@mckynzee I wish our city was that forward thinking. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of restrictions leads to inefficient water usage. I truly understand that the more days the Rachio is allowed to water, the more efficient the water usage (on a long time horizon). However, in the middle of the drought here in CA, there was an article written that highlighted some of the problems here with forcing residents to save water.
We had people (I hate to admit this, but they were in my neighborhood, and general part of town, which is more upscale) that were ignoring the watering restrictions that had been cut down from 3 times weekly to 2, and were actually watering 5-6 times per week to keep their lawns alive. We live in a community with a large number of trees, including over 15 trees in our yard itself. My preference is to water the trees and keep them healthy, because lawn can die and be reseeded quickly, but mature trees are gone for the next 15 years. I should have that choice, but be charged for the water I’m using appropriately. Our family of 5 has used less water than the average Fresno household for the last 2 years plus (the statistics are included on our monthly water bills). We save water in the house by showering quickly (and catching the water in a bucket while the water is heating up), doing only full loads of laundry in our front-loader, etc. I should be able to water whenever I want, as long as I keep below some type of ‘low-use’ measurement. But government wants to take an easy path, that allows neighbors to ‘tattle,’ and make it easy to cite those who break the rules. And with the increased fines for breaking the rules, they are going to stamp out non-compliance very quickly.
