City variance permitting twice per week on any day, Flex Daily max of twice per week setting?

After speaking to our city council they allowed a variance to permit those of us with smart controllers to choose our watering days :slight_smile: as long as we don’t water more than twice per week. They were persuaded by the argument that we would water less often if we are allowed to choose days based on weather data. What would be the best way to make sure we are in compliance with the twice per week maximum? I would like to set and forget in a Flex Daily schedule. Currently, I expect that when the summer comes along I will have to change settings to only allow watering on 2 days a week to stay in compliance. Is there a better way to ensure we water no more than twice a week?

City Councils aren’t very smart, are they? Most locations, in the summer, need to water grass at least 1.5" per week, or say 0.2" per day (here in SC in can easily reach 0.25" per day). To water only twice a week requires about 0.7" of water, twice a day. That’s a LOT of water at one time. What they don’t seem to realize is that smart systems, like Rachio, will apply the same amount of water to the lawn in a week whether they water once a week or 7 times a week! And watering too little at once requires watering too often, and watering too much at once results in waste and run-off, which is what they’re forcing you to do.

To answer your question, in the summer, you’ll have to adjust the soil’s Available Water, the crop’s Root Depth and the Allowed Depletion so that when multiplied together (to get the amount of water applied in one day) they give you about half your weekly water requirement in summer. This requires entering higher than normal values to artificially require more water to your lawn at one time lying if you will. You can back off on it when the weather cools.

What the City Council /should/ do, IMHO, is simply allow those with Smart controllers to run any day they want, knowing that when set properly, they will save water, and watering more often, but less, should actually help with maximum water usage.

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The problem with all of these bylaws and variances is who enforces them? The city/town probably won’t have someone patrolling every yard every day. They certainly won’t be checking the programs of smart controllers for compliance. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Flex Daily really doesn’t work well when placed under watering restrictions like that…