Ongoing Improvements Make I-25 Nozzles More Efficient Than Ever

Hunter Industries’ I-25 rotor is one of the irrigation industry’s best-selling sprinklers for commercial, park, and sports turf installations. A great deal of the product’s success can be attributed to the solid reputation that the rotor’s nozzles have with those who buy and use the product.

A prime reason why these nozzles have been met so favorably with users? Hunter has continually worked to improve the nozzles’ performance and enhance the nozzles with better features.

“At Hunter, there has always been a philosophy of never resting on one’s laurels,” said Steve Hoveln, Hunter rotors product manager. “Even if a job is done well, there is always room for improvement and the chance to do that job even better. With the I-25’s nozzles, their performance has always been above the desired standards. But, just like a student can get ‘C’ or ‘B’ on a test and know it’s a passing grade, there’s always the desire to strive for the ‘A.’”

Hunter engineers have worked hard at improving the performance for all of the I-25 nozzles, not just the most popular ones that comes standard with every purchase and are installed the vast majority of the time.

“It might be convenient to overlook those nozzles that don’t get used too often,” said Hoveln, “but that wouldn’t be right. We want to give the same amount of attention to detail to every product that we produce.”

Among the factors for which Hunter collects and analyzes data: close-in watering, scheduling coefficient, ratio of wettest-to-driest areas of coverage, radius, flow (discharge rate of nozzle), and width of stream. Hoveln noted that Hunter’s goals for improving the I-25’s nozzles are to narrow the width of stream and increase the overall performance of all other observed data, with neither coming at the expense of the other.

To measure performance, Hunter carries out its own independent tests under standardized optimal conditions—in a test facility according to ASAE standards under consistent water pressure. Conditions in the field will vary from site to site, season to season, but Hunter test engineers use this regulated basis for comparison in order to see how the nozzles have improved.

In addition, Hunter routinely sends sprinklers for independent testing at the Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) in Fresno, California. This independent, un-biased testing center provides information on the performance of Hunter sprinklers to designers and contractors around the world.

Hunter is among the world’s leading manufacturers of irrigation equipment for turf, landscape, and golf.