All - Activity - jeremysm1 - Rachio Community

Arizona: Fixed Schedule Programming

Manual Run Aug 21, 2019
Man, you’re good! I have the drip emitter–the typical ones found in Arizona. I think there are some flag emitters too. I’m uncertain as if the correct GPH emitters are even correct for each plant–I would think that would be a big piece of the equation too.

Manual Run Aug 21, 2019
Thanks, I adjusted per your recommendations. What are the preferred emitters? I’m probably due for replacing them. How many GPH? Those other settings were always defaulted and I only changed them a few days ago when trying to alter the system—but I moved back to default plus your recommendations…

Manual Run Aug 20, 2019
Thanks. I was playing around with a few settings…but here in Scottsdale these are my settings for the Front Yard.

Manual Run Aug 19, 2019
Excellent! Got it! I had all checked and the saturation skip was checked which certainly was the culprit. I unchecked them all until I get this under control. Thanks so much! Here is a pic:

Manual Run Aug 19, 2019
I need help. I removed the Flex Daily programming that I implemented about a month ago and my plants are drying out and on the verge of dying. I manually went in and chose Fixed Daily schedule and selected to have the Rachio water every day until I see the plants recover (it’s hot here in Phoenix!

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 6, 2018
I tried to Google how to bring those singular plants under one zone but failed. Can you explain how this is accomplished? My guess is that there will be a lot of digging and following irrigation lines–but even then how and where do you connect them together? Do you find the closest “other” line a…

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 5, 2018
Yes, we only had 1 grass zone–a very small pad of grass in the side yard (we replaced that with artificial grass). Everything else would make sense and are likely drop zones. I have identified these main zones: trees, back yard, front yard. I also have two zones that serve one plant: a plant near t…

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 4, 2018
Update: fixed! I cleaned out the dirt and uncovered everything. Then I figured out how the solenoids attach and which valve goes to each area. The valve in the picture on the far left is the culprit! I ran to Home Depot and picked up a $15 replacement, exchanged the guts, and now I believe it’s …

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 4, 2018
I found this video… Is this what you mean? Instead of cutting out the entire part and having to perform pvc pipe repair, just buy a whole replacement but use the guts to avoid the rest of the work. That is smart!

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 4, 2018
One more question: how would I know which one is the malfunctioning valve?

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 4, 2018
Here are a couple pictures of what I have in the ground. Is this what you’re describing? Looks like I have 6 of these that twist on/off. Is there a way to figure out what “system” I have or manufacturer? Thanks for helping this newbie!

Emitter Troubleshooting Question Nov 3, 2018
I have a single tree that has 3 emitters dripping (on) even though the system is completely turned off. Seems to me that they have been on for quite some time since the tree and areas there are sunken. Any thoughts as for how to troubleshoot this? I am not an irrigation expert but willing to poke…

Phoenix, AZ: Need Referral for Irrigation Troubleshooting Sep 3, 2018
Perfect! Thanks for the link–I reached out!

Phoenix, AZ: Need Referral for Irrigation Troubleshooting Sep 3, 2018
Poured a lot of time and money into our landscape and irrigation, but everything planted slowly dies. Installed the Rachio, and still have the same result. I would like to hire someone from the Rachio community that knows this product thoroughly to come out and spend time to make sure the setup is …

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 11, 2017
I’m throwing in the towel on this Rachio. Does anyone have a referral to a Rachio expert that can come to my house and set this up? I’m in Scottsdale not far from West World. I just can’t sink additional time/effort into this and don’t want to risk losing my landscaping. Thanks!

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 11, 2017
Is the .34 in/hr the field that says Precipitation Rate? If I change my root depth from 20 inches to 15 inches, plus if I change to the custom nozzle (emitter) with .34 what should the result be? More frequent, but shorter, watering? Thanks!

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
Most of the vegetation is about 3-years old, except most of the trees are about 9 years old. Where do I check if it’s a custom nozzle? It looks like I’m just using emitter as the selection–not a custom one. Suggestion? Thanks!

