Blowing out sprinklers from the warmth of my home using manual control is pretty convenient but it could be easier with a specialized schedule for it. Ideally it would have these parameters:
-spray zone duration (in seconds)
-drip zone duration (in minutes)
-dwell between zones (for compressor to fill back up)
-number of cycles
A bonus would be the ability to reduce zone duration by a fixed user set percentage each cycle. For example, spray head duration 40s, 3 cycles, 25% time reduction each cycle would give: cycle one 40s for each spray zone, cycle two 30s, cycle three 20s.
Anyway, seems like this would be a pretty easy thing to add and super useful to a diy end user. FWIW, I tried setting it up with a fixed schedule using cycle and soak but that obviously does not dwell the system, just the zone, and the zone duration really needs to be in seconds to utilize a consumer level compressor.
If you’re going to do this from inside your home, you’ll still have to a) have a compressor hooked up to the system, b) have turned off the water to your system and c) be able to see the sprinkler heads until no more water is coming out.
If you’re doing this yourself, a specialized schedule is, IMO, overkill for a once a year event. Just run each zone manually until you see no more water coming out.
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Thanks for the response.
I am aware of the process, this is the 8th season I have winterized this system myself. I have 16 zones and a 55 gallon compressor. As it is, this is an afternoon worth of starting, pausing, and restarting quick runs to get everything properly blown out. It is a very predictable process and would only take a fraction of this time to determine what schedule settings work best for a given setup. One button press later and 99% of the work required would be done. Of course I would verify this in the yard with another quick cycle before calling it good.
This would be a huge feature imo. In fact, I would absolutely switch to a different controller just to get it.
Depending on your technical skills, it looks like it can be accomplished through the API. Please see the following link, Manual advance zones during winterizing - Product Suggestions - Rachio Community. I have not used the website referred (if still active) and not sure if I would recommend it without more research. It looks like the source code is available though.
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I just had the exact same conversation with technical support who suggested that I go to the forum to express this idea as well. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who has thought of this in basically the exact same framework that the original poster stated. I’ve been blowing out my sprinkler system pretty much since when I first installed it back almost a decade ago and I honestly can’t believe I never thought to suggest this to either of the two manufacturers whose controllers I’ve been using.Rachio by the way, I think is the better one compared to the Orbit controller I had before it.
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