Rachio not keep up with hot weather

I came to the forum to report exactly what this thread is trying to troubleshoot. It is my 3rd or 4th year since we installed Rachio. I measured water throughput for each zone at main water meter and configured nozzle throuput in advanced properties of each zone. I measured areas for each zone and set them properly for all the zones. I consider myself savvy Rachio user.

Rachio has been working fine up until this summer. My wife reported that the plants in our vegetable garden started wilting. I found that Flex Daily started spacing the scheduled runs by more number of days than what is optimal. I ended up doing manual runs almost every day. That defeats the purpose of Flex Daily schedule. I played with crop coefficient, depletion %, available water settings. I didn’t see any difference. Something is not right!

EXACTUMUNDO Videoguy!!! You nailed it!

Let’s start a sign-up sheet for a class-action suit against Rachio for false claims.

There a no false claims, IMHO. Seasonal Adjustment, available with Fixed schedules and automatic with Flex Monthly schedules, is based on Historic weather information. This is widely stated on the web site. It does not use any current temperature or weather information (except rain skips and such), nor does it use any Personal Weather Station Information. It has NO idea your weather is hotter than usual. Which is why I have always recommended Flex Daily, which DOES use actual temperature, humidity, sunlight, etc.

In addition, Flex Daily uses the exact rain received by the selected weather station, if you’ve done so (your PWS works), or rain estimated based on weather stations around your location. And - most importantly, it uses actual temperature, basically actual weather for your area (but NOT from your PWS - only Rain accumulation is used from your specified or personal PWS).

I don’t know why your Flex Daily has not properly compensated for the weather. My guess would be you were always watering on the light side (easy to do - setting total amount of water per week is an art, it seems), but it didn’t matter too much until the recent, unusual heat wave. The settings make a huge difference, but you have to know what to look for and what to change. I wrote a topic a few weeks ago that explained the settings, and Rachio has a lot of good information available as well. I’m sure many would help with your specific Flex Daily issues.

But the real intelligence in Rachio’s controller is the Flex Daily system, which reacts well to actual temperature and other weather changes. You cannot expect the same intelligence or accuracy in operation with Flex Monthly or Fixed schedules. Perhaps they don’t emphasize that as much (mostly, I think, because people think Flex Daily is so complicated, when in fact it’s no more complicated that the other schedule types).

That is an excellent start. The Nozzle Inches per Hour is the key to get decent results, IMHO.

Was there a change in scheduled spacing that you noticed? The Crop Evapotranspiration values have been lower here, extending spacing, but that’s due to high humidity and lower temperatures than several weeks ago. The main setting to give you more water to your plants is the Crop Coefficient. Increasing it provides more total water per week. In live in South Carolina, and warm season grasses normally have a CC of 0.65, but my Centipede grass has a CC of 0.85, meaning it needs 30% more water. That may be the case with yours. Also, are you allowing your Flex Daily to run on all days? Limiting it too much will prevent if from working well.

Just some thoughts.

I understand the merits of Flex Daily scheduling. I do want all my schedules to use Flex Daily method. I understand getting the settings right is very important for Flex Daily to predict water needs correctly.

I used to have Flex Monthly schedule for the Veg Garden. Recently I read a post about Rachio backend using machine learning to optimize schedules. I changed zone type to Cool season grass first. Then changed it back to Warm Season grass. This is to kick off the machine learning event that Rachio backend is looking for. Then I saw a new zone type called Garden. Changed the zone type to garden. Then I saw the watering times for the zone shot up to 30-40 mins. I trusted Rachio and let it water like that. But it started spacing the watering runs by 4-5 days apart. That caused the plants start burning. I was looking at the zone properties. The nozzle inches per hour seemed off from what I have in Excel sheet that I maintain. It looked like a dependent field that got updated with default when I was playing with zone types. I reset it to correct value from my Excel sheet.

Then I realized I have been using Flex Monthly for the veg garden. I wanted to try Flex Daily for this zone. So I disabled the Flex Monthly schedule. Created a new Flex daily schedule. The watering times seemed right. Looked same as Flex Monthly before this whole saga started. I set Zone type back to Annuals for veg garden. I let this new schedule run for few weeks. Then we started seeing wilting of plants in Veg Garden. As wife reported this, all hands were on deck to fix this. :grinning:

I started playing with the advanced settings of the zone to make Flex Daily water every day for 7-10 mins.
I used to have CC at 80%. I bumped it all the way to 150% couple of days back. It spaced next watering schedule 2 days away from prev schedule date. With the high temps we have in Austin, TX, the garden zone needs 10 mins of watering everyday. Instead it schedules 15 mins on day 1, day 3, day 5 or day 1, day 4, day 6. That is drying up the soil and we see lot of wilting of plants. Once I water 7-10 mins, in couple of hours we see leaves turning healthy.