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
Seems like most are 1gph. Trees are 2gph.

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
Yes. I would say that they are ALL looking stressed–except I don’t know how to tell on the trees (but the landscaper thought the trees are stressed too).

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
I have 4 zones setup: Trees, Backyard, Front Yard, and one zone with 2 small trees and a shrub (don’t know why they did that). In this backyard zone, we have all the vegetation/plants/shrubs/vines except the trees.

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
Let me know what screen shots will help? Here’s a couple.

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Oct 9, 2017
I’m back on the thread as my landscaper insists that we haven’t been watering the plants enough. He said to me last week that he’s concerned that if we don’t increase the watering even the trees will die. What are some ideas how I can change settings so that it waters at a higher level across the …

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 5, 2017
Curious if you guys use pressure compensating emitters or if anyone uses flag or non-pressure compensating emitters? Wondering if it makes a difference and even if you can mix?

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 3, 2017
I’m sure that my plants around the yard are mostly 1gph–some of the desert/small plants could even be .5gph bubblers! The trees I believe are 2gph. Looking at the chart, I have no clue of what I should be targeting for the "Gallons you want to apply to each plant in one watering cycle" section. I…

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 3, 2017
Thanks! I’ll need to dig into that spreadsheet a bit deeper, but I have adjusted the other settings and we’ll report progress. I’ll probably have some more questions after I have time to digest the spreadsheet (later today).

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 3, 2017
I’m using an emitter called “Emitter” and believe it’s the standard one. Almost all of my vegetation is the form of shrubs or similar. I believe they either have .5gph or 1gph emitters on them. Do you guys have a recommendation for the emitter size I should use on these, and also should I setup a…

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 3, 2017
Also, if I put a bottom depth of 30 inches or less, the Rating (centimeter to centimeter) is .09 instead of .08.

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 3, 2017
From the websoil survey site, here are my screenshots with the info we need: (I used 40 inches deep for this example)

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 2, 2017
Attached is a screenshot for my backyard Rachio setup–the front yard has a different zone but same setup (same vegetation). Also have a trees zone. TBH, I don’t recall how I came up with these settings, but when I installed the system several people guided me. In addition, I’m sure the square foo…

Phoenix AZ: Need help adjusting schedule Jul 2, 2017
I installed my Rachio back in October and have it connected to the local weather station and working great. Well, until the brutal AZ summer started to kick in. Now, most of my plants are drying out and I’m manually adding additional irrigation cycles or watering from a hose. I’m guessing that ther…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 21, 2016
I have some follow up questions:
How did you go from 12,000 sq/ft to 500 cu/ft? I can find a cubic feet to gallons calculator but have no clue how you got to 500 cu/ft? My front yard zone is like 2000s/ft for instance.
Most of my watering is solely for plants and not grass. So the area calculat…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 4, 2016
So far, nothing seems to be dying and the watering schedule seems to be working! I still haven’t had time to start hunting for those little used zones, but that’s on my list. Here is my newest focus: when logged into the Rachio app (or web page) I can see how much water we used in the last month. …

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 4, 2016
That is so cool! Thanks for explaining. Here is a screenshot of the next watering time for that zone—seems like my system is setup and operating as it’s supposed to.

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 4, 2016
Very neat! Here is a screenshot of mine. Got .18 inches of rain. What is the moisture balance supposed to be at? At what amount will rainfall affect the schedule?

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 1, 2016
Question: believe it or not it rained pretty hard and long here in Scottsdale last night. I have the flex daily schedule setup and it seems like it knew to push the watering schedule back several days. How can I check that it actually did that? Also, how do I check how much rain the local weathe…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 1, 2016
Thanks! I just setup the Flex Daily watering schedule. The hard part was finding that area of the app (Edit Water Schedule, then clicking on the plus icon on the top right)–that was tricky as I kept overlooking that plus sign! I setup the time to start at 6am, that way I can visually see it in pr…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Nov 1, 2016
Thanks! Flex sounds like the ideal solution. I have a couple more questions:
How do I turn Flex on?
I have 2 zones that apparently only have 1 plant on them a piece. For the life of me, I can’t find the plants on these 2 zones. Should I still set this to Flex? Should I setup the emitters as .5…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Can you describe the Flex Daily setting? Does it take into account my weather, season, and water requirements based on the settings we setup for each zone? Do you know when it’s scheduled to water and for how much or do you just read the logs? Thanks!

