426 minutes 2631 gallons in first run. REALLY?

Hey all,

I just started up my new Rachio yesterday. I had 18 zones which I combined into 16 zones. It was the first run last night and it says it ran 3 cycles for a total of 426 minutes and 2631 gallons. OMG!!! That is crazy. 7 hours of run time? Does that make sense to anyone? Please help.

TIA

The first time it runs, it will run all 16 zones. So you had an average of 26 minutes per zone. Depending on your settings, that could very well be appropriate.

agree with @Linn , and if the time looks excessive you probably have smart cycle on (a good thing). The gallons do not look too scary for 18 zones, especially if you have not calibrated the rachio gallons against the water bill yet. My ratio of reported gallons against billed gallons is about 70%.
To reduce my total run time, I have created different flex cycles for the strong slopes (banks), because smart cycle would break everything down to 2 minute or so cycles…which doe not make sense for the lawn surfaces.

Can you explain the different flex cycles for the slopes?

in short, with strong slopes, rachio breaks the watering duration down to minimize runoff. However, if you have all zones in the same flex program, it will break everything down to these short cycles, which is not needed for the flat parts of your backyard.
I am on a plane landing shortly, so I have to direct you to the knowledge base on the site. They have excellent background documents there, explaining the inner workings!
Cheers
Heiri

The water usage that Rachio reports is dependent on your zone settings - the precip rate for the nozzle type, and area of each zone. Check and adjust those numbers for each zone, to get a more accurate water usage tally. The nozzle precip rate will also affect your run times.