I see the same issue with one of the grass zones. Below is how veg garden zone is configured. I am lost and everything looks fluke. I suspect there is a critical field somewhere with wrong value throwing the algorithm off. I don’t know what knob to turn to get it right.

Some thoughts on your situation:

You mention you have a Excel spreadsheet with nozzle inches per hour, so it sounds like you did some calculations there. Nevertheless, to me, the 3.73"/hour seem EXTREMELY high. Gardens are very different beasts than lawns, but still, it seems like a lot of water being applied at once. What calculations did you do to determine this? Too high a value here will greatly under-water your zone.

The Available Water of 0.1" is not a standard Rachio value for any of their soil types. I’m not saying it’s not right, but I think it had to have been manually entered, rather than determined by Rachio using selected soil type. What kind of soil do you have (in your Vegetable garden) and where did you get the 0.1"?

Is the garden raised like those of the OP, or are they in the ground at normal level? And is it a basically rectangular 90 square feet, or a bit here, a bit there, like rows?

What type of watering system does the garden use? 90% efficiency seems to indicate a drip line or similar, rather than spray heads.

The numbers are whacked as I was playing with different knobs to get the schedule work the way I want.

To answer your other question, this zone consists of two rows of soil beds and couple of other areas. Each row is 19-20ft long and 1.5 ft wide soil beds. They are not raised beds. Below is a picture. I built that raised ground PVC system with micro holes to spray water into the ground at 45 degree angles. That provides uniform coverage.
I measured the water usage by running the zone for 3 minutes at water meter and then calculated the precipitation rate as in google sheet: My Lawn Zone Precipitation Rates
The formula I am using is (96.25*GPM)/Area where GPM is Gallons Per minute measured at water meter.

Please check precipitation rate link for more info on the formula.

Very helpful. What kind of soil do you have in the garden area, and is your watering system restricting water to between your 2x “separators”?

The soil is whatever native in Austin, TX. There is nothing special about it. I tilled the beds beginning of the season. I set the zone soil type to Loam.
I feel our soil here has clay in it. When I had lawn aerated using Core Aeration service from Lawn Company, the soil pellets it pulls from the ground were solid like rocks. They are compact and hard. I am not sure if Loam is the right type. But I felt it is safe default to use.

Based on the conversation in this thread, I changed zone settings as below. The moisture graph at the end.


With your current settings, Rachio will want to apply 1.02" of water each time (0.17" x 12 x 0.5). Your Crop Evapotranspiration values seem reasonable (set by Rachio, but dependent upon your Crop Coefficient), although they do vary a vast amount - from 0.4 to 0.15 per day, which seems like a large variation, but it’s based on the weather and a formula. You must have just gotten over a really hot, dry spell, and it’s a bit cooler now. Based on the total CE of 1.75", Rachio’s saying it expects you to require 1.75" of water per week, so it should water 1.02" every 1.02 / 1.75 x 7 = 4 days. Less often if it stays cool, more often if it heats up again.

Now, you have no ground cover in your garden; adding some would help it from drying out so quickly. Also, while you have calculated the area watered correctly, watering just two strips in a completely dry lawn will result in a lot of the water leaching out into adjacent dry areas. So, I think you’re going to have to water more, total, because of that.

Now, as to the 1.02" calculated above, this assumes a root depth of 12". This means that Rachio intends for the top 12" of your soil to be completely saturated when “full”, and the 50% Allowed Depletion means you’re going to allow it to dry up down to half that distance, or 6", before watering again. Especially with your exposed soil and plants, I think that’s too severe.

First, I’d water several days in a row to make sure you have in fact watered down to the roots, 12" deep. Then you’re starting with a “full tank” of water. Secondly, I think drying out the top 6" is way too much. I’d set the Allowed Depletion to 25%, meaning the top 3" will dry out (not completely dry, but have much less water). That will do two things: 1) Water half as much each time it waters (0.51" instead of 1.02"), and 2) Water twice as often. This should keep the roots damp (because you filled it up initially) and not let the surface dry out too much. Total water used will be about the same, but will vary, with Flex Daily, depending on the actual temperature and humidity, etc.

You probably know more about your plants that you have in there: do the roots really go, or do you want them to go, as deep as 12"? If so, great. If you never expect them to go that deep, you can reduce that value in the Root Depth setting. If you decrease the Root Depth, you probably will want to go back to 50% Allowed Depletion, ending up close to above in amount of water each time.

Due to the dry rows on either side, I think I’d start by watering about 50% extra, so it can leach into those areas and not dry out too quickly. It may need to even be longer. You’d think you’d just change your square feet, but that doesn’t change how much water Rachio thinks is being applied. I’d say increase your Crop Coefficient by 50%, which is a large amount, to maybe 1.25. That is the figure you’ll use to balance the total water your plants receive over time. If they still get too little, increase it. If they’re staying too damp, decrease it. Your Nozzle Inches per Hour is really high, but very probably correct given your custom irrigation setup, and your measured it, so I’d leave that alone, and compensate for extra water using the CC instead.

