[johnkeegan]

I am looking to purchase a hydroseeder. We have no plans to get heavy into the lawn installation business. We are mostly involved with landscape design and installation of hardscapes, trees, shrubs etc., but we often need to reseed an average area of 5,000 sq. ft that we disturbed. What type of hydroseeding unit would fit our bill? Jet agitation or mechanical agitation? Also feedback on manufacturers ( Finn, Easyy Lawn, Turbo Turf etc.) And what options are most helpful (electric hose reel, extra hose etc.)? I believe in "you get what you pay for," but I don't want to pay for overkill.

[Bill Schwab]

I like Finn better than anyone else. Great machines, and excellent service.

A 1000 gallon trailerable model would probably work well for your needs.

Consider this first. You can get hydro seed done with your choice of seed for about .30 per yard, with minimum dumps ranging from $900.00 to $1,200.00.

A hydroseeder is going to set you back 20K. Get a reliable sub to handle this for you and you don't need to be bothered with all the superfluos BS regarding the seeder.
Definitely get an electric hose reel, but most of your application is done from the big gun on top.
They can be a labor intensive machine with quite a bit of overhead to recover. If you have the facilities to handle the PM on them, and it won't set your mechanic back too far in his schedule, then you know what is best. But, if this is something that will add burden to an already overloaded maintenance schedule, I would sub out.

[Stonehenge]

John, your outfit sounds similar to ours - hardscapes are our bread and butter, but we handle most other aspects of landscaping, too. I'm not in love with the machine we have, but it fits the bill for what we do. It's a jet agitated machine, which will limit the amount of mulch you can push through the hose, but for the volume we do, it seems to work fine. The jet machines are essentially made up of a poly tank and an engine that drives a pump, and a hose. Not much else. That being said, I'm not sure you'd find a world of difference from one jet machine to the next. I'd just look for a good engine with adequate power. We don't have a hosereel on ours, but I kinda wish we did. At the time, that option was an extra $1300, so we passed on it. Our unit, a 600 gallon Easy Lawn, was $7k new.

One tank will cover 5,000 sqft, but if you are doing anything larger, you'll need to fill it more than once.

[Paul]

We use a Finn T-60II, retail on it is $20K. If you hunt around a bit you can get them for around $12K used. We have all the bells on ours. I wouldn't go without a hose reel. For production work a mechanical machine is the only way to go but your doing such small areas, you could get away with a jet machine as long as you can limit your area to one tank load. As soon as you start having to shoot more than one tank your going to find out how long it takes to load and mix Vs. a Finn or similar machine. Six hundred gallons is a nice size, any bigger and you have over kill on small lots.