Shorter Duration Smart Cycling for Steep Lawn

I have a problematic zone/lawn that I’m looking for help with. It’s next to a steep part of my driveway and does not soak water up quickly at all. I previously used rotors as opposed to spray nozzles to attempt to apply more slowly, but I wasn’t getting even coverage and had a lot of dead spots. The problem with my spray nozzles is that a run time of even 3 or 4 minutes results in substantial run-off and wasted water, which is no good here in sunny SoCal.

My question is how I should/can address this need for shorter cycles. The Weathermatic that I tore out over the weekend did a good job of running the zone for very short durations and a number of cycles. I think it did this based on the steep slope and the nozzle type. Is there any way for me to force this type of watering behavior?

I guess I could create multiple watering schedules for that one zone that are a few minutes apart. A problem I could envision would be if the zone run time increases due to warmer weather that would probably shorten the time between cycles?

Thanks for any help.

Hi @bkr11,

Thanks for reaching out. That’s a great question. The Iro can automate a cycle soak watering schedule by enabling our Smart Cycle feature within the watering time with these zone(s); see #8.

Have you setup your zones yet? If not, I’d recommend watching this quick video. Once you have the zones configured, the Iro will do the rest :slight_smile:

Should you need to change the cycle soak times, we can do so with some further customization. I’d be happy to help if needed.

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Hi @emil,
Thank you so much for the quick reply! I do have the smart cycle enabled, but unfortunately it appears that the cycle runs longer than optimal for my purposes. I just looked in my history and it broke my 14 minute zone run time into two 7 minute cycles. I’d love to be able to get to 4 or 3.5 minute cycles or even 5 2 to 3 minute cycles. If this is doable it would be great, but if it’s not possible I’ll try my plan B above of a separate watering day with multiple run times for that zone.
This kind of responsiveness and focus on the customer is exactly why I switched to Rachio, though I truly didn’t expect it to be this amazing.
Thanks again!

Hi @bkr11,

I think we can get it down to 4 minutes if we reconfigure the zone settings a bit. Would it be okay if I adjusted a few things on your account?

Thank you for the kind words :blush: We wouldn’t be here without you, our valuable users. Customer service is the least we can do to say thank you. Once we have your Iro setup to your liking, maybe you could help spread the word with a review online?

Let me know if I can adjust your zone(s), and if so, which zone(s) to check.

Best, Emil

Hi @emil,
Thanks so much. Zone 10 is the culprit. Anything you can do to shorten the cycle would be greatly appreciated. I’ll gladly spread the good words about Rachio far and wide (I’ve already started to on a few of the forums I frequent!!)
Thanks again,
Derek

No problem @bkr11, I’ll take a look and make a few adjustments overnight.

Thanks for spreading the word, we really appreciate it!

Hi @bkr11, I made a few changes to zone 10 and got the cycle time down to 3m30s, with 4 cycles. All of the lawn zones are currently on the same watering time, so they will all be subject to the same number of cycle/soak rotations. To see how this impacts your other lawn zones, please check out the calendar view from the home page.

Let me know if this will work for you or if we need to separate out any of the lawn zones.

Thanks again for your support.

Best, Emil

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