Rachio Watering During Hurricane Harvey

Had Harvey approaching Houston so I set a manual 7 day Rain Delay to avoid problems when/if internet went out. Yesterday I looked at my app and see that I had my lawn watered the day before even though the manually set rain delay had not expired.

So just how does the Rain Delay setting work? Pouring through the zillions of posting here it was suggested by Support that the selected Weather Station didn’t report rain so the system turned on. I thought a manually set Rain Delay would keep the system off regardless of Weather Station reports.

BTW, I’m using a Fixed Days schedule. I have “Disabled” my zones to prevent additional watering while my 30’ of rain soaks in.

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Unplug the controller.

I know many areas surround Houston got 30 - 50" rain. You’re the first to report 30’ of rain. I hope you and your family and your residence survived.

Actually, I’ll bet it’s a typo. Still, 30" of rain is still unfathomable to comprehend. And I still hope you’re fine.

At some point the Iro 2 will get better at unattendedly handling situations like what you describe. It’s not there at the moment, and hence still very much a residentially focused controller where errors like this as just not viewed to be much of a big deal. They’ll have to fix things like this for significant entry into the commercial and municipal use situations.

Nope, not a typo, but it is a 4 day total. Fortunately my home is on pier & beam, not slab, so we didn’t flood.

My Rachio is hardwired. If I “Disable” a Watering Schedule, I would expect it would do the same thing without having to be in the rain. Then again, Rachio has it’s own ideas and that’s why I posted. You know, the ass-u-me thing. :slight_smile:

360 inches of rain? I have following the weather data closely and highest amount I read about was 50 inches total. Sure it’s not a typo. Are you planning on moving away from Houston? I just could not imagine myself in your situation. So much worse than a tornado.

At one time this week there were 100+ helicopters in the air, in and around Houston, rescuing people from their homes/buildings.

Meanwhile, in and around Dallas, long gas lines started yesterday (Thursday). Many times large traffic congestion situations developed because so many people were in line to get gas. Not just for cars - lawn mower gas containers, 55 gallon drums and the whole 9 yards. Many gas stations ran out of gas. QuickTrip, a company like RaceTrak, closed one-third of its stations yesterday, keeping those near major highways open. Incredible! Yesterday brought back memories of late '73, like what’s in this image - it was no different yesterday in the Dallas area (except newer cars)!

Got me. It is a typo. I got 30" of rain, not 30’.

On the other hand, I still have no answer to my question as to why the Rachio (Gen 2, BTW) ran while a manually-set Rain Delay was in effect.

I’m in Cypress, TX and the Rachio worked just fine. Rachio didn’t turn on since Friday (aug 25) till Sep 1. I’m on flex daily schedule. We received 32" of rain.

I am very glad you are ok. The news does not say if there are areas that did not flood. Newscmakes it seem that the floods are in every neighborhood.

The news isn’t fake! Most neighborhoods had streets flooded for some time. Some neighborhoods got water inside the home and the lucky ones didn’t. But boy it did flood! Our street was 12" away from having water inside homes…

Headlines from Dallas newspaper earlier this week, Monday:

and Tuesday:

.

It’s been awful.

Those of us in Dallas area were spared any affect, other than unseasonably cool at the moment.

No area of Houston was spared. Some just flooded worse than others. And not all the rivers have crested yet.

Hey @whg3-

I am incredibly sorry that your controller ran while in rain delay, I am sure that is the last thing you want to deal with right now. I hope you are staying safe! I will review your account to try and determine what went wrong. Is there any chance your device is offline?

McKynzee :rachio:

I have three friends who live in the Houston area, and while they received the 30+ inches of rain, fortunately none had their homes flooded.
@robertokc, we lived in Oklahoma for two years when I was a child. My memories of spending nights in the storm shelters due to tornados are vivid, as is the night the very large tree was blown down onto the roof of my bedroom.
I’ll gladly “enjoy” the scorching summer heat here in the desert!:grin:

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droughts are no fun either. Houston suffered through one about 5 years back and the loss of greenery was staggering.

Bottom line is that extremes in weather are not fun.

The closest PWS to me (and the one associated with my account) had a 4-day total of 35.8", and on the Sunday, it was 20.2". No flooding here. The Rachio started earlier than I expected, but on the whole, it seems to be working well.

Glad you did well. What day did your rachio start again?

My issue is that it started while it was on a manually set rain delay and I’m waiting to hear back to support as to how that might occur. I never lost power but wifi was flaky at times.

I lived in Scottsdale and disliked the whole area. The two best places I have ever lived are Montgomery, AL and Longmeadow, Ma. Some of the most gracious people I have ever met were in Montgomery. And I loved the four seasons of western Massachusetts. To each his own.

I just left mine on the flexible system. The system watered on 24th August (Thursday before the storm) and again on the 31st, 3 days after the storm. Looking at exposed ground without irrigation, it seems that the clayey soil here needed a top-up.