[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house.

[00:00:05] Robert Summers: Honestly, I talk to customers all the time about that very subject and they'll say, oh yeah. And Arbor came out and said, we need to tear those out. Oh, so-and-so Horticultures came and said, we need to tear those out. And it's like, guys, no stop. I've got a lady in, uh, New Mexico now I'm gonna sound like a politician.

[00:00:26] Robert Summers: Huh? I know this lady in New Mexico and she's. Uh, some really unique, like 40 foot tree in her front yard, and the arborist came out and said, oh, you gotta tear that out. It's, it's not doing well. She bought two root quenchers and she doesn't have an irrigation system. Mm-hmm. , she just goes out once a week and waters for I think 20

[00:00:47] Eric Goranson: minutes when it comes to remodeling

[00:00:49] Robert Summers: and renovating your home.

[00:00:51] Robert Summers: There is a lot to know, but we've got you covered. This is around the house.

[00:00:58] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house. [00:01:00] Is where we talk about everything around your house every single week. Thanks for joining us today. I'm over at the site of the National Hardware Show where, man, all the stuff that you see in the stores out there, this is where people go to find them.

[00:01:13] Eric Goranson: And I have an amazing product for you today. This is gonna solve a bunch of your problems outside and I'm very, I. I am sitting here in the root Quench your booth, and I've got the founders right here. Go ahead and start out. Robert, welcome to Around the House, my friend.

[00:01:31] Robert Summers: Thank you, Eric. Happy to be with you today.

[00:01:33] Robert Summers: Oh

[00:01:33] Eric Goranson: man. You and your wife, Maria. This is gonna be great. Hi, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you. All right. We're gonna be talking about what you guys are doing here because great example at my house, I have 300 year old fur trees. And they have destroyed my driveway because they're looking for water and I've got, I'm gonna have to repave the whole thing because they've pushed up going across the surface [00:02:00] and you have the perfect solution for this kind of thing.

[00:02:03] Eric Goranson: Let's talk about root quencher.

[00:02:05] Robert Summers: You bet. Thanks, Eric. Well, I mean, our, our story began very simply is, uh, we live in Pasadena and my parents' home that they built in 1964, mid-century modern house. Oh, beautiful man. Beautiful. But they did an amazing job on the landscaping as well. So they've got grapefruit trees and orange trees and lemon trees and all kinds of things.

[00:02:28] Robert Summers: And we'd not been happy the last few years in fruit production. Mm-hmm. . And we could tell that the trees were stressed and didn't know what to do. So we called an arborist. The arborist came out and said, second, he. You're gonna have to tear these trees out. They're what? They're at end of life. That's insane.

[00:02:47] Robert Summers: So we had a horticultures come out and they told us the same thing, man. So, pretty depressing. You know, my parents having planted those, uh, you know, the year before I was born. [00:03:00] All that kind of stuff. Yeah. So a lot of emotion, but also, I mean, the cost of replacing all those trees,

[00:03:07] Eric Goranson: man. Wow. Because you gotta go in there, cut 'em down, tear all the roots out, basically regrade that and start over.

[00:03:15] Eric Goranson: And then the expense of

[00:03:16] Robert Summers: buying trees. Yeah. And you're looking at, I mean, unless you're gonna go from seedlings, you're talking about, you know, 80 to $150 for a four foot tree. Yeah. Depending on the.

[00:03:29] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And you don't wanna be waiting 10 years to get fruit, right? I

[00:03:32] Robert Summers: mean, no, exactly. That's the brutal part.

[00:03:35] Robert Summers: So I'm not exactly sure how it started, although it was probably just me trying to find a project to keep myself out of trouble. I, I got those, Maria. Maria likes those. Yeah. You know, and I started doing all kinds of crazy things with the irrigation. Actually. True stories so crazy over the years that I had a gardener.

[00:03:56] Robert Summers: He said, I am not gonna deal with all this nonsense . [00:04:00] That's awesome. So it was kind of funny. I said, this is my, my, this is my laboratory right here. Yeah. You know, so over the course of the next year, we kind of developed an early prototype of the Ru Quencher that was basically just bringing water deep down to the roots.

[00:04:19] Robert Summers: You know, getting rid of all the spray heads and all that kind of stuff. The next season we had crazy fruit production, and the trees started perking up and we're like, forget those guys. They don't know what they're talking about. Yeah. Then we started playing around with organic fertilizers on top of that.

[00:04:38] Robert Summers: Nice. Because we'd always, these had always been chemical based trees. Sure. You know? Old school, that's what you had, right? Yeah, it's old school. So we got a great organic fertilizer and then we saw even more fruit production and more health. So that was kind of the beginnings of the root quench and watering under the surface.

[00:04:57] Eric Goranson: Well and makes so much sense because [00:05:00] so many times you see sprinklers going and you've got maybe clay soil or a harder pack soil and you're putting so much water down and it's running to the low point. Cuz water loves to go to the low point and it makes no, after seeing this, it's like, wait a minute, you're putting the water where it has to be.

[00:05:16] Eric Goranson: Not trying to hope. Mother Nature gets it where it could be. And that makes a lot of sense.

[00:05:21] Robert Summers: I mean, yeah, no, and honestly, the biggest validation we've gotten from the, um, social media trolls is, oh, well I've been doing that for 20 years. I stuck a PVC pipe in the ground. And my comment to them is, awesome.

