I have a gen2 programmer and love it but cannot figure out how I can " program" a schedule where I can have my system turn on one station every hour for 2 minutes to prevent freezing. I have done this schedule but it is really random as to when it turns on etc. for instance I’ve told it to turn on after 10pm and it starts at say 7:45p?? Any clue as to what I’m doing wrong? Thanks for the help David
@Davidc - many municipalities have laws that institute fines for running sprinkler systems when it is freezing. Also, if the run off or over spray caused ice to form on the sidewalk or street I’m sure there is a litigious plaintiff’s attorney that would try to get pain and suffering money from any slip/fall or accident. Plus I would think everything would be coated in ice that the sprinkler system sprayed.
That being said, I might look into IFTTT or something similar to externally trigger the Rachio Gen 2. And one would need to disable the freeze warning settings in the Rachio app and disconnect any mechanical freeze sensor - sometimes they are combined with a rain sensor.
Shd have stated that it’s on my property and pumping out of lake so no worries like your talking about
I think IFTTT is your best bet. You can set parameters of both time of day and utilize one of there integrated weather apps for temp. I can’t image it would be too difficult to set up. Only issue would be if it started interfering with your normal schedules…
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I have a product improvement request.
We had more than two weeks without frost at night and very dry and sunny days. So I started the irrigation system last week.
Now we have two nights with temperatures at 5am around 0 degrees celsius and -1 to -2 by 7am.
If temperatures are that low and since I use sprinkler heads with check valve, it would be a desired feature that you water all lines for 1 minute every 30 min once it is as low as zero degrees.
If I could tell my Rachio3 which line’s how long, it could water the lines, just as much as needed to replace the freezing cold water with warmer water from the well or house.
My sprinklers don’t water anywhere close to walkways or public areas, so watering at freezing temp to prevent lines from bursting is ok, no legal issue, but just not yet offered by my Rachio 3 controller.
I just created another schedule and mine waters zone 1 every 30 minutes I call it “freeze prevention” works great I’m pumping out of lake and wanted to do exactly what you’ve requested. David
How do you manage to get the freeze protection watering cycle to work when the Weather Intelligence Plus controller shutoff temp is 32F? We’re expecting a hard freeze (27F) for 7hr tonight as well as again in a few days. Do I need to be concerned with backflow and pipe/head damage for 7hr?
How was the freeze night? Any damages? Or did you drain before?
I too have Hunter PRS40 w/ check valve which keep water in all lines and sprinklers. So if freeze gets there the damage is maximum.
I could run any zone by ignoring wind skip snd freeze skip, but it would be perfect if the controler would turn on zones at freeze risk itself and in the needed frequency at the exact time of need.
A side effect I noticed. My programming prevented any damage to the sprinklers, grass is fine, but plants and bushes as well as the hedge don’t like to get water at freezing temp. Leaves are wrinkled and the hedge shows still 6 weeks later where the water spray went. 
Hi. Have Rachio 3 app freezing issues as well. Checked hard reset my iphone, checked our router & other iphone apps - no problem except on Rachio 3 app. Seen others with the same issue, but a couple of years ago. Is there a bug inherent in this program that we don’t know about? Thanks.