So I installed my Fathers Day gift Rachio and was really exited. I am not an expert at sprinklers and thought this would really help. My only question is why is the watering times so long? It is set for every three days at a 3 hours an 12 minutes with a total run time of 7 hours and 33 mins. I have 5 zones and it is saying to water each zone for 39 mins. We do live in Oklahoma and have clay soil here plus it is summer but this still seemed long. Since we just bought this home about 4 months ago I am not sure how much it needed in the past. I have had to set the start time to 11:30pm so that it won’t be running all day. I am ok if the Rachio recommendation is correct. Just seemed like more water than I expected. Anyone else in Oklahoma have the same long watering times?
@chdyson, thanks for reaching out. Welcome to the Rachio Community!
The watering time you referenced above is built off of the zone details you entered during your zone setup. The biggest variable in these is the nozzle selection as it impacts the precip rate for your zone. Do you think you have all of these setup correctly?
Assuming you have Smart Cycle enabled, this would explain why your total run time is 7 hours and 33 mins, whereas your watering duration is 3 hours an 12 mins. Smart Cycle eliminates runoff and promotes deeper roots by breaking watering times into shorter durations dependent on your soil, nozzle and slope settings.
If you email our support team [support@rachio.com], we’d be happy to review your account settings in detail.
Hope this helps.
Best, Emil
Yes, I looked at the setting in detail and think they are right. The only thing I could change is the sq footage which I planned to do this weekend to get it more accurate.
Yes, I have smart cycle on but 3 hours and 12 mins is the actual run time. it is 7 hours and 33 mins from the time the schedule starts to the time it finishes.
I will shoot support an email. I called yesterday and the gentleman I spoke to didn’t sound to confident with his answer. His answer was basically, “Sounds a little high but could be accurate.”
I really like the Rachio and look forward to seeing some good results.
well, changing the square footage will not adjust watering times at all, that is only used to estimage the gallons used in the graphs.
do you have your percip rate set correctly for each zone? i also got insane watering times by moving the efficiency slider to 0.
3 hours seems too long for anything really, even a drip irrigation that seems a touch too high.
@chdyson, this is very reasonable watering time for rotor heads or rotary nozzles. Without knowing how your system is configured, I’m guessing that might be the case.
Hmm, if you can include your phone number in the support ticket, I’ll have the call reviewed. All support team members have direct access to view zone settings so they should be VERY confident in their answers 
So I changed the soil type from clay to slity clay and it dropped the time in half. I assume we have clay because it is common in oklahoma. Here are some pics of the soil when I was fixing a broken pipe.
@emil I responded to the case with my phone number. Hope that helps.