Extreme watering programmed for next month

post by DHK on Apr 27, 2023

We just started using the Rachio 3 a few weeks before last fall’s shutdown, on a Flex Daily schedule, and haven’t had much experience seeing how it programs the schedule yet. I’m in Connecticut where it is still cool (Highs of 60), and lately damp (3" of rain one day this week). We turned on our system this week, and it hasn’t run yet, and doesn’t show the first run until May 7, with followups May 8, and 9, for a little over an hour each, and then on May 13, where it has EVERY SINGLE ZONE scheduled for a total of almost 17 hours. Then no more runs are scheduled as of yet. This is really fun, since we’re on a well : ) Any suggestions? I hate to have to set up a fixed schedule. Anyone have any idea what’s happening?

post by jrfarrell47 on Apr 28, 2023

I’m feeling pretty much the same way, also being new to Rachio 3–curious and optimistic. I don’t have enough experience to have any suggestions, but do keep in touch.

post by tmcgahey on Apr 29, 2023

Impossible to know without knowing you zone settings or what your zones look like.

I have 6 drip zones and 8 grass zones. If everything was to water in one day, I’d run for over 24 hours. Each of my drip zones will run for over 3 hours, and my grass zones will run for about 1 hour.

post by DHK on Apr 29, 2023

Just got off the phone with Rachio Tech support who was no help at all. @tmcgahey I understand for exact knowledge you would need to know my zone setup, but in general why would it have 4 days of an hour watering or so, skip a day, and have 17 hours… Even without knowing my zones, would that make sense? We are having highs here in CT of around 60 degrees and have had 3" of rain one day this past week, and highs next week are under 60 with rain scheduled for Tuesday…

post by tmcgahey on Apr 29, 2023

Sure could. But at those temps, I’m betting there are some configuration issues if zones are running within a day of each other.

If you just got rain, your grass zones would be the first to deplete reserves and need to water. So they would water that first round. Then the remaining drip zones might need to run, along with the grass again, accounting for 17 hours.

post by DHK on Apr 29, 2023

See if these help any:

It’s doing four runs of lawn sprinkling: May 8, 9, 10, 11, and on the 13th EVERYTHING.

post by Anthony on Apr 29, 2023

@DHK - the setting the @tmcgahey is asking you to post are if you go to any zones in question go to edit and then scroll down to advance settings to see how your settings are set at; it’s also recommended to have your lawn on a separate schedule and the drip zones on its own schedule.

post by theindiearmy on May 1, 2023

I have the same question about my new Rachio. On my RainMachine, my zones would run at most 15 minutes for spray and 25 minutes for drip. Grass grows beautifully with those settings. I just went through setting up all my zones’ data in Rachio, scheduled a program and it wants to run every zone for an hour minimum. The entire program is over 5x longer. I thought this was supposed to be the easy/smart controller that saves you a bunch of water. But that’s not looking like it will be the case if I have to setup a manual program anyway because it wants to vastly overestimate the time needing to water my lawn. I can’t imagine how much water in the world is being wasted with these controllers when the company is touting the opposite.

post by jrfarrell47 on May 2, 2023

I got the new Rachio 3 a few months ago and had an experience similar to yours. I’ll be interested to see what some of the veterans have to say.

post by ocasti12 on May 3, 2023

Watering time consists of Total watering (actual water run time), Soak Time (intervals between actual run time) & Total Time for both. It’s recommended that you set up separate schedules for grass only & drip only.

post by DHK on May 4, 2023

Since several people recommended I switch to separate schedules for grass and drips, I deleted my existing Flex Daily, set it up as drips only, but it would only take one Flex Daily Schedule when I went to add the rotor for a new schedule. I then deleted the new Flex Daily and added it back as before with all zones and ending before sunrise. Now I find that I’m watering around noon time. Sadly my Fixed schedules of the past are looking better and better.

post by atkinsww1 on May 4, 2023

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, and I do find this to be a confusing aspect of the Rachio, which makes it not as easy as it should be to find how long is it actually watering (not counting soak, etc).

post by Thomas_Lerman on May 4, 2023

I have mine set up with two Flex Daily schedules at this time, one for lawn and the other drip. I am not sure I understand the steps and error you are doing/getting. Can you elaborate, maybe providing screenshots / video?

post by tmcgahey on May 4, 2023

You absolutely can have more than one active Flex Daily schedule running, but a zone can only run in one Flex Daily schedule. Are you sure you didn’t accidentally have that zone still selected in the other schedule?

post by tmcgahey on May 4, 2023

Rachio is pretty transparent about the function of Flex Daily Scheduling when there are watering restrictions in place. In order to function as designed, it really needs to have unrestricted access to watering.

post by atkinsww1 on May 5, 2023

I completely agree, and I’ve run down the rabbit hole with the North Texas Water District in days of old. They have our usage data, so as long as I’m within whatever magic number they come up with, what does it matter when I water.

post by DHK on May 5, 2023

I was finally able to create 2 Flex Dailies (one for Sprays, one for drips). I still have some runs that it scheduled for next week which we certainly don’t need now with so much rain we’ve gotten in CT. I’ll just have to check it daily and make sure it isn’t doing something stupid. Thanks all for comments.

post by Lars on May 5, 2023

Flex Daily will schedule all possible allowable days and then right before watering will evaluate whether watering is needed based on soil moisture and predicted loss.

post by theindiearmy on May 23, 2023

Curious what the final result has been for you. I played around with mine a bit more and came to the same conclusion that fixed schedules are best. Which goes against the entire idea of this being a smart controller.

post by DHK on May 23, 2023

I don’t know about final result, but since it’s constantly monitoring the weather, it has changed the watering times to what is more reasonable, and not what it originally showed.

post by tmcgahey on May 23, 2023

That can be your opinion, but there are plenty of users working very well on Flex Daily scheduling.

post by Thomas_Lerman on May 23, 2023

With the old thinking that @tmcgahey mentioned, it makes it hard to really trust the algorithms in the controller once everything is dialed in.

post by theindiearmy on May 24, 2023

That’s exactly why I just unplugged that Rachio. It was watering the lawn nearly every day for seven hours.

post by tmcgahey on May 24, 2023

Then you must have some settings out of whack.

post by Anthony on May 25, 2023

I am with @tmcgahey - if you would like create another thread post the setting for the zone and here in the community you have some brilliant folks who can help you dialing those settings.

post by theindiearmy on May 26, 2023

Settings are the exact same. One is watering 5x as much. But yea…I’m the problem.

post by tmcgahey on May 26, 2023

How am I being disrespectful? I’ve set up about a dozen Rachio units of my own friends and family.

post by Thomas_Lerman on May 26, 2023

@theindiearmy, we are trying to be helpful, especially with the common problems that we see.

post by tmcgahey on May 26, 2023

Thank you @Thomas_Lerman for taking the time to do that! This points out the exact thing I was trying to get at. RainMachine has all the same general specs that Rachio does.

post by jrfarrell47 on Jun 9, 2023

For one of my four drip-system zones, I have Allow Depletion set to 50%, but this morning, the soil moisture was showing as 28%, and the next run is still two days off, with high temps in the 80s and no rain in the forecast.

post by Alturia on Jun 9, 2023

Rachio will show 0% when the soil moisture is at your selected depletion level. So Rachio would show 0% when the soil moisture is at your selected 50%. When Rachio was showing 28% that really means your soil moisture is at 78%.

post by jrfarrell47 on Jun 9, 2023

Thanks very much for your speedy and extremely helpful response. Much appreciated! I feel much better now. Thanks again.