Inactive flow warning

Post by afaulconer on Aug 19, 2018

Wow. I had the flow meter for my Rachio installed three days ago. Last night, I got a leak warning based on inactive flow. The warning said “Flow when system is off: While there were no scheduled or manual waterings your flow meter reported water flowing at a rate of 0.7 gpm.” The warning was delivered at 1:38 a.m. My last zone had completed at 1:35 a.m.

1. Am I understanding this thread correctly? It seems like @mitchell is saying that the functionality for inactive flow warnings was just enabled. So last night may have been the first time I could have gotten this warning?

2. I don’t know much about sprinklers. But if I understand what I’ve been reading, the most likely reason for my inactive flow reading is that I have a valve that doesn’t close properly after the sprinklers run–in the case of my system, this would probably be due to aging valves.

3. If my hypothesis in #2 is correct, then am I correct in assuming that the problematic valve is in one of the zones that watered last night?

4. Am I correct in thinking that this inactive flow could be from any of the zones that ran last night, not necessarily more likely the last zone that ran?

5. What do you think I should do if there aren’t any obvious visual signs of the leaking zone? Just replace all the valves that haven’t yet been replaced? (Expensive!)

6. Should I take this warning seriously? If it was just enabled, can I trust it? Could there be some other explanation? Should I wait and see if it recurs every time these zones water?

7. Is it possible that this doesn’t need action at all? Sure the valve stays open for a minute or two after the sprinklers stop–but that’s no big deal?

Thanks so much for any help or insights anyone can offer.

Post by DLane on Aug 19, 2018

@afaulconer - Under the flow meter settings there is a settle time which is when the system will check for flow when it is inactive. One could try increasing that value.

The leak could be coming from any zone, not just the ones that ran. Is the flow meter installed on a water line that is only used for irrigation?

Post by mitchell on Aug 19, 2018

Inactive Flow warnings were publicly enabled for the first time last Thursday, 8/16, which would have been the first time you would have received a warning.

This is accurate. When enabled, Inactive Flow Check simply checks for any signs of flow after a scheduled or manual watering has completed and there is not another scheduled run lined up. The check occurs at the specified Settle Time which is configured in the Flow Settings menu of the app (located under Controller Settings). By default, this is 3 minutes.

Unfortunately, the Flow Meter can only confirm that flow was detected, but in this case cannot specify the exact origin. Those zones would likely be a good place to start.

Correct, it could potentially be from a Zone that did not water last night as well.

What the warning guarantees is that water was detected flowing through your Flow Meter after the specified Settle Time (default 3 minutes). At the moment the most valuable aspect of this feature is the detection itself. As mentioned above, Settle Time determines at what time your system will check for inactive flow after watering has stopped. What I would recommend doing is increasing your Settle Time to the current maximum of 10 minutes and then checking your next run to see if the inactive flow is still detected.

Post by afaulconer on Aug 19, 2018

Yes, I think it is installed on a line that is only for sprinklers.

Thanks for helping me understand that I need to consider both valves that were scheduled to run and valves that weren’t scheduled. I appreciate it.

Post by afaulconer on Aug 19, 2018

Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my questions! Updating the Android app in Google Play store made it so that I could see the flow settings that had been referred to earlier. Apparently, it wasn’t an update that was pushed out? Anyway, when I manually updated, that fixed it so that I could see the settings. Thank you.

Post by afaulconer on Aug 20, 2018

It looks like I have an inconsistent problem–but maybe that is consistent with having an old valve? I first got the “flow when system is off” warning early Sunday morning after a regularly scheduled watering. I followed the advice on this thread and changed the settle time under flow settings to 10 minutes. Later in the day, I did a “quick run” of one zone (because I’m trying to repair the damage that having one of the valves fail while we were on vacation did-- dead–very dead, crispy grass). Ten minutes after that zone completed I got the “flow when system is off” warning again. The flow was .7 gpm. This seems like a bigger deal, because .7 gpm for 10 minutes starts to add up to a lot of wasted water and who knows how long that water kept flowing? Since the system only measures after 10 minutes, but not after 30 or 60, I may be wasting lots and lots of water. : (

Post by Adrian97c on Aug 20, 2018

I have OCD, so it’s prob a good thing I was told having a flow sensor next to a well pump isn’t recommended. I’d be going nuts trying to decipher all that data & alerts, but boy I wish I had one still