Why repair or rebuild?
The cheapest sprinkler is the one you never throw away.
We'll be straight with you: a rebuilt brass head isn't always much cheaper than a new plastic or import-brass unit. Here's why it wins anyway.
01The honest math
Price today vs. cost over time.
Walk into a farm store and a new plastic impact or import-brass head might run close to what we charge for a rebuild. On the sticker, it looks like a wash. The difference shows up the second time it wears out: the cheap unit goes in the trash and you buy another one. Your OE brass body comes back to our bench and gets rebuilt — again, and again, for decades on the same casting.
Run it over ten or twenty seasons and the math isn't close. One rebuildable brass body outlives a string of disposable replacements — and every rebuild costs less than any of them, because you're paying for wear parts and skilled labor, not a whole new unit.
02Knockoffs & imports
One quality body beats a string of cheap ones.
The farm-store shelf is full of import brass and knockoff “will-fit” heads that look like the real thing. The castings are softer, the internals don't hold spec, and none of it is made to be taken apart and put back right. When it wears out — and it wears out fast — it's scrap.
OE means original equipment: parts made by the manufacturer, to the spec for that exact head. A quality OE brass body — a Nelson, a Rainbird — is built to come apart. That's the whole game: buy one rebuildable body, or keep the ones you own, and run it for decades. The parts we put inside →
Side by Side
| Rebuilt OE brass | New plastic / import brass | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront | Comparable — sometimes a little more | Comparable — sometimes a little less |
| When it wears | Rebuild it again — same body, new wear parts | Throw it away, buy another |
| Service life | Decades on one casting | One wear cycle |
| Performance | OE spec — pattern-tested on our bench | Varies by batch and brand |
| End of life | Rebuild or recycle the brass | Landfill |
03Easier on the ground it waters
Rebuilding is the eco-friendly option.
- Brass is endlessly recyclable — and a rebuilt body doesn't even need the smelter. The energy that went into machining it keeps working.
- Nothing goes to the landfill. Disposable plastic heads pile up; rebuilt brass goes back on the line. Even a body that's truly done gets recycled as scrap.
- Water where it belongs. A properly rebuilt, pattern-tested head puts water on the crop evenly — less waste per acre-foot.
We'll tell you when not to rebuild.
Some units come in cracked, corroded through, or worn past saving. When a body isn't worth rebuilding, we say so — and we'll set you up with a rebuilt unit from stock or new OE hardware instead. Forty-five years of repeat customers came from calls like that.
Not sure if it's worth rebuilding? Ask us. We'll tell you straight.
1612 Main St., Buhl, Idaho 83316