I have a sprinkler system that was put in without any thought rhyme or reason. I was not around the home when the sprinkler system was installed. The house was vacant for 10 years after a bank repo I believe the sprinkler system had been dormant for at least that many years. I have now spent about 3 weeks bringing this sprinkler system back online and learning more than I ever cared to learn about irrigationtried. To get the sprinkler system functioning I had to locate and fix about 20 broken underground pipes. Replace and properly install all the 3/4 inch inlet sprinkler heads with half inch and countless hours of just trying to find buried sprinkler heads and broken pipes. I also installed the Rancio 8 zone controller. I’ve come to the realization that the people that install this system had no clue what they were doing. The problem that I have is I’m sure they gave no consideration to how much undergrounf reserve there is at the well or the water pressure that the well pump can generate. When I got the first of seven zones up and running after about 15 minutes I thought there was another broken pipe because we lost water pressure. Luckily the underground water reservoir around the well pump refills fairly quick. I can run the sprinklers easily for 10 minutes and then give it a 30-minute break and fire it back off. I can water all day doing this I just can’t leave the pump running for over 15 minutes without a 30 minute break becaus the well goes dry.
So here’s my question/dilemma. I know about the soak and cycle program. I set the soak and cycle for 20 minutes of total watering with the 30 minute break after 10 minutes of watering. What the computer does is instead of giving zone one a break and shutting down and waiting 30 minutesthat it goes right to zone 2 and waters for 10 minutes. It does this through all seven zones and then starts back up on zone one. Then the computer continues on and cycles through all seven zones. I would guess the reason it does this is because it gives it at least a 10 minute
soak between waterings. I need it to give me a 30 minute break before going to the next program cycle. Does anybody have any ideas on how I can do this short of making 7 different programs in one program for each zone… If not Rachio needs to add that as an option for people living on a well that’s slow to refill. Thank you in advance for your input.
I think the following may at least partially get you where you need Delay Between Zones - How to include a well in your irrigation setup
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The delay may be a decent interim fix, though I’d suggest a more permanent albeit costly one: sink the wellpoint deeper. Running a well dry, allowing it to refill, rinse and repeat, seems like a recipe for a cave in or sink hole.
Good luck on getting a well permit. The native Americans have got that process all tied up. They want that water for their salmon. I don’t blame them. There was recently a year where nobody could drill a well well it was tied up in court. It is pretty rocky down out well whole. I don’t think we have much of a chance for a substantial cave in. The pump is placed inside the rocky area and there’s not much of a void.
When I program my schedule for a soak and cycle delay for 20 minute total watering time for each zone with a soak break at 10 minutes the program shut off watering the first zone in the program zone after 10 minutes. Then immediately goes to the next zone. It’ll water there for 10 minutes then go to the next zone. After it cycles through all the zones it starts back at zone 1 and waters for 10 minutes to give all zone the total 20 minutes of watering. I can’t get the program to shut down and wait after the first 10-minute watering before it fires off to the next zone. I do have 8 zones total to work with but only seven are being used. I wonder if I could have it run zone one and go next to the 8th zone water that for 10 minutes. That would not water anything because eight zone is not hooked up. After 10 minutes of watering zone 8 Then the program go to zone 2 water for 10 minutes then go to zone eight again for a phantom watering. I’ll have to find out if there’s a way to program the order and use the eight zone as a break between the other seven. Thanks for your input and hopefully you can understand this confusing email.
Warm Regards,
John Torkelson0
Protection Home Inspection
425-275-7132 p
john@phillc.org
www.phillc.org
License #1854
That’s not going to happen. The county wouldn’t give us a permit to dig a deeper well so we could waste water on a lawn. They would want evaluation by a licensed professional well driller to see our house didn’t get enough water house gets plenty of water. It’s only the wet can’t keep up when you have a 1 inch line wide open. The installers didn’t check before installing the irrigation system if the pump could hold up. Or maybe over the last 10 years more people have tapped into that aquifer and it doesn’t produce as much water as it did
Thank you for that link. I think that might work. I’ll reprogram it now see how it does
