Flex Scheduling Not Scheduling Drip Lines

jproducer73 2015-07-15 02:47:52 UTC #1

So I want to preface this by saying, I’m on day 2 of Rachio IRO and I’m beyond happy. Everything I’ve needed to know support and this forum has helped me with. Happy owner!

That being said (I didn’t say but haha), I’m having a couple of issues. First one is understanding flex vs. fixed scheduling and might also have a slight bug.

My grass areas are set to a Flex schedule and they’re showing up about every 2 to 3 days with what I believe is great watering times and 30 minute rests between cycles starting at 5am. Everything looks good IF it hadn’t rained today. We got a pretty good rain out by DIA (Denver Internation Airport) in Reunion so I looked at my app hoping to see that this might have been taken into consideration. All looks to be scheduled tomorrow with no time reduction or anything like that. So does weather only come into play on fixed schedules?

Next question is my drip lines. I have them on a separate schedule figuring this was best practice and they were scheduled to run at about an hour interval on the 22nd. It rained today and now the “Drip Lines” zone is showing “Not Scheduled”. I’ve even tried removing the schedule and putting it back again, still showing as “not scheduled”. This could be something I have to write to support, but curious if someone else has had the issue. I like the idea that flex schedules remove pretty much everything I’ve ever thought about watering, because after reading these forums and all the documentation, boy have I been wrong! Yes, I too was one of those “water 5 minutes every day” people. Apparently never really doing an effective job.

Still a very happy customer and looking forward to feedback. Hope I got all the proper information in here.

Nice to meet everyone.

Johnny

franz 2015-07-15 04:02:05 UTC #2

w00t.

Be sure you have chosen a weather station close to your house, and I would recommend tapping on ‘More Info’ next to the station name to make sure that it looks like it is reporting relatively accurate data.

I picked one about 2.5 miles from my house, and I was supposed to water today, but…the forecast called for .13 inches of precipitation, I didn’t bottom out, and the schedule skipped. If it indeed doesn’t rain, tomorrow that will be viewed as an observation (vs. forecast) and my system will water. Also, after picking the station, you can look at your graph to see prior observations to see how the station is tracking. This graph is found at app.rach.io --> Zone --> Soil Moisture Level (soon to be in mobile). It shows exact forecast and what flex will probably do (remember, these are predictions, self correcting every day). Note the arrows at the top as it goes out two full weeks.

You can always set a manual one day rain delay until you get the right weather station.

Again, the graph above will show you in detail why/why not a flex schedule will run. My guess, is you have a crop like trees, shrubs, or perennials which have a much larger bucket to fill, but once it is filled it can take some time before you water again. The root zone depth of the crop is the main factor here. Trees are default 24 inches, while cool season grass is 6 inches. So, you can see why it might not water for some time.

If you do have individual questions like above [support@rachio.com] can take a quick look at your schedule(s) and help you understand why the system is behaving like it is.

Here is much more detailed information regarding the science behind the scheduling

And more flex articles!

http://support.rachio.com/category/381-flex-schedules

Hope this helps.

jproducer73 2015-07-15 05:21:23 UTC #3

Thank you so much for the reply @franz

Looks like the closest station to me is KDEN (airport) at about 7 miles away. Data seems great.

KDEN

I still show drip lines as not scheduled and it looks like according to moisture levels, maybe this just happens to be right.

These are mainly perennials at 10", a couple of bushes and I’ve also got emitters along with drips, which I’m still “dialing in” a bit, but still, maybe this is all correct and I need to be a little patient and watch the IRO do it’s job. Not sure any of this is an issue as much as a learning curve. I’ve discovered a whole new world of yard care.

Glad this community is here and thank you again for your quick response. I’m going to read up a bit more

franz 2015-07-15 05:37:03 UTC #4

@jproducer73 I would try enabling personal weather stations on the weather card, you might find a much closer station.

As to perennials, we default to 10 inch roots, but that is our best guess. If you feel the watering frequency needs to be greater, but with lower runtimes, you can always modify that value and see how it affects flex.

