Rachio proposes longer duration than I was using before

nricci · July 11, 2022, 6:47pm

Before Rachio 3, I used a “dumb” controller watering my lawn 2 times a week, approximately 25 minutes per zone in a 9 zone system. One zone was getting 35 minutes, the others 25 minutes. This during the summer, for 8 years.

Got Rachio with the intention to save water. Tried to set it up the best way possible, carefully. And Rachio is now telling me that using Flex Monthly I will water twice a week (approximately), 55 minutes per zone on average.

I’m like… what? That is more than double what I was doing before. Maybe my previous method was not “correct” but my law was looking ok. Never had an issue.

With 55 minutes per zone I will use way more water (even with the occasional skip) than before.

So I’m really puzzled WHY Rachio believes I need so much water.

What say the community here? I’m doing something wrong, just don’t know what.

I forgot to mention: I did not change any of the “advanced” parameters. Kept it all default.

Gerardv514 · July 12, 2022, 4:24am

Can you post screenshots of your zone settings and advanced settings?

nricci · July 12, 2022, 8:57pm

Thanks @Gerardv514 for the help.

Attaching zone 1 screenshots. Others are very similar but I’d be happy to post them all. As you can see, I set up grass type, spray head, soil, slope and sun. Advanced remained default.

I’m in South Charlotte, NC. I searched for soil type using the sites recomended here in the forum.

Gerardv514 · July 12, 2022, 11:16pm

I’d try deleting the schedule and creating the schedule again and let us know if there a difference.

RPostWVU · July 15, 2022, 11:27am

0.12in/in * 6inches of roots * 70% efficiency / 1 inch per hour is a lot of watering time.

Mostly its the 6inches of roots and the 70% efficiency. Maybe try 4inches and 85%.

Gerardv514 · July 15, 2022, 12:26pm

Just saying those settings for me, gets me 26 mins of watering.

My current nozzle per inch is .80 for all zones except my last, which is .75

The only other major difference is we have cool season, you have warm season but that’s moot because that’s is controlling the root zone depth which is factored in here.