I have just installed Rachio couple of days ago. We had a very heavy rain fall yesterday with flood warnings. I am trying to setup flex schedule and what the unit is proposing is to start watering in 3 days all zones every day for about 2 hours (23 minutes per zone) for the next 10 days. We are expecting heavy rain tonight and tomorrow. Weather station shows 92% chance of rain. On average my landscaping guy tells me to water each zone for about 12-15 minutes 3 times a week. I am not a pro by any means. However, it seems to be too much watering after 3 days of heavy rains. I understand flex schedules supposed to be a new thing. Does it take an account prior weather conditions? Is there an option to manually overwrite it? Should I manually overwrite it? How often flex schedule gets updated and when?
I have read an article about flex schedule and it was suggested to let it go for about 2 weeks and see how yard responds. What should I watch for as far as overwatering?
it looks 24 hours back. also, there was a problem on rachio’s end concerning weather data that was not resolved until 11pm mountain time last night, so maybe things have changed now?
your flexies will appear scheduled for tomorrow but will be skipped if the forecast expects rain, so you should get a notification at some point tonight about skipping the schedule due to forecast-ed precipitation.
what your landscaper recommends is not right or wrong. everybody has different needs, there is an amazing amount of conjecture floating around the wibbles about best watering practices. for me, i water my turf 1 time a week (well, 6 days with flexies) and my flower beds get water 3 times a week (currently every day as i have new plantings). so will that work for you, i have no idea. given my shade patterns on my turf, it works best for me with respect to fungus outbreak (i keep my yard VERY short so it is more susceptible).
if flexies are trying to water too frequently, double/triple check that the accumulation rate for your zone is correct. i thought i had my configured correctly for about 1 month, and i didnt so now this the first thing i always recommend.
you can also try increasing your mad (managed allowed depletion?) to decrease frequency, but this will also increases your watering times.
you can also increase your available water to decrease run times, but i cant tell you if this is the proper thing to do for your soill. a soil test from a good lab will help you determine this (john deere landscape charges $35 in my area) and if you are not doing this, i would highly recommend it, understanding your cation exchange index will help you understand and how much/often fertilizer to/should be applying. if you like, i can post a report that i get for my soil if you are interested.
When the system is installed, we assume each zone is fully depleted and needs to be watered.
Make sure you have chosen a weather station that is accurate and as close as possible to your house.
This can be adjusted per zone on the flex schedule if you want more/less water.
One hour before flex schedule can run, we look at forecasted weather for the day, and observed weather in the past. The great thing is that if forecasted data was slightly incorrect, the schedule makes incremental adjustments daily since we look back at observed data. So forecasted data becomes observed data.
The most important thing to it working correctly is data. Correctly configuring your zone characteristics and having accurate weather data is key to the success
I think I confirmed the right Pr per zone. I actually went and calculated each zone per sprinkler head and kind of came out to almost the same to what the unit head by default. I am curious to do cup test and see if it actually confirms.
Is there a way to verify what data my unit is getting from local station?
@JNotar You should now see the individual watering times by zone when editing flex schedules in the web app. Let me know if you notice anything else out of place
If you’re just enabling/disabling a schedule you shouldn’t have to save (I understand this can be confusing). Just wait a second and you should see the UI change to reflect that the schedule is now enabled/disabled…
Please
