A full month using Rachio. How much did I save compared to Hunter XCore

Got my Rachio 3 (Costco version with yard map) from my wife for Christmas 2019

I’m coming from a Hunter XCore controller that I had a hunter solar sync hooked up to. The solar sync would adjust the watering duration up or down everyday at midnight depending on the temperature. It also has a built in rain and freeze sensor.

I have a brand new Davis Vantage Pro2, with my new Davis 6100 WeatherLink live connected to wunderground so I can use my PWS to get the most accurate information for my Rachio.

My Rachio I hooked it up in April 2020 and started using it.

I do have watering restrictions and an only able to water on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. I have 4 schedules. 2 flex schedules with 2 zones each and 2 fixed schedules for my drip zones.

Now it’s 5/31/20 and I have a full month of usage (5/1-5/31)

Hunter vs Rachio run times

With Hunter each time my sprinklers went off they would run for 126 minutes (2 hrs 6 min x 3 times per week = 6hrs 18 minutes per week, Not including adjustments for solar sync

Sun - 126 minutes
Wed- 126 minutes
Fri - 126 minutes

3 x per week average of 4 weeks per month, average of 12 days per month water.

126 minutes x 12 days = 1512 minutes / 60 minutes = 25.2hrs of watering per month Not including adjustments for solar sync

Rachio

*1st actual watering with Rachio

*Wed 4/22 - 79min 1hr 19min - Fri 4/24 - 32min
Sun 4/26 - 74 min 1hr 14min

Week 1 = 185 minutes = 3hrs 5 minutes (-3 hours 13 minutes from hunter)

Wed 4/29 - 74min 1hr 14 min
Fri 5/1 - 45min
Sun 5/3 - 26min

Week 2 = 145 minutes = 2hrs 25minutes (- 4 hrs 7minutes from hunter)

Wed 5/6 - 92min 1hr 32min
Fri 5/8 - 91min 1hr 31 min
Sun 5/10 - 101min 1hr 41min

Week 3 = 284 minutes = 4hrs 44 minutes (- 2 Hours 26 minutes from hunter)

Wed 5/13 - 52 min
Fri 5/15 - 76min 1hr 16min
Sun 5/17 - 71min 1hr 11min

Week 4 = 199 minutes = 3hrs 19 minutes (-3hrs 1 minute from hunter)

Wed 5/20 - 74min 1hr 14min
Manually ran zone 1 & 2 because of wind skip 50 minutes
Fri 5/22 - 127min 2hr 7min
Sun 5/24 - 27min

Week 5 = 228 minutes = 3hrs 48 minutes (-3hrs 30minutes from hunter)

Wed 5/27 - 100 min 1hr 40 min
Fri 5/29 - 104 min 1hr 44min
Sun 5/31 - 116min 1hr 56min

Week 6 = 320 minutes = 5hrs 20 minutes (- 58 minutes from hunter)

For the month of May Hunter would have run approximately 1512 minutes 25 hours 20 minutes. Not including moving the watering duration up or down from solar sync.

*** Rachio ran 1031 minutes = 17 hours 11 minutes for May 2020 -8 hours 9 minutes than hunter ***

I did do lots of tweaking in the Rachio app. Moved all grass zones to Clay soil, did move up some run times on schedules because one zone wasn’t looking good, now is looking great, changed smart cycle on my flex daily schedules to manual because Rachio had me watering almost everyday because it had some zones soaking for over 2 hours (so far haven’t noticed an adverse change, we’ll see in the next few months when super hot) and being in water restrictions I can’t have my lawn watering outside of my scheduled days.

In the next week my 1st water bill after using Rachio will arrive and I’ll see how much water I saved in gallons compared to using my old Hunter. On my water bill I have different usage for house and irrigation.

Grass is still looking good, so I’ll see what happens when the really hot months get here.

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Thanks for the thorough rundown, this is great data. Very interested to see how the next months ago. Our team is working on personalized schedules for next year, that will hopefully make tuning easier!

:cheers:

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That would be nice, hopefully more things come along to help