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Most of the emitters are .5gph I believe, some are 1gph but honestly most of my foliage is ground cover stuff. The zone with just the trees use a 2gph red emitter and I created it and used it as such.

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Yes, all the zones are setup.

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
What does the flex daily schedule do / how does it work? And, more importantly, how do I turn it on? I’m still discovering areas of the app. Thx

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Thanks for the info on those settings–I made the adjustments. As for the weather station, I’m 3.6 miles from the nearest one in Scottsdale (KSDL) which sounds good to me.
As it stands, none of my watering is scheduled–it’s all manual. What’s the best practice for setting up schedules? I found a …

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Those settings make sense. I updated the zone setting accordingly. Some questions:
In the advanced, there are settings for Area, Root Depth, Allowed Depletion (ie 50%), Efficiency (90%) and Crop Coefficient (75%). Do I just leave these alone?
Regarding the Area from question above, how do I cal…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 31, 2016
Okay, I finally was able to go through that link in order to confirm/find the soil type. Here are the items that I think we’re looking for:
Momoli gravelly sandy loam, 1 to 5 percent slopes. Rating 0.08
Typical profile
A - 0 to 3 inches: gravelly sandy loam
Bw - 3 to 60 inches: very gravelly san…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 28, 2016
The absolute best part of the Rachio system is that I can use the app on my phone to turn on a zone and start inspecting. Upon finding a broken emitter or one that needs to be plugged I can use the app to shut off the water, fix it, and turn it back on without running around to the other side of th…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 27, 2016
I went outside this morning to first see which plants actually have emitters and if any were broken. My findings upset me.
I only was able to look at the front of the house so far:
-4 broken emitters (spilling out water)
-many plants without water at all (will have to determine if they are xeriscape or what).

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 26, 2016
My first test is complete, and the Rachio worked! I’m a little baffled that I actually got my system converted from the RainDial to the Rachio on the first try. Okay, so walking around the yard, turning on/off the zones one by one I found this to be the setup:
Zone 1, Zone 7, Zone 8: blank / not …

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 25, 2016
Yes, got the Rachio setup outside and is online and ready for programming. I haven’t tried turning any zone on yet. Later today I will try to turn on each zone one at a time and see which areas are controlled in those areas.

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 25, 2016
I’m going to come clean, I have the faintest knowledge in landscaping but am ready to learn. In fact, I don’t even know anything about my landscape and/or system for irrigation. I did copy down the settings from the previous RainDial, but don’t know (yet) what method to the madness the irrigation …

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 25, 2016
Got the Rachio gen 2 installed yesterday. Had to run to Home Depot to get some connectors so the outside case is connected to the feeder pipes properly. Today, I need to setup the programs. The great thing is that I don’t have lawn, just desert landscape. I’ll dig through the other Arizona threa…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 20, 2016
Got the Rachio in the mail. Here is a pic of my current RainDial. Is this a simple unplug from here and plug into the Rachio setup? Also, my electricity is piped into the RainDial on the right side, but needs to be on the left for the Rachio. Since it’s a flex cable, that should be ea…

New Setup - Converting from RainDial Oct 17, 2016
Thanks for the welcome messages! I ordered the Rachio and enclosure today but will hold off on adding the flow sensor after feeling out the system for a little while. I’m going to shoot for installation over the weekend–so keep an eye out for my frantic posts then.

Another Arizona Set-up help thread! Oct 14, 2016
Hi guys, I’m new to this and also live in Greater Phoenix (Scottsdale). I had a water bill double the average and has happened several times over the last year or two–so finally want to jump in with a smart controller and monitor it actively. Any recommendations for where to purchase and/or other …

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