Toro 570 ones last and are great value for money. I cleaned them all out, flushed the system with a flush valve, replaced a popup, adjusted heights of a couple and installed all new Toro spray heads.

Adam was looking into a solution about cars and trucks running over the pop-ups busting them completely off. One idea was to remove all the couch turf and plant ground cover shrubs and mulch instead. This would work, though I suggested to save a couple of grand (2 thousand dollars or so) we could simply prevent vehicular damage by installing sprinkler protection which I showed the products and he agreed it was a great idea. We only do what works. We install concrete sprinkler surrounds and we do it properly by compacting the area with sand and then sometimes actually drive over them to show they work.

At just $30 each sprinkler protector supplied, installed, compacted in right, you will save hundreds in call-outs and parts. You can even have them installed within your property to make it easier to mow and whipper snip around popups and it also means grass won’t grow over the top of them.

July 1, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Shenton Park

This week Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Shenton Park, West of Perth

Our customer, a well known Real Estate Agent reported their tenant’s retic system had one station malfunctioning.

Matt (myself) went out to look and found station #1 wasn’t coming on at all. The clock/controller box tested as good. I then looked about for any visible solenoid valves or green lids which is the most obvious tell-tale sign of a valve but they are usually buried with leaves, mulch or soil and sometimes paving! I then used our electro-magnetic solenoid finder and located station one valve. After testing and cleaning it still had not rectified the issue I decided to replace the solenoid valve. On re-testing, the station almost worked.. obviously I had bettered a low pressure issue but still was not fixed. I then located the Master valve, cut the pipe and checked the flow. Fairly poor there too. One more thing to try – I replaced the Master valve with a new one so now everything was new after the plumbers water mains cut-in job.

Always let the glue dry for a good 15 minutes before testing and make sure you know the valve will work, or it will be too much pressure for the glue and blow off at a PVC connection.

I tested the station and it came on. So the new solenoid valves definitely allowed better flow. No more work required luckily. It could have needed other work such as station splitting or re-design of the lawn sprinkler system. Low pressure popups were already installed.

Ways you can book us in for any Landscaping and Gardening work and more:

1.Work Order (Real Estate Company)

2. Online Booking Form

3.Email

4.Phone Call

5.Text.

June 22, 2016 in Latest Work

Landscaping in Carine

Today Property Care Guys completed Landscaping in Carine, North of Perth

Installation of Roll-on Empire Zoysia Lawn with special lawn mix, a Reticulation System extension to suit the new grassed area and some other modifications. We first removed the old Couch turf with a turf cutting machine and binned it, Trenched for the retic pipes and connections, then Machine laid all the soil mix and slow release NPK fertilizer (Nitrogen, Phospherous, Potassium) , leveled and rolled out the fresh lawn. We also installed continuous concrete garden kerbing which is made on site and comes in a variety of colours to choose from.

Contact us for all types of landscaping especially Reticulation Repair and Installs, Water-wise Drip systems, Lawns, Hardscaping, fencing and more.

June 20, 2016 in Latest Work

Garden Maintenance in Redcliffe

On Friday the Property Care Guys did Garden Maintenance in Redcliffe, South East of Perth.

Most gardening jobs are non-regular gardening and involves a lot of work. Our customer wanted a once-off cleanup as he plans to move out of his property and rent it out. This place required a lot of dirt removed off pathways, the driveway was full of grass and weeds through the paving so this was whipper snipped off later to be posioned to prevent regrowth. Removed and cleaned up the Dieties (Grass plants that flower) , pulled up the couch weeds from the garden beds, removal of dead Diosma, mowed the lawn.

Another garden ready for presentation to potential tenants! Call us for reticulation, landscaping and hardscaping (paving, limestone walls, water features etc)

June 13, 2016 in Latest Work

Reticulation Repair in Coogee

Today the Property Care Guys did Reticulation Repair in Coogee, South of Perth

Our Real Estate agent gave a work order to replace the controller box so we sent our Electrician out who replaced it. There was an error on the face suggesting the wiring or the Master valve Coil was faulty. Maybe the old controller was OK after-all. Anyway the job was already done and another fault found. One of our Technicians (Matt – Owner) in this case went out to find and fix the fault location. It went really smoothly, locating the Master valve under a bush (which he cut back some to get to the area) and discovering a faulty “Rainbird” brand Solenoid with a short within itself. This is one of the best scenarios as quite often there is a short in the wiring itself somewhere between the control unit and the valve which can even mean a day’s work rewiring, removing paving or coming up with some other solution.

For all your reticulation repair work, gardening, landscaping and more, call the Property Care Guys

May 29, 2016 in Latest Work

Cotton Palm Tree Clean in Ascot

On Friday Property Care Guys did a Cotton Palm Tree Clean up in Ascot, East of Perth

It had been ages since this palm tree last had a good pruning and was constantly dropping seeds and stuff into the house gutters, clogging them with rotting matter. This not only causes the gutters to be blocked making water overflow everywhere when it rains, but it also causes the metal gutters to corrode much faster. Don’t think you’ll save money by putting off having your palms trimmed up because you’ll end up with rusted out roof gutters and a messy tree full of rats. Prune them now!

This job included removal of green seed pods and dead open seed pods, dead palm fronds and seeds. Makes a good before and after picture sequence (see below)

Contact PCG for all Tree surgery / removal in the Perth metro Area!

We also do reticulation, Landscaping and specialty hardscaping jobs and design.