I deleted and recreated schedule. It looks correct now
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Excellent. I agree that something must have been set different. Glad to hear that you fixed it.
If it still seems too wet, you may need to set the nozzle inches per hour even higher for zones 1 and 3
I have the same setup in my backyard. I prefer to run all three zones on the same schedule to deep water the roots, rather than having a different zone water shallow every day. I would recommend against alternating water patterns in this type of area, as the roots will remain shallow and be less drought tolerant. Keep in mind that sprinkler systems are generally designed for overlapping coverage (head to head). To keep mine water patterns uniform, I set all three zones to the same soil type, slope, and sun exposure. Now, my system runs the entire area (all 3 zones), each time the lawn gets dry,.and the roots get a deeper watering.
My 3 zones are setup the same (same soil type, slope and sun exposure).
The only change made (from suggestions in this thread) was the gallon/hr rate of the heads. Leaving all the rates the same (as was the case when starting this thread) was giving too much water in the back yard (puddles, fungus growth) due to most areas receiving 3 times the amount of water needed.
All,
I am in a similar situation as in gizbug. I have about 2700 sqft yard split into 3 different areas (not continuous like gizbug). There are two problems:
- I find that my water user usage is very high - about 2500 gallons. Do you find your numbers simiar?
- I still find some areas of is dry and brown. How have you solved such issue?
Any help is appreciated.
Regards,
Jags
2500 gallons over 2700 square feet is about 1.49" of water. Over what period do you use the 2500 gallons? Sounds about right for a week to me, with hot weather.
Thanks. This is not for a week. I water every other day and each time it is approximately 2500 gallons. For a week it will be close to 8000-10000 gallons. Most of it is for lawn and some of them are for other shrubs and trees. This is during the summer and hot weather. Seems like you use 1/4th of what I use for a week.
I use about 9,000 gallons a week to put about 1.5" of water down in hot weather (somewhat less right now) for about 9,500 square feet total lawn area, and consider it about right. Using that much water on only 2700 square feet sounds way high to me (although I don’t know your weather), and it’s hard to imagine the grass is dry when doing that. Although small dry areas of a larger, wet area are not that unusual. You may need to add some heads or adjust things to even it out. But to me, your water usage is too high.
I notice you mentioned in February that you are running 2 controllers; are you really only watering 2700 square feet total using 2 controllers?
I’m not sure I use that much (not sure where I would find that info).
Maybe if it seems way off, you may want to check your advanced settings in each zone, and delete/re create your flex schedule?
Richard, I use two controllers because I have 18 zones - couldn’t fit it in Rachio - 16 zones. I realized that my water usage is high, but it is not clear where. I also tried a leak detection company and there was no leak. It is just the sprinklers. Thanks for confirming that my usage is very high. I need to fix the sprinkler heads may be. I live in Northern California - summers are 90 deg plus for about 3 months.
Gizbug, you can find this with your meter or I bought flume water (https://flumewater.com/) to measure my water usage at home. I was going to create flex schedule. Thanks for reminding that. I will do that let you know my progress. When I used to adjust the timing manually like half of what I am using now the lawn was lot browner.
Wow, someone did a quality job for your home: 2700 square feet with 18 zones. My 9,500 square feet has 6 zones. Should be a lot more, but it is what it is.
You’ve done well measuring your water usage and square feet. If I were you, I’d measure the water usage for each zone, and calculate as best you can the square feet for each zone. That should hopefully give you an idea where your high use areas are.