Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster. Installing my Rachio 3 this weekend and I’d like to dial in my system and give flex daily a try right off the start. I read a nice article on here directing me to websoilsurvey.sc.gov where I searched my property. I found that my available water is 0.15 inch/inch which I plan to enter into the Rachio. The site also says that my soil search from 0-40” is 100% Armster Silt Loam. But then it somewhat contradicts itself saying:
Wow. Glad you asked this.my home was built 3 years ago in a previous farm land. I’m talking alternating peas, soy beans, corn, etc each year. I’m in Louisiana and in June if you want to dig a hole you better have a pic axe in the red concrete clay. The pad was built with river dirt and the excess was spread around for the yard. They then took zoysia and laid it down and started watering it. First day I looked at house I thought there was a leak, the sprinklers were going and water running down the road. The clay could not take the water. When I moved in I put about an 1/2 inch of sand all over the grass and watered it in by hand over a couple of days. So that’s the story. Now my weather station is Barksdale Air Force base so basically it works but in Louisiana you can have an inch downpour at any given time and half a mile down the road not a drop so you have to stay on top of it. So we get to I can’t count on the government soil go buy. I’m not sure what Rachio would say I have but please help. I set it to the next to clay since I put sand down. I need it to soak each zone about every 10 or less minutes so I don’t watch it go to the gutter. The guys that are really into this put your Rachio caps on and figure this out please. Last thing is I have the gen 2. I have notifications on for a major flow indicating a broken pipe and a continuous flow indicating a slow leak. So why do I need the 3 and the expensive flow meter ? Can someone explain or does this feature not work. I will be glad to buy one if convinced. Long question but I need the experts input please. Thanks to all. Love Rachio but I don’t think they grasp how most homes are already built and we don’t have a choice how the sprinklers were installed. Sprinkler companies figure we have everything covered then good but shrub heads and some parts of yard might be on a zone. So we are out here scratching our heads trying to figure this out. In s perfect world we would be able to have the system installed and know we know drip zones, shrubs, spray heads or rotors . So thanks if you have read this far and help a guy out in the crazy land and rain in Louisiana.
