Lawn is burning; was on Flex Daily Schedule

[sandman512]

So, installed my Rachio 2nd. generation about a month ago. Have to be honest, wasn’t sure what schedule to go with, so i opted for the Flex Daily. Fast forward, the weather here on Long Island has been extremely hot for the past few days and my lawn and plants are paying the price. I have had to manually put on certain zones to compensate for the lack of watering. At this point I have deleted that scehdule and added a DAILY schedule. Now the issue is that the suggested watering times per zone were WAY off, so I adjusted that. I was really under the impression that the Rachio would be more intuitive. Any advice? Thanks!

[mckynzee]

Hey @sandman512!

Flex scheduling is entirely based off your zone settings, and zone durations for fixed schedules also use those same settings. To start troubleshooting, it would be very helpful to get screenshots of your zone settings! We will get you up and running ASAP

McKynzee

[sandman512]

Thanks for the reply Mckynzee. I wound up calling customer support to sort this out. We decided to delete the flex scheduler and go with a Fixed Interval Daily watering and I adjusted the zones based on my previous controller. i was hoping Rachio was more intuitive.

[azdavidr]

@sandman512, you inspired me to create a starting-point thread. You’re not alone in that when first starting Flex Daily, things can be out of whack. It’s not often obvious what the key parameters are that can make the suggested watering times be way off from what you expect. Check out this post. Afterward, come back here and let us know what remaining questions or issues you might still have.

Where to start on Flex Daily

This post is NOT intended to replace any of the great resources available at support.rachio.com. In fact, I’m pointing to many of them here. However, when turning on Flex for the 1st time it can be tough to see where to start, and what some of the biggest factors are to getting a schedule that makes sense for your yard. Hopefully this helps a bit. With these steps you’ll be telling your Rachio software about local soil, your vegetation and your irrigation hardware. SOIL (start here!) Don’t…

[sandman512]

Thanks for the article. The flex Daily just didn’t seem to “keep” up with the weather conditions here, lawn burning. I will give the Fixed Daily a shot and let it do its job.

[azdavidr]

OK @sandman512. Just know that your watering wasn’t sufficient not necessarily because of the Flex Daily algorithms, but more likely due to the data fed into it from your settings. You do need to invest some time and understanding to get it dialed in, and that’s where my post comes into play. Should you ever choose to revisit this community is also very helpful along those lines.

[sandman512]

Thanks Azdavidr. The issue I had was that the weather here in Long Island was above the 90’s for the past three days and there was NO watering scheduled. Now, after reading the article you posted, it appears that the flex schedule requires some tuning. Perhaps I can go back to that after I get things under control(daily watering). Once again, thanks!

[azdavidr]

Agreed. It’s always best to get things under control first, and hot temps aren’t a time to be playing around too much. Good luck getting back on track.

[Modawg2k]

Also, when you decide to test out the flex daily schedule (the best schedule out there for me) again, start with just one zone so you can monitor it and see how it does. That way it’s not as stressful as dealing with the whole yard.

[kpontis]

It sounds to me like either the soil type or the spray heads may have been inaccurate. Another option would be that the flex daily schedule was not in tune with the actual moisture levels of your zones. Easy way to fix that is just “empty” your zones of moisture so that the system fills them back up. That way it KNOWS that the zones are full, and can track them appropriately from then on.

[sandman512]

@kpontis, thanks for the reply. How does one EMPTY the zones? FWIW, I am going to keep my fixed schedule and then go back to a Flex daily schedule. Thanks!

[JPedrego]

You won’t be able to empty a zone until you put it back on flex. You would do that by going to the moisture graph for the zone, selecting adjust, and selecting empty

[Hooper]

I am not sure how you can say flex is the best schedule. It has major flaws specifically around ET and seasonal crop coefficients. It also requires constant tweaking to dial it in. It just isn’t right for the majority of users.

E.g. a zone is partial sun in spring and full sun late summer. You have to adjust the crop or leave it at full sun all year. With fixed interval the zone might start at 12 minutes in the spring in runtime and peak at 25 and then fallback to 12 in October. That is exactly what should happen. Flex will push the days father apart but doesn’t calculate et properly so will still want to water every other day in October like it did in July.

[Modawg2k]

(the best schedule out there for me)

@Hooper Edited for your pleasure

[kpontis]

@JPedrego Is correct. In order to empty/fill a zone, said zone must be in a flex daily schedule first. If it is you can simply click on the zone in question and click moisture levels. In the moisture level graph you will see an “adjust” button that will let you empty your zones.