[00:05:36] Robert Summers: Good job. Yeah. Because. That's exactly what you need to do. The difference is we've actually made a commercial device that you know is adjustable from nine to 22 inches. It has a flow control valve on it and you can fertilize in it. So it's a lot more formal than just a pipe in the ground. Yeah,

[00:05:56] Eric Goranson: yeah. I mean, everybody could try to put something together, but [00:06:00] this has design, science and stuff behind it to actually make it work versus somebody getting the drill.

[00:06:05] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Piece of PVC pipe at a back of the truck and Exactly. If it was that simple that you'd be making that and sending it out, right? I mean, yeah. It's that crazy. But let's talk a little bit about what this does and how it works for the people out there listening, because you know, obviously it's putting water down.

[00:06:21] Eric Goranson: But let's talk about the benefits of that and how that really works, because this is a great solution. I mean, if you're a, anybody from an arborist to a landscaper, to anybody out. You could have these in the back of

[00:06:33] Robert Summers: your truck. Yeah. And honestly, that's, uh, just to finish the story on the whole thing is we didn't, obviously from the story you've heard, we didn't set out to create a product and go to market.

[00:06:45] Robert Summers: Sure. And I remember sitting down with Maria and talking about it and praying about it and, you know, agonizing over and. I, cause I've always wanted to have a product. Sure. But I didn't, definitely didn't set out to create this product, [00:07:00] but we realized, you know, this isn't natural because it gives homeowners, landscapers, gardeners, everybody access to the roots.

[00:07:10] Robert Summers: In such a unique way and such a sustainable long way, meaning you're gonna have that same access 20 years from now because this plastic has, I think it's got a 300 year life, something like that. Yeah. Perfect. So to be able to access it gives the, the cap gives ventilation through these holes so that air can flow naturally to the.

[00:07:35] Robert Summers: And then the watering and fertilizing is just crazy good.

[00:07:39] Eric Goranson: That's insane. And so, you know, water is such a huge issue out there, especially for like you guys in Southern California. And even up in my area where I live in the Portland, Oregon area, every, oh, it always rains up there. Yeah. But my water bills are insane because they get you, for every gallon of water that's coming outta the mountains, you pay a ton for it.

[00:07:59] Eric Goranson: Yeah. [00:08:00] This here saves so much water because you're, Where it needs to be, and you're not having to blow it out all over everywhere and waste it. There's no place for the water to go but into the roots. It's not gonna all burn off on the hot day.

[00:08:14] Robert Summers: Well, and let's not just talk about the fact that, you know, between 30, 30 and 50% of water that goes outta spray heads evaporates.

[00:08:22] Robert Summers: Yeah. So I'm calling it 50 because the spray heads I've seen crazy evaporation. Yeah. But beyond that, you're using the water so much more efficiently in the ground that I think I water for less time. Less volume of water. I'm saying it's 60 or 70% savings on water and your trees are healthier.

[00:08:46] Eric Goranson: Well, you saw that.

[00:08:47] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, you cured your own problem with that by putting that in. And, and if you think about it, no offense to the, to the arborists and thes out there, but when there's not something on the market that was an answer for [00:09:00] them. They, it's, it's new to them. Right. So you came out with a product and like.

[00:09:06] Eric Goranson: There was the problem. Think of how many or. Have been pulled out for that reason, that they could have gotten decades more of life out if they would've just put a product in and fixed

[00:09:16] Robert Summers: it. Honestly, I talk to customers all the time about that very subject, and they'll say, oh yeah. And Arbors came out and said, we need to tear those out.

[00:09:27] Robert Summers: Oh, so-and-so Horticultures came and said, we need to tear those. And it's like, guys, no stop. I've got a lady in, uh, New Mexico now I'm gonna sound like a politician. Huh? I know this lady in New Mexico and she's got, uh, some really unique like 40 foot tree in her front yard. And the arborist came out and said, oh, you gotta tear that out.

[00:09:49] Robert Summers: It's, it's not doing well. She bought two root quenchers and she doesn't have an irrigation system. Mm-hmm. , she just goes out once a week and waters for I think 20. She's [00:10:00] shown me the pictures. I go, yeah, let's try 20 minutes, let's take a look at how he's doing. And we talked to him like, you know, like he's a person, as he should be, and I got her some or, or she got some organic fertilizer from my place.

[00:10:12] Robert Summers: Mm-hmm. , um, and. I have not gotten an update from her, but I know he was turning the corner and looking better and they said cut him down. Yeah,

[00:10:23] Eric Goranson: you're saving so many trees on that that are just unnecessary. So let's talk about how this applies. Do you do one per tree, two per trees, and depending on the size, how does that actually kind of work out?

[00:10:33] Robert Summers: Typically, it's dependent on the soil. Okay. So if you've got really good soil where you know the water's gonna. Because there's something called capillary action. Exactly. And when the water flows in here, and we've got it actually on our, uh, YouTube site mm-hmm. , we built a chamber like. And demonstrated the capillary action where you pour water in this and it actually moves out and even moves up.

[00:10:58] Robert Summers: Nice. So it's [00:11:00] kind of cool because the water molecules attached to the dirt molecules, if you will, for lack of Keep it that. We'll keep it that way. I like it. Yeah. Dirt molecules. And it moves very nicely. Yeah. Obviously clay soil doesn't do that well. Yeah. Um, but

[00:11:14] Eric Goranson: sand goes the opposite way where it just drops out of

[00:11:16] Robert Summers: nowhere.

