Confused by advanced water settings

post by mattebury on Jan 10, 2018

I want to be able to tweak my zone settings and I really don’t understand how to use the different settings. I just received 2.7" of rain over the past day and my yard is like a giant sponge. If I was running my own sprinklers, I’d give it at least two weeks before I turned on the sprinklers again.

Right now the advanced settings are:

• Sq ft - 500
• Avail Water - 0.15
• Root depth - 6"
• Allowed depletion - 50%
• Efficiency - 80%
• Crop Coefficient - 80%
• Nozzle Inches per hr - 1.5"

The sq footage is roughly correct, as well as the root depth, it’s turf, and the nozzle inches per hour.

The rest, even after reading the tutorial, is voodoo to me.

Can anybody explain in plain english what the other parameters mean?

Thanks

post by robertokc on Jan 10, 2018

Do not worry about available water. That is moisture in the soil based on daily evapotranspiration. A critical setting is your soil type because it will determine run times and times between watering. Put another way, its like dry out time to 50 percent soil moisture in the root zone. Fifty percent is the irrigation standard for soil moisture balance. Try not to get overwhelmed. There are lots of people on this community to help, as well as some great Rachio website information. Once you get a little experience you will catch on.

post by Sprinklerman on Jan 12, 2018

@mattebury Read: Zone settings support

Lots of plain English explanation there.

post by DLane on Jan 12, 2018

@Mattlebury - does this one help -> https://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010542148-What-are-Advanced-Zone-Settings- and this one for crop coefficient -> https://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010540988-How-do-I-edit-intervals-on-Flexible-Monthly-Schedules-

post by Linn on Jan 13, 2018

I’m a mostly happy Flex Daily user, but I do have issues when I get tons of rain – my ground stays wetter far longer than the schedule thinks it’s going to stay wet. I’m hoping this is something that will get addressed in the next version of the software. In the meantime, a day or two after I have a massive rain, I go in and set all my zones to “FILL” – it’s a PITA ( I like it when everything is totally automated for me), but it works.

At one point, the saturation level was set to 120% - when it was set there, the ground seemed to dry out faster than when it wanted to water again. Now it’s set at 110% and the ground doesn’t dry out fast enough. I would love it if we could set our own saturation level – it’s not quite at the sweetspot right now.

post by mattebury on Jan 15, 2018

The article is much better written to understand what each of the advanced parameters does.

I’ve got mine set as #1, but what I really need is the ability to tell the system my current soil saturation level so it knows where to start computing the next weekday to water. Right now, I’d say I’m somewhere in the 110% - 120% range as the ground still oozes water like a sponge when I walk across it. I understand you can do this on the flex schedule, but since I’m restricted as to specific days, that option is not available on a fixed schedule.

post by DLane on Jan 15, 2018

@mattebury - depending on how many days a week you can water I see that there are three options to setting up the Rachio.

1. Go with a fixed schedule for the allowed days and turn on all the weather intelligence and season adjustment factors. I went with this as currently I can only water on two days of the week.

2. Go with a flex schedule, but only on the allowed days. If there are fewer than three days a week for allowed watering, the flex schedule may water every time it can so the allowed depletion won’t be exceeded before the next time it can water.

3. Go with a flex schedule and say the heck with the allowed watering days and let the schedule water on any day.

As Rachio computes water needs it follows the age old computing rule - GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). In irrigation terms - incorrect zone settings will result in over or under watered zones.

Let the community know if you have more questions and I’m sure folks with respond with comments. This is the best thing that I’ve seen about the Rachio product is the community that supports it - most of which are more irrigation savvy than I am.