I’ve had my rachis 3 installed for over a week. I’m in north Alabama with a fescue lawn that receives regular sunlight. As is typical here, summer weather starts in mid spring - that means hot, and rare rain. No rain has come since I’ve had the controller and no real rain is forecast for the next week. Yet Rachio still has no plans to water my lawn. It can’t wait that long. The last week has been in the upper 80s, mostly sun. The next week is more of the same, with the first 90deg day forecasted. I can’t wait and let my lawn start to suffer this early. Any advice?
If you are using a Flex Daily Schedule, please post your zone settings (take a screenshot and upload).
I’m not using any kind of schedule. I thought it was supposed to do it automatically with its smarts did I miss something in setup?
Here’s a little homework to help you get started:
I realized I needed to create a schedule. Now it has populated plans for watering. Will see how well it does. Couldn’t really figure out the difference between monthly and daily smart schedules.
You also need to set up your zones correctly in order for rachio to work effectively.
Very briefly:
Flex Daily Schedule will automatically adjust your watering frequency based on the the actual daily weather (temperature, precipitation, etc). You might say this is the “smartest “ type of schedule because it’s based on real time weather data and soil moisture data.
Flex Monthly Schedule will automatically adjust your watering schedule (frequency and duration) only once a month (each month) and is based on historical records of weather (temperatures) for each month. People usually choose this type of schedule IF for some reason they like to have a more consistent watering schedule, because the schedule only changes once a month.
For more detailed information:
https://support.rachio.com/en_us/categories/schedules-H1F95VauK
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I set the zones up in great detail. Even the sprinkler head info and flow rate. thanks
You can always use any spare zones and configure them with slightly different parameters (like crop coefficient or nozzle inches per hour), to see the effect of these settings on watering durations and frequency
digging back into this a little. When I set up the schedules for the zones, I had to put in a watering time. I thought part of the smarts of this system was to figure that out. What if I put in way more time than needed? How am I supposed to figure out the right amount of time?
I’ve looked through lots of threads here but can’t seem to find that.
The MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is to setup your zones accurately. This means
A) Calculate the area of each zone. If you use the Yard Map on the app, and draw the zones, the app will calculate the area.
B) Calculate your zone Nozzle in/hr. If your property has a water meter, then run each zone for 5 mins and use the before and after readings, then (Area / Volume / 5) × 60
C) Select Dynamic Crop Co-efficient
If you have entered the correct details, the system will calculate the correct required running times for each zone. Hopefully you have a weather station which is reasonably close by, which will further contribute to the overall accuracy
With a Flex schedule, you do NOT have to put in a watering time. Rachio will automatically calculate watering duration and frequency based on your zone settings. However, you do have the option of overriding Rachio’s calculated run times by manually entering your preferred times.
Hmmm…maybe I missed that when setting up. I could swear I entered the times.
Just to clarify, you have the OPTION to enter water duration times, but if you don’t, Rachio will calculate the times for you, based on your zone settings. This is for Flex Daily Schedules.