[00:11:17] Robert Summers: Sand is dropping down. Right. So if you can get that right balance of sandy lomi soil, amended soil, things like that, then you can use one for. You know, a decent size tree with a root ball of say, you know, six feet. Okay. Maybe decent size. Um, but I definitely recommend we have some larger, um, carrot woods.

[00:11:37] Robert Summers: Mm-hmm. that we put even up to four. Yeah. Because the root zone is. I don't know, 25 feet. Yeah. Something like that. So we're dribbling a little bit of water in all those areas. And I'll tell people too, you know, with oak trees and pine trees, they don't need a lot of water. You can actually kill them. Yeah.

[00:11:56] Robert Summers: With too much water. Exactly. So I'll tell people, you know, be, [00:12:00] oh, I gotta get a, gotta get two root quenchers. And then I go, just relax. Slow down chill. Because you can go the opposite way with these things and give 'em too much water. It's a, and it's, it's one of those things people ask me, well, how much water should you use?

[00:12:14] Robert Summers: And, and all that. And it's like, it's, it's an iterative process. I mean, you've got to be in tune with your plants and trees. And I say that this is a, a family and relationship builder beyond deep watering. Because you have to go out and look at your trees and look at your plants and say, you know, how are you doing today?

[00:12:35] Robert Summers: What's going on? , you know, are, are your leaves curling up? Yeah. From too much water. Are they, what? What's happening with that? Yeah.

[00:12:42] Eric Goranson: It's like you gotta go out and go, Hey, I think I need to buy you drink. And there we go. Because like for instance, at my house, you know, I've got the 300 foot tall, almost, you know, 300 year old trees out there.

[00:12:55] Eric Goranson: They're only about 120 feet tall. But they seem, they're big. I mean, I, it's as [00:13:00] wider as this booth.

[00:13:01] Robert Summers: That's cool. And it's cool. It's

[00:13:03] Eric Goranson: fun. But something like that, you have to be careful cuz you're right. I could completely overwater that thing.

[00:13:10] Robert Summers: And those, I mean the, the cool thing about trees is however tall they are, their tap root usually goes that deep or deeper.

[00:13:17] Robert Summers: So if there's a good water table in the area, which I think in Oregon yeah, there is pretty much, yeah. But in California we actually have a, we have a 30 foot tall carrot wood. That almost died on us a couple years ago because it was, it's surrounded by grass. And the grass was sucking up all the water and the carrot would said, Hey, whoa, it's really hot.

[00:13:40] Robert Summers: And the water table, I'm quite sure that tree was four feet tall when I was a kid. Wow. And I tried to cut it down and uh, I'm pretty sure the tap root is, you know, 30, 40 feet down. Yeah. But the water table was nonexistent in California, or it was, yeah, up until a month ago.

[00:13:59] Eric Goranson: And that's crazy. [00:14:00] So you think about that, that you would think that you could set that tree and forget it.

[00:14:04] Eric Goranson: It's gonna be fine and next time it rains or that you're watering the lawn. But yeah, that lawn can steal so much water outta that environment. It makes sense. Especially if you've got sandy soil or one of those things as well, cuz that could really, really get you too. Cuz you get that really, you know, builder comes in, for instance, they come in and put that top layer.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: Okay, it's sandy soil, it's horrible. I'm gonna go. Six inches, the top soil through the sod down and walk out the door. That tree doesn't have much of a chance with that kind of situation because now you've got grass and soil, but those roots are now trying to go up and find it. Right. So how do does this go again?

[00:14:44] Robert Summers: So this starts off at nine inches, which is good by the way. Uh, a lot of even bigger bushes. Mm-hmm. , we have it in between, uh, Texas pnt. Okay. I dunno if you have PNT in Oregon, but not as much. But yeah, it's there. Yeah. Um, it's great in between every [00:15:00] other bush. Okay. So, uh, water watering, the roots and the roots are, are, uh, on a pivot is about nine to 12 inches deep.

[00:15:08] Robert Summers: Mm-hmm. , so the nine inches is perfect. Yeah. Uh, we have it on holly bushes, which have a lot deeper roots. Okay. So we're down, I think to 18 inches, something like that. And then we've got 'em on all of our fruit trees at 22 inches. Taking the water all the way down. And we're having some interesting discussions now with people because we've planted a bunch of new fruit trees and they said, people say, well, what are you gonna do?

[00:15:31] Robert Summers: And I said, I'm gonna put this thing at nine inches right next to the root ball, and in a year I'm gonna move it. And I'm probably gonna keep moving it out until the tree is six feet, seven feet tall. We've gotta design the polar for the root question. I was gonna say, because right now it's a pickax and, uh, and some, uh, back muscles.

[00:15:53] Robert Summers: Yeah. That, that's a lot

[00:15:54] Eric Goranson: of work. But yeah. Well that's, but that also tells you how well, because the design of this thing, it's something [00:16:00] you're gonna get in the hole and it's gonna stay there. And then you could hook this up into a regular sprinkler system then Right. And control it that way. So

[00:16:07] Robert Summers: yeah, this has got a half inch female n PT connection.

[00:16:11] Robert Summers: So Drip irrigation has the fitting for that perfect half inch PVC has the fitting for it at three quarter inch PVC standard pretty, it gets, it's as, it's as standard and generic as it gets. Exactly. And uh, then like I said, on the inside there's a flow control valve. Oh,

[00:16:27] Eric Goranson: there we go. There's the

[00:16:28] Robert Summers: secret right there that goes from about zero to, and it, and it depends on.

