Hello - I’m considering switching to Rachio from Opensprinkler. I do not do any lawn watering. Strictly drip irrigation for perennials, containers and vegetables. I’ve seen posts suggesting that people struggle to get the right settings for this use case with Rachio. Are there clear recommendations for setup for my situation using drip only?
Thanks!
It all depends on how hands off you want the system. If you want to just have access remotely to your controller via a smartphone, and fixed schedules are your jam, then it is VERY simple.
If you want a more complex, hands off, dynamic scheduling system, and are willing to put in some effort to dial in your settings, then Flex Daily is amazing. Biggest hurdle is people not understanding their system or their “crop”, or having a poorly maintained/designed system.
I will say that plants in raised beds and pots do add an additional layer of complexity and may require some tweaking and fine tuning, beyond normal grass and/or drip. This is because the sun exposure to the raised bed or pot will dramatically increase the ET of the plant as the soil will heat up and dry out at a much faster rate.
I have drip irrigation around my front and back shrubs, flower beds. My initial schedule on daily flex shows 6 hours of run time which seems excessive plus it doesn’t actually show up as scheduled on the calendar…so any hints re how to dial in settings for a drip irrigation? Or do I just have to go to a fixed schedule. Does that then run regardless of weather?
You are saying 6 hours, but for how many zones? What does your setup look like? It’s impossible to answer your question without knowing what zone settings are.
My total run time for my drip irrigation (on 1 of 2 controllers) is 16h5m, spread across 5 zones. Shrub zones run for 3h26m and tree zones run for 3h5m each. So to me, does 6 hours sound wrong…not necessarily!