Flex Daily does not work in Phoenix

post by jheirtzler on Oct 15, 2024

Has anyone else noticed Flex Daily and Flex Monthly don’t work in extreme climates like Phoenix? You’re forced to use Fixed.

I have a Flex Daily zone for my trees and another for my plants. The last time either zone ran was Saturday for 1.5 hours, and it’s not scheduled to run again until Sunday—eight days without water. Each day since that it was over 100 degrees because, well, this is the freakin’ Sonoran desert. It’s dry, it’s hot, and it’s rocky.

Before anyone says this setup isn’t common, let me remind y’all that Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the country. This is a use case that should work and be well-tested.

Both of my Flex Daily schedules are configured to run every day of the week, and the soil is rocky, so as I say, water retention is extremely low.

post by tmcgahey on Oct 16, 2024

Mine has been working fine for over 8 years now.

Where do you live that you have ROCKY soil? Most of the Phoenix metro is a loamy type soil. Near the base of a mountain might be an exception…

My tree zones last ran 10/5 and 10/7, and are scheduled to run next 10/17 and 10/19 respectively, and my trees are doing great (with the exception of some citrus and Ficus that got physically burned from the heat). Are you sure you have your settings correct? What kind of emitters do you have on your trees? I have multiple 2gph emitters per tree, depending on the size. Most have anywhere from 4-8. With that, the calculations have my tree zones running for 3h4m per zone.

As for shrubs, they all last ran on 10/10 and are scheduled for 10/19. Other than my landscaper cutting them back WAY too far a couple weeks ago, they all look good. Each shrub has a single 1gph emitter, and the calculations have each zone running for 3h24m.

post by azdavidr on Oct 16, 2024

Like @tmcgahey, I’ve been on Flex Daily for 8.5 years. I’m in Phoenix as well. My trees are getting watered about every 2 weeks now. My back yard shrub irrigation is about 12 days apart while the front is mostly Xeriscape, and is at about 1 month between watering.

These might seem like crazy numbers given our heat, but it depends on your vegetation as well as frame of reference. I remember the days when landscapers gave me super generic recommendations (irrigate every x days for y minutes, or 3 times a day for x minutes). It was always given without any consideration of what you have planted, which now just seems really dumb, but that’s what was programmed in. When I first moved to Flex Daily I went through a period of slowly stretching out the irrigation times to what I believed it really should be after doing a bit of research. The further you go between irrigation cycles, the deeper the watering should become. Through that process, the vegetation slowly becomes more drought tolerant. After a few months of small changes I ended up on a Flex Daily cycle that I’ve barely touched in years, whether it’s December or the inferno that is July and August.

So, you mention being surprised by the 8 day cycle that you see for your vegetation. What do you have planted, and what are your expectations? Also, what do you mean by this part?

post by tmcgahey on Oct 16, 2024

Pretty sure he means Flex has no daily restrictions…

I’ll also add that it did take my yard a while to adjust to the new (correct) way to water. Like @azdavidr said, my controller was set to water everything 3-4 times a week for 1.5 hours, pretty much year-round. Changing that up, it took my vegetation a while to send the roots deeper for that type of watering…so, I did adjust my settings every few months closer and closer to what they are now.

I will also add another thing…this summer, like last, was brutal on plants. While mine looked good, you could tell the non-native plants were suffering a bit. A number of trees and shrubs had physically burnt canopies, which no amount of water would help that.

post by azdavidr on Oct 16, 2024

Yep, I have that on a couple of plants. It’s a bummer because one patio tree that we love has flourished for years. Last summer and this summer half of it has died off with the leaves just getting fried from the intense heat. Like you said, water isn’t going to fix that anymore than it would address dying saguaros.

post by jheirtzler on Oct 18, 2024

People are such fanboys of Rachio, and I hesitate to post because of the inevitable pushback on the community forum. Some will argue whether my soil is what I say it is or whether it’s typical for this area. But where I live, the soil is rocky—not loam. According to Wikipedia, loam typically consists of sand, silt, and clay. For irrigation work here, you need a power tool, not a shovel. For the purposes of this post, let’s take that as a given and not debate it. The water retention here is close to zero.

I have the zone Interval field set to allow it to run every day of the week, yet last week, when it was 105°F, the system only ran every 8 days. Clearly, the scheduler isn’t doing its job. I’ve given up on using anything but the Fixed Schedule, like a dumb controller. While the Rachio works fine for several yards I have in central California with its Mediterranean climate, it’s just not effective for this region.

post by tmcgahey on Oct 18, 2024

I literally just ask a simple question. I’ve set up, and helped set up at least 30 Rachio units around Phoenix metro for friends, family, and random people. I work in the agg irrigation market, as well as municipal water markets and have been on hundreds of job sites. I’ve seen sandy soils near river bottoms, and rocky soils on or very near mountain, but a VAST majority of soils in the Phoenix metro are a loam variety. My experience there has nothing to do with being a “Rachio Fanboy”.

You’ve clearly made the decision that Rachio doesn’t work in the Arizona climate. Fanboy @azdavidr and I who have successful implementations of Rachio in said climate and are willing to help you, clearly don’t know what we are talking about.

post by azdavidr on Oct 18, 2024

The subject of your post is “Flex Daily does not work in Phoenix”. That is simply not true, and all we were doing was providing examples of a combined 16 years of success with Flex Daily in Phoenix. If that makes me a fanboy then so be it, but I wouldn’t be if it didn’t work. I wasn’t even trying to push back, but just trying to give you an example that it can work if you get things set up right, and I and @tmcgahey are willing to help. If you don’t want that help that’s another issue, but to say the product isn’t capable of functioning in our climate is disingenuous.

@tmcgahey and I gave you examples where our yards are being irrigated with longer intervals than that, and we live in Phoenix too. I repeat, eight days between watering is not an issue depending on foliage involved and if you’ve allowed that foliage to get used to those longer irrigation cycles.

For further proof, look to the Arizona ‘Water-Use-It-Wisely’ consortium that includes the Central Arizona Project, City of Phoenix, Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, SRP, and Scottsdale Water.

post by jheirtzler on Oct 21, 2024

Yes, I’ve seen that guide. Do you know where I got my hardcopy? It was from the arborist for the water department when he walked my property. One of his recommendations was to water every 3 days, not every 8.

Even if I had a fire hose, you’re not going to water rocky soil every 8 days when it’s 105°F in the shade. But let’s hear from Rachio. One issue with this forum is that whenever someone wants to discuss if we can improve the algorithm, random customers chime in with “works for me,” which isn’t helpful.

post by Thomas_Lerman on Oct 21, 2024

If you would like to hear from Rachio only, I would probably recommend support. These forums are more about the community of users helping the community of users. Sure, Rachio pokes their head in here occasionally, but does not read & respond to every post. In other words, very likely will get random users responding and obviously we cannot look at or modify the code.

post by azdavidr on Oct 22, 2024

So he gives you a hardcopy of a local irrigation guide for you to use, then tells you to irrigate contrary to what’s in the guide. Got it.

I have drip in the same soil type as yours, and irrigate every 12+ days when it’s 105F. No firehose needed. But whatever, you don’t seem to want help and only seem to want to complain.