[00:16:35] Robert Summers: It really depends on how much you have on the system. Yeah. I did my original calculations based on just the root que and they were wacky high. Yeah. But you put it in a drip line and it, it works beautifully.

[00:16:47] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Cuz you're not trying to move that much volume.

[00:16:50] Robert Summers: The other important thing is directional plugs.

[00:16:52] Robert Summers: Oh. So if you're gonna put it next to just one tree, We design plugs that go [00:17:00] in the holes to, and obviously it doesn't completely block the water from coming out. No. But it forces it to flow out more on the other side.

[00:17:10] Eric Goranson: Okay. So it's got these kind of teardrop shape holes for everybody listening. And these plugs go in there and plug that out.

[00:17:16] Eric Goranson: So then you can steer the water to the right.

[00:17:20] Robert Summers: Exactly.

[00:17:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Wow. That is well thought out. And I love how easily that adjusts.

[00:17:26] Robert Summers: It's, it's kind of, it's kind of funny, um, because like on this display, if you're not careful, I mean the, honestly, the, the tooling and the design and everything of this is so precise.

[00:17:40] Robert Summers: Yeah. And I can't, I, I learned more things in being involved in the tooling of this. There's gotta be a pitch on that thread so that it doesn't bind. Yeah, because I told him, I said, guys, we get this out in the field. I said, you can't have people muscling this to get it to the right spot. You got

[00:17:58] Eric Goranson: dirty hands, you [00:18:00] got soil, you got everything in there that's gonna try to fight you along the way.

[00:18:03] Eric Goranson: Exactly. Because it's not that scientific environment out there. This has been kicking around somebody's truck for a little bit, probably. And now you gotta go put it out there and you're. I have not seen a composite like this that is machined like that, that literally I pick it up lightly with my hand and it self

[00:18:20] Robert Summers: adjusts, you know, the way that it fits together.

[00:18:23] Robert Summers: Yeah. Had double threading on out here. Yep. And inside of this, um, it's just really. Really exceptional. Yeah, that is really exceptional. Seriously built to last recycled a b s plastic. So we switched that. Some people that may find our stuff from a year ago will see it used to be white. Okay. And part of what I wanted to do, and cuz some people have given me some grief about shoving a big piece of plastic in the ground.

[00:18:49] Robert Summers: I go, fine, I'll make it recycled. There you go. So this is all Reground abs plastic, and when it comes in black,

[00:18:54] Eric Goranson: if you're put to me, if you're putting a tool in the ground that's gonna water, [00:19:00] that's actually saving water in my book, at least, whether it's recycled or not, it's awesome that it is. That's a tool that's saving water.

[00:19:08] Eric Goranson: It's better for the environment and you're saving water for everybody else in

[00:19:11] Robert Summers: the neighborhood as well. Yep, agreed.

[00:19:14] Eric Goranson: And that's what's cool. So really this is great for commercial buildings as well, right? So you get those commercial where they got the tree lines on the. Yeah. And on the, on the parkway coming into the office complex or anything else, this is really good because when you've got, those trees are out there, even for cities where you've got a curb and stuff, and that's right into it, where the half the root ball's under the sidewalk, right.

[00:19:38] Robert Summers: Started, oh, there's, you know, our mutual friend Catherine? Yeah. We actually installed, uh, one of these behind her pool. She has somebody got the bright idea to plant a tree right next to her pool. Nice. Not sure whose idea was her. That's not a good plan. Yeah. That was not her. But we went in there and we went on the other side of the tree, [00:20:00] capped off all the spray.

[00:20:01] Robert Summers: And put a root quench right next to her fence. So at least now the roots will be encouraged to go in that direction. So you're so right with your trees. Yeah. And with other issues is there are so many ancillary benefits to the product because Yeah, you're encouraging deep root growth, you're encouraging healthy growth, good use of water, easy fertilizing, and yeah, for.

[00:20:26] Robert Summers: Think about all the cities where you see the sidewalks popping up because they planted the tree. They literally probably dug a hole the size of the root ball. Yep. Dropped it in and don't understand why the roots are coming up for air. Yeah. And you put one of these next to them. and you're

[00:20:43] Eric Goranson: saving sidewalk, it's no brainer.

[00:20:45] Eric Goranson: You're saving all this other stuff. Yeah. And uh, this is a much more cost effective solution than that. And I like it with the, with the pool though. Cuz now you're trying to kind of steer those roots away from cuz they're just looking for water. Yeah. When they find it, they're like, [00:21:00] cool, we have it.

[00:21:01] Eric Goranson: They're self-regulatory that way. And I'll, I'll tell you what, I don't wanna put another pool in one. That's, that seems a hundred thousand dollars pool.

[00:21:10] Robert Summers: Not a bad way to go. I, I'm feeling like Maria wants to say something to you. Not really, but

[00:21:16] Elizabeth Summers: Okay,

[00:21:19] Eric Goranson: folks, we gotta tell you, so you guys do a lot of fertilization with this as well, far

[00:21:23] as

[00:21:23] Elizabeth Summers: that?

[00:21:24] Elizabeth Summers: Yes, we do. Uh, we put granules in there or organic, um, liquid fertilizer. Nice. We also have a compost program on. Uh, property. So we do get the compost putted in there so that the, um, nutrients from the compost goes directly to the

[00:21:39] Eric Goranson: roots. I hadn't thought of that. That is cool cuz that's big enough you can actually do that with Oh, wow.