I usually recommend starting with one or two zones just to start simple, but not a hard and fast rule of course.

jproducer73 2015-07-15 05:52:52 UTC #5

I tried the personal, but the two closer had inaccurate data and another had invalid page. We’ll see how the next few days go and I’ll keep a good eye on the plants. We’ve had an unusually wet couple of months here, so hey, maybe we’re right on track!

I’ll keep you posted on progress.

plainsane 2015-07-15 21:22:16 UTC #6

yea, support needs to look at this.

it is as if the previous precipitation was considered in scheduling drip, but not the rotors? now, having said that, i have noticed that my flex schedules are not finalized for the following day until 3:15 my time so i assume that midnight mountain time. so im curious and about 60% confident that tonight after midnight your time, you will see the flexy for your turf move to not scheduled. where as if you added the flexy for drip today, it would take into account current precipitation.

please post back your findings, but i would reach out to support before you throw an almost useless quantity of water on your turf.

emil 2015-07-16 04:10:46 UTC #7

@plainsane, just to clarify, I assume you’re not seeing your Flex schedules update until 3:15ish AM? What time is your watering time scheduled to run?

Flex schedules will update on the same schedule Fixed schedules perform their weather check; 1-2 hours before your scheduled watering time. Provided that the weather station is reporting accurate data when you to go bed, the Flex schedule should perform accordingly…keeping in mind to compare against your Moisture Level graph. For details on how to access/read these, please see this support article: http://support.rachio.com/article/395-understanding-moisture-level-for-your-zones

Hope this helps!

Best, Emil

jproducer73 2015-07-16 04:34:14 UTC #8

My schedules seem to want to run at about 5am, so being about 3am makes perfect sense for data update. My yard sprinklers did run this morning but I would bet that’s because we had a quick rain and wasn’t enough to tell it to skip the schedule. I’m keeping my eye on it. The closest radio station with data is DIA which is a little over 7 miles away. It’s showing it rained .02 so That didn’t meet my threshold of skipping I’m guessing.

But just to update on the drip lines, they are now scheduled for tomorrow so must have met the 50% “depletion” at this point.

I think I’m doing good. I still feel there’s some math that needs to be done on my drip lines zone because there is a mix of emitters, drip lines and buttons on most plants, so that is on me if it’s not completely correct. I do feel like things are going well and I’m just having that first week “dial in” learning curve.

I would have never imagined I’d know this much in just a few days about what is really going on with my yard. I’m afraid I have no life now

plainsane 2015-07-16 13:21:29 UTC #9

5 am.

plainsane 2015-07-16 13:32:51 UTC #10

Yea, join the crowd. I have been doing a lot of this manually before iro. I’ll go ahead and warn you, if this tickled some fancy even slightly, stay away from growth regulators for your turf. I’m addicted.

emil 2015-07-16 15:46:04 UTC #11

@jproducer73, allowed depletion looks at ET, precip, and irrigation events every day to determine the net moisture balance (+/-) for each zone. Sounds like the ET in your area was greater then the total precip and irrigation for the day. Keep an eye on your moisture graphs, they are the best way to understand what the Iro is seeing.

Drip zones are the hardest zone to calculate precip rates for, especially if you have mixed nozzles (emitters, bubblers, etc) on the same zone. Pending your water meter, you might be able to calculate the precip rate by using it.

@plainsane, I forgot about your experience with growth regulators! That’s a whole different level of lawn care

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Best, Emil

plainsane 2015-07-16 16:04:29 UTC #12

its crazy addictive. i have built a chart for my grass based on height and grass clippings weight removed at each cutting interval to determine current saturation of trinex and plot its declination. was a complete and total waste of time (not completely but damned close) but taught me a lot about how the compound behaves. i was also determining root mass as well through the first few seasons to verify anecdotal statements i have read on various golf course forums that i found. sooooo much fun, and sooooo addictive. i have gone way tooooooooo far and have 2 sentinel patches in my back yard that i test and observe with before i move a technique or compound out to the front yard.

my wife says i am a fool…

if anybody is interested, turfpath on ios is a pretty decent community to track what golf course super attendants are seeing happen on their courses with regards to disease. it is pretty cool and if you are not too annoying you can get some of these super attendants to look at pictures for you to determine what types of decline or damage is occuring in your yard.

another shameless plug would be following pace turf on youtube. so many great informative videos on management and disease identification.

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