Custom Nozzle for Overlapping Zones (Head-To-Head Coverage)

I have a 900 sq. ft. 2:1 rectangular lawn that is watered by two rows of three rotary (3 GPM) nozzles. Each row is its own zone. The nozzles are set-up for head-to-head coverage and thus Zone 1 and 2 (nearly) completely overlap.

The Rachio does not know that Zone 1 and Zone 2 are watering the same area. To account for the overlap should I create a custom nozzle for half of the calculated precipitation rate and apply this custom nozzle to both Zone 1 and Zone 2? For example, I have calculated a precipitation rate of 0.32-in/hr for Zone 1 – should I create a custom nozzle for half of this rate (0.16-in/hr) to account for the fact that Zone 2 is going to double-up Zone 1?

Thanks in advance! (Great product, btw)

It sounds like you are using catch cups to determine your PR. There are instructions on how to correctly calculate PR for overlapping zones at the link below, Step 4.

Orbit Watering Schedule Instructions

Hope that helps!

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I have an area similar to this. I just calculated the rate for them as a combined zone and input that into my settings. If you put in half of the precipitation rate the controller will double the time that it usually waters since it thinks the sprinklers are providing only half what the actual rate is.

I also think this would work, unless you have a pretty big discrepancy between the two precipitation rates in the overlapping zones.

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JPedrego, thanks. You’re right – I mistakenly said that I should cut the precipitation rate in half. What I should do is DOUBLE the precipitation rate. A higher application rate will result in a reduced watering duration for each zone (twice the rate = ~half the duration?) but since the same area is getting watered twice it all works out, right? That means my calculated rate of 0.32 should be 0.64 (compared to Rachio’s default value of 1.0 in/hr for rotor heads).

Separately, it just occurred to me that I haven’t correctly paired the nozzles to the 90-degree and 180-degree rotor heads. I currently have 3.0 GPM nozzles on all rotor heads which will result in twice the application for the 90-degree arc vs. the 180-degree. To keep the precipitation rates the same I’m going to change-out the nozzles so that the corners are half the rate of the 180-degree nozzles (i.e. 2 GPM nozzles at the corners w/ 4 GPM nozzles in the middle).

Thanks again.

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I would recommend lowering efficiency as well. If you are using flex, the portions not overlapped will get too little water and the model needs to know this to overwater to compensate.