[00:21:45] Eric Goranson: So now you're, you're feeding that from that

[00:21:47] Robert Summers: direction. All right. What's, what's crazy about that is that I just did some compost treatment last week. Mm-hmm. . And I was checking before I left for the show wondering, you know, oh, it probably hasn't moved [00:22:00] very much, right? If you, if you wonder how well the ru winter works in distributing stuff in general, all the compost is gone.

[00:22:09] Robert Summers: So that means it's, it, it's in the soil, it's right where you want it to be. I filled the whole thing up. It wasn't gonna do that with compost smokes. And it's after a week, it's gone.

[00:22:18] Eric Goranson: So 18 inches of compost is now entertaining. Fed out to that.

[00:22:23] Robert Summers: So all those microbials, that biology, all that stuff is now in the soil.

[00:22:29] Eric Goranson: That is impressive. I, I'm happy. I'm not a betting man on that, cuz I'd have said there's no way that could happen. But that's the beautiful part of that. Well, I'm sure it breaks down, right? So it's breaking down. You've got water and then it's just going to that same capillary action all the way out there.

[00:22:44] Eric Goranson: Yep. People who fixed their, oh man, you guys have thought this out. You have one of these tools need, you guys got a good thing on this?

[00:22:52] Robert Summers: Yeah, I got a, we've got a good team for sure.

[00:22:54] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. So what's next with this? I mean, you're just started out. This is a very new

[00:22:59] Robert Summers: company. [00:23:00] All right, well I'll tell you a little bit about the Junior then.

[00:23:02] Robert Summers: Yeah. This Junior Socher Jr. We recognize that. , even just from a, a physical standpoint of this beast, is that for some smaller plants it was a bit much. Yeah. And so we thought, well, you know, for, for like azaleas and some other, you know, rot dendron and things that are like kind of medium sized plants. Yeah.

[00:23:25] Robert Summers: You know, they're roots. Roots don't go down, but four, six inches, something like. Why don't we make something? Why don't we make the junior size of this? So hence the Ru que Jr. Same valve, same. Same connection, same plugs, networks. Oh,

[00:23:43] Eric Goranson: everything's standard. That works

[00:23:44] Robert Summers: for this, works for this. Okay.

[00:23:46] Eric Goranson: So really when you're sitting here with this as an somebody that's an installer, you have one set of plugs, you've got one pipe thread fitting, it's all the same.

[00:23:57] Eric Goranson: You're just swapping out to that, exactly [00:24:00] that mini to get you into that junior category for those right. That way you don't have this big hunker right there for, you're right. That would be overkill for a small, like three year old

[00:24:09] Robert Summers: azalia. Yeah, exactly. All right. And I've been trying to think about you guys.

[00:24:14] Robert Summers: You know, I always wanted to be a contractor, so yeah, I wanted to be a cool kid. , but, but I wasn't, so I wanted to design products for the cool kids. There we go. Yeah. So they would have them. There we go. This is brilliant. So yeah, the junior, and they both have, we didn't really talk about this, but they both have, yeah.

[00:24:30] Robert Summers: Drain holes at the bottom. So, If water doesn't move out, it doesn't stagnate in there. Yeah. And the That makes sense. And Pointer has the same type of thing. Okay.

[00:24:40] Eric Goranson: Same holes in the bottom. That makes sense. And that way you're still pushing that water, even if it's not getting really used, it's still going down.

[00:24:47] Eric Goranson: Which again, that can help that tap root or whoever else it's down there to Exactly. To get that

[00:24:51] Robert Summers: over there.

[00:24:52] Eric Goranson: Exactly. Because you're still just pushing it down and letting gravity do its thing. We just got on,

[00:24:56] Robert Summers: we just Oh, I see. Now, Maria says she wants to talk about the [00:25:00] spike.

[00:25:01] Eric Goranson: Let's talk about the spike Maria.

[00:25:02] Eric Goranson: This is cool. This

[00:25:04] Elizabeth Summers: is the ru Quench spike. Okay. This goes on your drip line. Oh, we have it on our hillside because a lot of the water, it's just rolling down. Yeah. And not going directly to the plants that we want it to go to. Yeah. So we developed this. So Robert, Tool that pierced the hole in the drip line, and then we had some stakes to hold it down, and then he had these little spray heads that would break.

[00:25:32] Elizabeth Summers: Right. So we developed something that took care of everything. Wow. It has this little thing of Bob thing. Yep. That well Pierce.

[00:25:44] Eric Goranson: Yep. You're drip blind. Just like any other drip tool that would do that. Right.

[00:25:49] Elizabeth Summers: It'll hold your hose. Oh my gosh. Without the having spikes on there. Oh, we can also,

[00:25:57] Eric Goranson: the tops comes off.

[00:25:58] Eric Goranson: Okay. The

[00:25:58] Elizabeth Summers: water will [00:26:00] swirl in here. Mm-hmm. go down the chamber and out to the roots. That

[00:26:05] Eric Goranson: is impressive.

[00:26:06] Elizabeth Summers: You can also, um, fertilize in here with your liquid fertilization or fertilizer. Yep. And then the top of the. You can control the, the water flow as well. Geez. So the tighter it goes, you know, obviously

[00:26:23] Eric Goranson: this, that is great for gardening.

