How to customize watering duration in flex schedule

Hi expert,
I set up a flex schedule for my yard specifying all the parameters but the watering time for each zones is really too much compared with my type of soil. The gardener suggested me to water for 2 or 3 minutes every day and flex schedule come up with 20 min for eac zone. I tried to reduce the duration but still the watering time is too long. How can I fix it?

This is one of the reasons we are moving to simpler water as needed schedules in our 2.5 release coming soon. These new schedules will have the power of flex but much simpler to configure and comprehend. Flex schedules typically work great if the settings align with your yard but get difficult to adjust if not. If you don’t want to start tweaking the flex schedule, I would wait until these come out which will be in mid April.

If the water drop adjustments didn’t get you where you want for flex scheduling this article explains the concepts behind flex. If you don’t want to adjust watering frequency, the easiest way is to create a custom nozzle (http://support.rachio.com/article/271-creating-a-custom-nozzle) for the zone and slight modify your current in./hr rate and assign it to your zone(s).

http://support.rachio.com/article/385-flex-schedule-tips

Hope this helps.

:cheers:

Just for clarification, do you want to water every day or are you referring to 14 minutes a week?

Unless you have some special conditions (new yard), watering a few minutes a day sounds strange. It might keep a yard green, but the roots will all be shallow so if a day is missed it will be bad.

If, however, this is what you want to do with flex… Set the root depth very shallow. 1" and the allowed depletion low, say 40% and see what it comes up with. Or even less root depth.

Agreed @brkaus. I wonder why that recommendation was made…

@plainsane no, of course not. My yard is divided in tho parts. The front one where I’ve two zones configured. And the rear one where I’ve two other zones. In my post I mean 2 min for each zone. Eight minute total watering time every day.

@brkaus Yes, it is a special condition. It’s a new yard and I’m waiting for grass growing. In addition to that I’m in the north part of Italy where the weather is often rainy especially in these spring days.
At this stage if I water more than 2/3 minutes for each zone, the soil is not able absorb water and puddle appears which is not good for seeds

Hope it clarify

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I suggest timed schedules initially.

With timed you can also water several times per day of needed for this type of situation.

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Do you need any onsite troubleshooting?

:cheers:

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:grinning::grinning::grinning: If you come by, I’ll delighted to put you up!

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Brkaus is right, this is outside of flex’s design…once it is established, switch over

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@paulthecer, thanks for clarifying. We have an establishment mode in our backlog to help automate some of the custom configuring of seeding schedules.

Sounds beautiful! Would love to see some photos :slight_smile: Just curious, did you order your controller off Amazon?

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Good to know!

It’s still a work in progess coz I’m building the new patio with the pergola and the outdoor kitchen (in the original american style :slight_smile: But I’ll upload it once finished. I promise.
About the second question actually you make my life really hard… :smiley: To get the Rachio I bought it from Amazon US, sent it to my friends in NJ and then wait for their onsite visit to receive it. One month after I receive it, you released the 2nd Gen :rage:

is there any replacement campaign for those who have 1st Gen and want to move to the 2nd?

@paulthecer Very cool! How much of the project do you have left? I hope you’re including a pizza oven!

Wow, that is a bit complex. I’m not a supply chain expert, but will bring this up with our sales team to see if there’s anyway Amazon can ship directly to Europe.

I apologize for any frustration. We had an upgrade program in Feburary for activated users; however if you didn’t have your controller activated at that time, you might have not received the email. If you email a copy of your receipt to orders@rachio.com, they will review your account and see if they can offer any upgrades.

I assume you have the power adaptor/requirements sorted out for Italy?

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Hi @emil,
I’m approx at 60% of the project. Hope to finish by this summer :slight_smile:

I’ll send an email to the email you sent me. Thanks a lot for your support!!

Ah, for the power adaptor I replaced it using an italian power adapter able to trasform AC 220V to 24V.

We would love pictures when you are finished! So cool to see what other people are doing around the world.

:cheers:

Hello everyone! I’m a new entry in the Rachio Community.
As Paul, I also live in the North part of Italy, I’ve just finished installing my irrigation system and I need “a brain” for it! I thought Rachio would fit perfectly, however I just figured out that shipping in Italy is not that simple. Do you have any updates for that? What about the weather information from the Italian weather station network? Does it work for Rachio?

Thank you in advance for your answer
best regards
Giulio

Hi Hulio,
about the shipping in Italy I’ve no clue. Maybe @franz can help on this?

Talking about the italian weather stations I can say that so far it worked perfectly with my Rachio.
I live close to Malpensa airport and I’ve at least 3/5 weather stations available (the airport one included).

If you need further info please let me know.
Cheers
Paolo

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Hi Paul!

Thank you for your answer. I live in Turin, so no that far away from Malpensa. :slight_smile:
At the end I bought Rachio from Amazon.com and shipped it directly home.

I’ll keep you updated on how it goes…
Giulio

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