Those are my initial thoughts, anyhow. As your plants are way too dry now, soak them for a couple days until they won’t take any more, then work back from there, trying the above. Hope this helps.

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@rraisley You explained this very well. I have to read it couple of times to understand the relation between the fields on advanced properties page. I probably come back to this answer in future if I am doing something and not seeing expected result.
I wanted to make sure the nozzle inches per hour is right. So I went to water meter and measured it again. It is almost double the GPM compared to what I had before (6.1 vs 3.x before) . Below is picture. I know why. I had a gate valve on the supply for the zone that I didn’t open all the way last time when I measured GPM. Now it is fully open and letting the water go at full throttle.
You are right about bumping CC up instead of Area field to account for leakage into surrounding areas. Thats because nozzle inches per hour is normalized value that already accounted for the area. It is calibrated to 1 sq ft. The area field is probably used for information purpose only.
Based on your recommendations and my other observations, I made the following changes.

  1. Area reduced to 65 sq ft as other areas in the zone were disconnected (they are connected using micro sprayers with a gate valve that was closed). This area is used to calculate nozzle in per hour field. Now it is 9.12. Almost 3 times the previous value.

  2. Increased root depth to 16". That is the recommended value for the plants I have (Peppers and Squash).

  3. Decreased depletion to 25% as you suggested.

  4. Increased CC to 125% as you suggested to account for leakage to surrounding areas.

We had rain this morning. Plus all the testing I did to measure GPM on the zone added more water. It is at full capacity now. Now it says it will water on 25th. Lets see how it goes.
The new zone settings attached at the end.


Sounds to me like you have a good plan. I’m a little concerned about the high flow to water your plants, though. I agree with your calculations, but 9.12" per hour? Hope you don’t blast them out of the area!

Just remember that all the fancy factors only calculate two items: Water inches on the zone at one time, and Crop Evapotranspiration, or inches of water used per day (determined by factors plus weather). With your 16" depth, Rachio will want to water 0.17 x 16 x 0.25 = 0.68" of water each cycle, which sounds reasonable, (although at your flow, I think that should calculate out to only about 5 minutes!) You should be able to confirm that with your new moisture table, looking out in the future a bit when no rain is scheduled. And based on needing the extra water for neighboring dirt, the 125% CC will increase your Crop Evapotranspiration to levels that should keep your soil more moist.

Good luck, and don’t hesitate to ask if you have other questions or concerns.

A month back I was troubleshooting a valve for a different zone that wasn’t closing. It is Weathermatic valve that the home builder installed. I ended up replacing the solenoid. That seemed to have fixed the issue. As I was testing zones today, I saw the GPM on main water meter still going at 0.4 GPM even when all the zones are turned off. I could sense water pressure from the heads that belonged to the above zone. That tells me I didn’t really solve the issue. I am suspecting high GPM I am seeing today might be side effect of the leaky valve of this zone. I will be spending lot of time tomorrow to get to the bottom of this problem.
The Veg garden zone has 25PSI pressure regulator to protect the micro sprayers etc. I was using drip lines when I added this zone. Later moved to the PVC setup for better coverage. The high flow rate should be fine for this zone.
Thanks a lot for great pointers! I have lot better understanding of Flex Daily now.

I fixed the leaky zone today. It is bad diaphragm. Once new diaphragm is installed, it closes right away. Then I measured GPM for all zones by running each for 2 minutes and recorded GPM that the water meter is showing. Updated nozzle in per hr field for all the zones now.
Hopefully it solves the problem…

This link about Zone Settings Info has great info.

The table at the beginning is indeed the most useful.
It clearly shows which setting will affect Only Frequency (crop coefficient- Sun Shade), which will affect Only watering run time (nozzle), and which will do both (longer less often, or shorter more often).

@laura.bauman Unless I missed it, It would be good if you did a Similar table for the Advanced options!

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I’m not impressed with Rachio’s claim that their “Artificial Intelligence” is the latest and greatest and solves all your watering problems buy purchasing their expensive controller. Moreover, their arm’s-length, if non-existent customer support is just maddening. At this point, I do not recommend this unit to anyone. I work in the Tech sector and deal with cutting-edge startups everyday. I can tell you this company is operating on a thread with no customer support which means they prone to angering their customer base and turn them into billboards for negative reviews. This product was NOT ready for public consumption when released. I would like to ask for a refund. But then again, there is little or no company supervision of this forum since it’s basically an owner DYI. Where’s my refund Rachio?

So, you’ve asked for help, had several people help (or attempt to help) you with your problems, and as a result you want to start a class action lawsuit for claims you misunderstood and a refund for a product not adjusted properly? Where did you buy your unit from? Assuming it’s recent, I’m sure you can return it.