[00:26:26] Eric Goranson: It is great for all that stuff. Yes. And no offense to the guys out there building the drip systems. Those spikes are horrible to deal with. They are. If you've got good soil and it's fairly loose and stuff out there mm-hmm. , they're bending over, they're doing dumb things. Right. And that is serious enough when you put it there.

[00:26:44] Eric Goranson: It's not moving. It's not

[00:26:45] Robert Summers: moving. Yeah. Wow. I gotta tell you, our competition and I'm, I'm actually pretty passionate about this little guy cuz this our, this is our newest invention is that our competition is, and I've been using the competition for years. Yeah. [00:27:00] And they've done a great job at creating something you can hammer the heck out of to get in the ground, but then you've gotta punch a hole and a half inch drip, put a.

[00:27:11] Robert Summers: Quarter inch coupler, then a quarter inch line to the device. Then you have to put a drip head on that and connect it, and then you're done. That's a lot of work, and you have, I mean, the drip granted, the emitter will give you whatever amount of water you want lighter. But this is just like the rest of the devices that we have.

[00:27:31] Robert Summers: It's, it's interpretive, it's, uh, integrated. It's, yeah. You know, it's all, it's part of, it's kind of like, part of it's a perfect fit, honestly, to it is to the other products. And what's cool about

[00:27:44] Eric Goranson: this is, is like anything out in the field when you're working on a project, something that is gonna be durable and simple is always the easier way to go.

[00:27:53] Eric Goranson: Because like you said, you had, okay, I'm gonna hook into the line. I got a fitting, I gotta go over here. I gotta have another fitting. I gotta have some spikes. [00:28:00] You have to go through all these steps where you have kind of one here. Um, you have one motion of putting that hole in it and now it's going in the ground and it's gonna stay there.

[00:28:11] Eric Goranson: You're not gonna sit there and go, oh, the dogs moved into that. Dogs were running around the bushes. Now I gotta go re reset all those. Yep. You're not messing with that. That is way down in there. And what is that six inches down thing almost goes. Yeah, mark. Yeah. And I love the little micro holes in it for that.

[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: So for a drip system, that makes sense cuz you've got clean

[00:28:31] Robert Summers: water and it works well. Do you want to tell 'em about the rest of it? But say

[00:28:35] Elizabeth Summers: you have a potted plant next to it so you can, we have this little. Adapter.

[00:28:43] Robert Summers: Yeah. It's a little 90, 90 degree adapter that goes in the bottom.

[00:28:47] Elizabeth Summers: Wow. So not only are you getting your ground cover, but also your potted plants.

[00:28:53] Eric Goranson: Ah, that is so smart. Because now you've come up with that solution for all those pots, and again, you're getting the water down where it needs to [00:29:00] be. Right. Where those emitters, I mean, they're up top and they're spraying everywhere. No. Yeah. They're, they're getting on the, and they're house or breaking, yeah.

[00:29:08] Eric Goranson: Because that's the problem with exterior, especially in an area like with you guys where the sun is just on it, you know it, there's a lifespan to it out there, and these are so big and bulky in the right kind of way. And they clean. They look super clean when they're in there. You just see this little round top right when it's installed, so it.

[00:29:30] Eric Goranson: As distracting as some of the other emitter systems out there, and you're putting it down in so you're using less water. Is that one size that you guys have for that? Basically it looks like

[00:29:39] Robert Summers: it's kind of a one fit. Yeah. You know what's interesting is the, again, I mean the competition has. Um, I think they have a six inch steak or aev, eight inch steak, something like that.

[00:29:50] Robert Summers: And then they have varying degrees deep, as deep as like 24 inches. But this rounds out our product line because the small device [00:30:00] is for the small things. Yep. The medium device is for the medium things and the big devices for the big things. And that's it. There's not five sizes, there's not 10 sizes, there's not 27 different versions of it, or 16.

[00:30:14] Robert Summers: I mean, there are multiple ways to hook it up. Sure. But it's a pretty simple product and I, I personally found residential irrigation to be super complicated. I have,

[00:30:27] Eric Goranson: I have. In a former life, I was a rain bird trained designer, so I used to do sprinkler design. So I have done that way back in the day, and I tell you what, yeah, and they couldn't make it any more complicated.

[00:30:40] Eric Goranson: And I've sat through all those long classes and stuff 20 years ago, but this makes things so much more simple.

[00:30:48] Robert Summers: Well, and you have, you know, everybody has Rain Bird, orbit Hunter, everybody. They have, you know, all the pressure regulating heads, which are cool, you know, and look, they've been, they've been in it to win it for [00:31:00] the last 30, 40, 50 years.

[00:31:01] Robert Summers: Yep. Actually, rain Bird for. Geez, I think 70 years, something like that. But, uh, you know, it's time, it's time for a change. And I, I was at, we were at one of our original trade shows with an influencer. Mm-hmm. in the irrigation Anderson. He goes, you know, it's, it's kind of sad that it takes, um, I'm talking at a school a little bit that it takes a consumer to come and shake up the irrigation industry.

[00:31:28] Robert Summers: A not really even new concept to be honest with you. Just trying to deliver something that makes sense and is efficient. Well, and for

[00:31:36] Eric Goranson: the contractor out there, which we have plenty to listen to the show, you have three products in your truck. I mean, and that's all you need for every situation. Like you said, you could have 20 with some of the other comp competitors out there.

