Last summer we had our lawn ripped out and resodded and finally installed a sprinkler system. We’re using a Gen 2 Iro controller. Since the sod was new last year I set times manually to make sure the sod got bedded in correctly.
I’m getting ready to set up the system this year and was looking at the seasonal shift function. Here in Denver, the Denver Water authority suggests varying watering times throughout the summer. I wanted to set up Season Shift and compare its effect to what Denver Water suggests, but can’t find any way to preview what Season Shift will do.
Is there any way to predict what changes in watering times it will implement?
You can actually preview how seasonal shift will affect your schedule month to month! Once you create the schedule, select “edit watering schedule” in the mobile app. Then, select the watering day on the calendar in future months to see the preview of the time each zone will run for that month. Let me know if I can answer any other questions… congrats on the new lawn
Mckynzee, thanks for the info, not sure what I was doing wrong but I can see the time changes now.
This does raise other questions though which are:
When I enter an initial time for a zone what does the seasonal shift assume that time to apply to, January or the start date of my schedule. For example, if I set up a schedule running from April to October and I set a starting time of 9 min., what I get is 12, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 12 for April through October.
What is the curve seasonal shift is using? Having the time curve go flat from May through September kind of ignores that June, July and August are much different that May and September. I’m trying to follow Denver Water’s suggestions for shifting times from May through October. Is the only way I can actually do that to manually change the times for all of my zones at the beginning of each month?
@davelr, sounds like you’re applying custom durations to your zones? Rachio will recommend a duration based on the zone settings selected; curious if you’re overriding these values?
I’m not sure if you’ve reviewed this support article yet, but it details the math behind how the curve is calculated and applied. My assumption without looking at the data is that your base duration (9 minutes) is the root cause for the 15 minute max durations.
Remember to factor the intervals of the watering into your math. Your controller is currently on Standby so I cannot review the schedules, but happy to check the intervals if you’re okay with me taking the controller off Standby.
