How often?

As often as needed.

Lots of good advise here.

The chart on your box seems ambiguous. I listen to the professional lawn care folks.

People have received letters for a history of over watering if over 7,500 gal/mo for a Villa or 10,000 gal/mo for larger lots. They blamed this for deterioration of some streets. So watch your irrigation bill with that as a target.

Having water run down the street indicates over watering As others have suggested, a controller that lets you break up watering into four short cycles helps avoid this and is most efficient.

Flume makes a device that lets you monitor water usage on you phone remotely and detects leaks.

Flume Water | Smart Home Water Monitor | Water Leak Detector

Catching one broken head while you're away will easily pay for it.

That is soooo helpful. Thanks.

What other changes would you suggest?

I do just under half the water duration that it says on the sticker. Twice a week except for Nov-Feb I switch to once a week.

I have had good success by watering for short periods 5 or 6 days a week. I found that by watering for long periods most of the water just soaks into the sandy soil. It’s working for me… my grass is Green.

For grass areas
Vegetation Type - Warm Season Grass
Spray head - Generic rotary nozzle I have the Hunter MP Rotators
Soil Type - Sandy Loam
Exposure - Lots of Sun - your may vary on zone
Slope - Slight

My advanced settings for grass areas are:
Available Water 0.12in/in (default based on soil type)
Root depth 6 in (default was 9 but St Augustine should be in the 4 - 6 range)
Allowed Depletion 50%
Efficiency 70%
Crop Coefficient - click on the lock, then check All Zones. This changes from Static to Dynamic. Crop Coefficients actually change month to month due to the weather.

For Flower beds
Vegetation Type - Shrubs
Spray Head - Mister - I have the little red fan sprays
Soil Type - Loam - landscapers amended the soil
Exposure - Lots of sun
Slope - Flat

Advanced Settings
Available Water 0.17in/in (default based on soil type)
Root depth 15 in (default for shrubs)
Allowed Depletion 50%
Efficiency 95%
Crop Coefficient - should be Dynamic if you set all zones to Dynamic above

I've added a 2" Vu-Flow filter to the irrigation water since we are using pond water in the south for irrigation and it plugs the filters in the sprinkler heads. This filter requires cleaning once or twice a month but sure beats cleaning the filters in each head.

Secondly, I added the Everydrop flowmeter to the system. This allows you to get actual gpm usage on each zone. With that, you can physically measure the area of each zone and then calculate the precipitation rate (value you'd enter for Nozzle Inches Per Hour) instead of using the default sprinkler head values. Let's assume you have the MP rotators. They spec at 0.4 inches/hour. However, your system should have head to head coverage (i.e. water from one head reaches the other head). So technically for a given area you are putting down more than 0.4 inches per hour. I'm sure I have greater than the 70% efficiency I put in my advanced settings but I wanted the system to run a little longer.

Added benefits of the flowmeter is that you'll get notifications of low flow, high flow and any flow after zones shut off. Low flow just sends a notification. High flow (break in line or a sprinkler head is damaged) sends a notification AND turns off the zone. You'll need to fix the issue and re-enable the zone before that zone runs in any future schedules.

You can do your own soil test using a jar. Remove some grass (leave any dirt) in a 3 or 4 inch circle. Dig out soil about 6 inches deep. Collect this soil to put it in the jar. How to measure is here: Jar Test

Then download the first Excel sheet here: Soil Texture Triangle

My values were:

Sand 68%
Clay 21%
Silt 11%
Based on the triangle, I'm barely in the sandy clay loam section. That isn't an option in Rachio so I dropped down to the Sandy loam. Rachio will think the soil is capable of holding less water which is fine.

I actually measured each zone area and put those values in the advanced settings. Then I followed this article to calculate precipitation rate - Calculating Precipitation Rate. And then changed my nozzle inches per hour to this value.

I did make the in app purchase for Valve Monitoring. This will notify you if a valve uses more or less current than when initially calibrated. It can help in seeing when a valve needs to be replaced. Of course, once purchased you'll have to go into the valve monitoring advanced settings and turn that feature on. Mine are set +/- 25%.

I also have my own weather station connected to Weather Underground so Rachio gets the actual temps and rain values from my station. Do you have a station close by that you are using or are you letting Rachio calculate rainfall?

While it may seem I have a good handle on the system, I'm still learning and tweaking.

I have the Hunter MP rotator heads on my irrigation system and it takes 50 minutes per zone to get a 1/2 inch of water. Your results may vary but I used the tuna can system to measure and that's how long it takes for mine.

I did try shortening the cycles and water 3 times a week but my St. Augustine didn't like it. I was starting to get some fungus from that method and was told that it is better to let the grass dry out a little so the roots grow deeper.

If your contractor advised you of the need to water more pay attention at least they are contacting you, cant blame them if your lawn goes bad.

Yup, I have updated my watering schedule based on input from the members here. I'm glad they let me know. I was really wanting to make sure I wasn't breaking a CDD rule or something. Don't want some Karen telling on me for sprinkling out of schedule. :D

Thanks! I'll give those changes a try...

What "Interval" do you use? Do you check off every day, so it is able to operate, regardless of what day it's scheduled? Or do you check 2 or 3 certain days a week, so it just runs on these days (weather permitting)?

Select Any Day. If you chose a specific day or days, then the software won't water unless the need is on that/those days. Probably will kill your lawn if it is dry say on Saturday and can't run until Tuesday (if you had selected Tuesday).

Did you find a local weather station?

We have a Racio too and in our area is allowed twice per week (Thursdays and Sundays) during Daylight savings. Then only once per week (Thursday’s) during Standard time.

I have lived in Florida for almost 20 years from Miami to Orlando and here. The watering schedules frequencies are very similar everywhere we have being.

We increased our to 3 x's a week. However we haven't been beck (haven't moved in permanently yet), to see if that is enough, but the 2×'s wasn't enough.