[00:31:50] Eric Goranson: That's way too much to manage this Here. You can literally have a small amount of stuff that does everything you need to. That's

[00:31:58] Robert Summers: brilliant. I'll be [00:32:00] honest with you, we love the contractors too, and. All of our bulk packaging is with them in mind. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Very simple and clean. Not a lot of fluff and musk, um, contractor pricing.

[00:32:12] Robert Summers: Yeah. You know, so that, uh, not only are they making, uh, you know, a little bit of margin on the product, but they're making all the installation costs. And these are, you know, this is, this will take an auger or a post hole digger. Sure. For the big one, this is a trial and stuff like that. But honestly, for.

[00:32:29] Robert Summers: Landscape and irrigation contractor. It, it, it puts them in a great spot with their customers because it's, I mean, it's. They, they were saying it's not cutting edge. It's not technologically, you know, revolutionary. Even though I like to use the word, because I do think it's kind of revolutionary. It absolutely is.

[00:32:48] Robert Summers: It, it's, it's like, it's a, it's a fresh set of ideas. It's a simple approach. Yeah. To a rather complicated problem.

[00:32:57] Eric Goranson: Well, and what's cool is, is that from the, from the [00:33:00] contractor point of view, this is simple. You guys didn't make this. Yes, you have a couple ways to do it and it's, anybody can understand it and you've got a product that's gonna work and you're saving labor for the end consumer, so they can go through, get it in there.

[00:33:19] Eric Goranson: It's, they're not sitting there messing with 20 parts. Right. And then, and, and you're there. So the consumer gets the savings for the ease of. Plus they put it in there once and you could forget it. You might have to move it because a tree's getting larger, something like that. But that's, that's always gonna happen.

[00:33:38] Eric Goranson: And it's good because you're steering those roots where you want to

[00:33:40] Robert Summers: be. Well, and the differentiator, like we talked about before, is that the one size fits all for all the tree needs. This is kind of a big deal because right now, if you're an irrigation contractor or a landscape contractor, you have to order our competitor's.

[00:33:56] Robert Summers: And you gotta order the right size. Ugh. Because they [00:34:00] have four or five different sizes. And if you don't order the right size, granted, you know, is the water's still gonna move? Sure. But you won't have the flow controls, you don't have the ability to actually control where the water goes and, and all you gotta do is have a case of these on the truck.

[00:34:18] Robert Summers: Yeah.

[00:34:19] Eric Goranson: Very simple. Yeah. So you guys have retail and you know, for the consumer packaging then, and then you've got the trade guys out there, so you can keep

[00:34:29] Robert Summers: those two happy. Yep. We've got the simple, straightforward trade packaging. You get a instruction sheet with everyone you get. Um, eight directional plugs with each ru quench and it's just, uh, you know, brown paper bag packaging.

[00:34:43] Robert Summers: Just like us. You know us. Well, those of us that think we're contractors, , and those who actually are contractors, uh, no. I want to get my C 27 license actually. There you go. Yeah, there you go. I told her I want to, I want to do it. You can do it. Because I'm going, I mean, I do go out and do some of [00:35:00] the work now.

[00:35:00] Robert Summers: Yeah. Yeah, California.

[00:35:02] Eric Goranson: It's a little hard. Takes a little time to get through there, but it can

[00:35:05] Robert Summers: be done. But right now I actually work under a buddy's contractor's license. So all of you out there know I'm doing it legally and late. There we

[00:35:12] Eric Goranson: go. There we go. Keep all the government people happy on that

[00:35:15] Robert Summers: one, right,

[00:35:17] Robert Summers: Exactly. But

[00:35:18] Eric Goranson: exactly. And

[00:35:20] Elizabeth Summers: did we mention that it's all made in the usa? Ah, there we go. Products

[00:35:25] Eric Goranson: are made home run in the United States. That is a huge home run. That is a huge home run. That's what's great. And as we know, right, we have had such a huge problem over the last three years of getting stuff in from overseas.

[00:35:40] Eric Goranson: Yes. You guys have such a greater control of things when it's made here in the United States because now you're not going, yeah, I got a container coming. Hold on. Seven months it'll be here. Right, right where you can go. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, uh, I know the contain. 1500 bucks to get here, by the way.

[00:35:58] Eric Goranson: It's 22,000. [00:36:00] Right. You know, and so that's the cool part in it's American jobs.

[00:36:04] Elizabeth Summers: Yeah. And so we have some of it, uh, done here in Nevada. Nice. In Carson City. Um, Valencia, California. Wonderful. And Tracy, California. It's all put together and packaged and set. Chipped out from Hawthorne,

[00:36:17] Eric Goranson: California. Oh man. You guys, that is something to be

[00:36:21] Robert Summers: proud of.

[00:36:22] Robert Summers: And where is it available?

[00:36:23] Eric Goranson: That's, that's

[00:36:24] Elizabeth Summers: available on. Home depot.com and also on ru quench.com.

[00:36:30] Eric Goranson: Nice. Well, I love the Home Depot thing because you guys are now, and, and congrats on that by the way, on getting it. That's a big deal because for a, a small family run company to start to get into those guys, that's a behemoth and it's great to see you guys jumping into that because that gets you that availability out there for people to be able to.

[00:36:52] Robert Summers: So, yeah, we actually, uh, just landed in 104 Home Depot stores on the West Coast, [00:37:00] dude, few stores in Utah, Nevada, California, and it's a test obviously. Sure. Uh, so we're, we've already had some sales generated through Home depot.com Yep. But we're excited to be definitely, you know, getting inducted into their family.

