Hi guys, I just installed the Rachio 3 in my home. This is my first smart sprinkler product as well as my first Rachio product. I have never done this before, so I am confused by a few things. Perhaps some more experienced users can help me. FYI, I live in NY.
My rain skip threshold is 0.125. I guess this was the default when I set up the Rachio 3. How do I know if this is appropriate for my yard? I assume the Rachio assigned this threshold based on my location?
I have 6 zones. My sprinkler guy, who opened up my sprinklers before I got the Rachio 3, programmed my old sprinkler controller for 15 minutes in each zone at 3am on even days. I programmed it this way for the Rachio 3 as well. Is it customary for one zone to be watered at a time? Right now, my watering schedule is 3:00am to 4:41am. It goes Zone 1 to 6, 15 minutes each. I assumed they would all be watered at the same time. Just wondering if this is the norm.
I don’t understand the Flex Daily schedule. I initially tried to set it up this way for max savings, but it wanted to water my lawn for 9 hours or something like that. I don’t have a very large property, but 9 hours of watering would raise my water bill astronomically. This is the opposite of why I bought the Rachio 3…to have a smarter system in watering my lawn and flowers to save money.
Thank you for helping out this newbie. I am a new homeowner and this is my first spring/summer in my house. Also, my parents did not have a sprinkler system, so I did not grow up with one. Thus, all of this is new to me.
I would just leave the threshold as a default. And as far as schedule am assuming you have cool season grass what type of spray heads do you have. You also need to know what type of soil you have that way you know what is your AWC. For flexible daily start with one zone first you get that zone dialed in for a few weeks and then apply it to the rest and leave the other five zones on fixed schedule Rachio would choose the time for the fixed schedule. Here you can check your soil type. Using Web Soil Survey to define your soil settings
That is the default, I would just start there and adjust if you feel we are skipping too much or too little.
That is typical. Most systems do not have enough pressure to water more than one zone at once.
Flex daily schedules can be a little daunting at first. I would make sure that your zone characteristics are close (especially the crop type, cool season or warm season grass) and your nozzle type. If you do decide to try it I would definitely just start with one zone, get it dialed in (might have to adjust some advanced settings), and then determine if it is for you or not. An easier more predictable schedule is flexible monthly which will pick a watering frequency for you each month and will automatically adjust watering frequency based on the time of year. Once that is setup you can adjust minutes how you see fit.
I’d probably stick with the fixed schedule that was setup for you and try out a flex monthly or flex daily on one of your zones and just determine how well it is doing.
Here is some more information regarding those two schedule types. If you do have more detailed information the community is usually a great place to ask those types of questions. Welcome aboard and have a great weekend!
I believe I do have cold water grass. I have to ask my gardener to be more specific regarding the type of grass and soil that I have. I already inputted the correct nozzle types since I asked the sprinkler guy what kind of nozzle types I have for each zone. It gets tricky b/c I have two zones where there are multiple nozzles, but they’re different types. I don’t think Rachio allows you to pick different types of nozzles within one zone. It’s a one fits all.
I will read up on the links you guys provided. Thank you!
I read the FAQs. It says: We do not recommend using Flex Daily schedules if you cannot water more than 4 days per week as the dynamic nature of Flex Daily schedules could up watering on each non-restricted day trying to catch up to your optimal soil moisture level.
If I am limited to watering on even days of the month, does this mean I cannot use the flex daily schedule? If the week begins with an odd number (Sunday to Saturday), then I only water 3 times a week. If the week begins with an even number, then it’s 4 days a week. Does this mean I should not consider Flex Daily?
