What 'Knob' Do I Adjust to Just Increase Amount of Water?

What ‘knob’ do I adjust to just increase amount of water, all things being equal?

I run full automatic (flex daily). All things being equal, I want to increase the amount of water put down for a zone I have, without adjusting frequency or anything else.

I’m uncertain how to do this.

Many thanks!

@a0128958 - Lowering the precipitation rate on the nozzle will increase run time -> https://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010379087-How-do-I-edit-duration-and-frequency-on-Flexible-Daily-Schedules-

If all you want to do is increase the run time for a zone, you can click on the schedule the zone is in, which will bring up Edit Schedule. Then click on Durations. From there you can click on the - and + to adjust the amount of watering time for the zone you want to change, without impacting anything else.

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OK. Thank you. I’ll try this. I’ll be curious to see if the moisture chart appropriately expands in order to maintain frequency exactly as it is.

@a0128958 - I don’t think the moisture chart will expand as Rachio will think it is putting down the same amount of water as it was previously. This adjustment may bring Rachio closer to the real world situation if the landscape is currently showing stress and needing more water.

In thinking more about it, I agree with @DLane about changing the nozzle. Changing the duration will effect the moisture level since the amount of water getting laid down goes into the moisture level calculations.

What exactly are you looking to accomplish with adding water to your zone? Is it a dry zone that simply needs more frequent watering or is it something else? You may want to look into simply creating a separate fixed schedule for the one zone to water more often.

Other than that, changing the watering duration would probably be your best bet.

It is a dry zone that I want to put down more water whenever automatic (flex daily) schedules it to run.

I don’t want to adjust frequency at all, either intentionally or as a side effect. I simply want more water (longer time duration) for this zone when automatic waters it.

Reading above, it looks like adjusting nozzle rate will accomplish what I want to do. Thanks. This is a good idea.

What I want to do is lay down more water without a simultaneous adjustment to frequency.

I’ll go off now and try to figure out how to adjust nozzle rate for my ‘Rotor’ setting (I’m using Hunter rotor heads for this particular zone).

Thank you again.

@a0128958 - one way is to create a custom nozzle and to reduce the rate from the existing value.

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I went back and looked at all my spreadsheets, and you CAN just change the duration without impacting moisture levels. I have two drip zones that I want less water on, I changed them with duration, and it did not change what it thought it was putting down for the moisture levels. So this would be a really quick way of doing exactly what you want to do. Just up the duration.

You can double check this by looking at the moisture level before you make the change and see how many inches it thinks it’s putting down. Make the change, and then see how many inches it thinks it’s going to be putting down in the future. They should be the same. If they aren’t, please let me know.

I increased the run time on one of my grass zones earlier this summer and it didn’t affect moisture because my grass stayed in sync. If it altered the moisture balance, my zone would quickly become out of balance with the other 2 zones

You will have to physically change the nozzle size

Lynn I can’t seem to find that button, tell me what I’m missing to change the run time on one zone. Thanks

If you use the web app, your schedules are under “Watering Schedule”, and you can click on each schedule from there. On the IOS app, from the main page scroll down until you see “watering schedule”. Under the calendar you will see “-> Edit Watering Schedule”. Click on that and you will see all your schedules. In either case, once you’ve clicked on a schedule, “Edit Schedule” will show up and you should see durations right under that.

Lynn I’ve done that but all the comes us is the calendar with the water days, how can I adjust the zone run time on the IOS app. It should not
Be this difficult!!!

Never mind I finally figured it out you have to click on a specific watering day to bring up the schedule, not user friendly!!! And I’ve been in the irrigation business for 44 years.

It works. You guys are pretty smart.

An adjust to the % (click on > next to schedule name, click on duration hour/min amount, adjust durations from 100 to max 150%, play around until you figure out how to save (frustrating - still don’t know how to reliably save - poor PC interface performance is #1 reason I tell the commercial guys to not buy Rachio at the moment - Rachio’s not ready for them.)

Indeed, watering amount gets increased without anything else changing. What’s happening is this % screen is separate from all ET algorithms - if the ‘auto’ ET calculations say ‘put down 30 minutes,’ then this screen allows you to put down up to 45 min with the ET auto system thinking it only got 30 min.

Indeed, this is the ‘knob’ to increase watering amount without changing anything else, using ‘auto’ mode.

Thank you.

It does not work, it turns out, without knowing what the ‘secret code’ is to get changes on the plus minus screen to ‘stick.’

I give up. I cannot figure out how to make a plus / minus change on this screen and get it to save.

I use Windows 7 and latest version of IE for Windows 7 (like hundreds of million others do).

Bad: Use PC w/ Win 7 and latest IE browser - unable to make duration changes ‘stick’

Bad: Use Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone and its latest OS - still unable to make duration changes ‘stick’

Good: Use PC w/ Win 7 and latest Chrome browser - duration changes ‘stick’ now.