[00:37:16] Robert Summers: Yeah. And, uh, they're carrying the Junior now online. Excellent. And we'll be working on getting that in stores. As well.

[00:37:24] Eric Goranson: Okay guys, so all of you listeners out there right now, make sure you go over and help these guys out because their sales from there helps them grow. So don't go over to roof cruncher right now and buy it.

[00:37:35] Eric Goranson: Go to Home Depot and get it. Get these guys the sales, cuz I know that makes a big difference in getting them to pay attention to you. So, uh, do me a favor, do them a favor and head over that direction for that business because we gotta get these guys in every store across the country. Right. I mean, that's what we want to do.

[00:37:51] Eric Goranson: Thank you. So what have we not covered today, guys? We've talked in in depth about this, but I know there's always something else out there. I do like that Made in America [00:38:00] thing though. That's impressive. Yeah,

[00:38:01] Robert Summers: well, it's uh, I mean, Not that everybody cares for this, so you can cut it out if you want, but minority women owned business is kind of a big deal, of course, in this country.

[00:38:11] Robert Summers: But I will tell you, having a woman at the helm that you can tell knows the product, runs the company and does tell me. Oh no, we're not doing that . No, no, we are not doing that. I'm the boss.

[00:38:24] Eric Goranson: You're the boss? Yeah, I'm just the ceo. Wait a minute. Wait. You're the ceo. You're the ceo. That should say Robert Wrangler

[00:38:30] Robert Summers: under there too.

[00:38:31] Robert Summers: That's for sure. . That that is for sure. So that's something that's special because I think it is, you know, I, I know that, um, You know, a lot of people would think about working with their spouse and and say, that's a bad idea. Obviously you guys are kindred spirits to us. Yep. because your wife is here as well.

[00:38:50] Robert Summers: Absolutely. Um, and I think for us, you know, it's family. It's the relationship with our trees and plants that counts. Sounds, sounds a little corny, but you know, we have six kids and [00:39:00] eight grandkids. Nice. So I think our dream that we hadn't talked about is that, you know, we're building something for the next generation.

[00:39:09] Robert Summers: You know, as not just for everybody in America to be able to water and fertilize more efficiently. Right. But for our own family to have something like a piece of us that kind of lives on, and not from an ego standpoint, but like. You know, I want my, I want both. Elijah. We have two grandsons that are Elijah.

[00:39:29] Robert Summers: Nice. You know, Elijah and Malachi, and, and Jacob and Mia. And Isabella and Josh and um, and, um, Dylan. And, you know, you got a house full. I think I did. It didn't seem like eight. But anyway, you know, we want a legacy. I mean, not, not to force them into the business, but um, if there's interest, you know, we would love to have them involved and.

[00:39:57] Robert Summers: Have something that kind of carries beyond [00:40:00] us, or, or at least pays for the rest home for us. Well, .

[00:40:06] Eric Goranson: Well, seriously though, now you know that that family run business is something, I mean, that's what this country's made on is people coming in and creating this stuff. And that's the stuff I love to support as well because, you know, you guys are putting the, your heart and soul into.

[00:40:20] Eric Goranson: You know, as business owners, it's like, this is the hardest thing to do is to do what you guys are doing today because you have everything going against you. But you've created a, a very successful product that I think is just getting started out in the marketplace.

[00:40:34] Robert Summers: And I will tell you too, that the, uh, very unique relationship with my day job makes this extra special too, is all the people that support us at lithographics, which is.

[00:40:46] Robert Summers: Printing company that I work for Yep. In K in Hawthorne, California. Mm-hmm. , uh, they produce all the graphics for us. Uh, they've done all the CGI work for us. Nice. And, uh, I mean, obviously I'm a customer, so I pay for it. Yeah. But, [00:41:00] uh, that's,

[00:41:01] Eric Goranson: that's why you have them one of the best beautiful booths here with

[00:41:03] Robert Summers: all that graphics.

[00:41:04] Robert Summers: Well, Yeah, there is that. But you know, beyond that, um, they warehouse all the product. They assemble all the product and they make sure every order ships out within 24 hours of receipt. Wow. Whether it's Home Depot, Shopify, or the website. Yeah. Or what have you. We have some direct suppliers as well, or a direct distributors as well.

[00:41:24] Robert Summers: Yes. Beautiful. So they handle all the distribution for all that. So Tony and Jessica do an amazing job for us and the.

[00:41:32] Eric Goranson: Man. That is cool, guys. All right. I think we've covered everything here today. Thank you for having me over here, guys. Honestly, this is an amazing product. You and I were talking a few weeks ago and I'm like, this is cool, but now that I've had it in my hands, impressive stuff.

[00:41:49] Eric Goranson: Thank you. Impressive stuff. All right. Thanks for coming on guys. And also make sure you head over to Home depot.com to grab this stuff or your local Home Depot if you're in [00:42:00] that. What a California, Nevada, Utah, kind of that whole area. There's a

[00:42:04] Robert Summers: beautiful idea. I love it. Yeah. I think we probably need to publish a list on our website of the stores and where to go.

[00:42:10] Robert Summers: Yeah, because it is very select stores. Yeah. But anyway,

[00:42:13] Eric Goranson: support these guys. That's what's great about this. And, uh, You can really help these guys out. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to Around the House