After we get 2.5” of rain, I see many homes running their sprinkler systems
 

What a waste of water. Every house should be using a smart sprinkler controller and not the dumb Hunter controllers they put in each house.
For $60, you can swap out the hunter controller in 5 mins, install the new smart controller, and then take 15-30 mins programming your new smart controller.
While you are programming your new smart controller, you can point it to the many homes that have personal weather stations near you to get the most reliable data for the controller to use when calculating when it should run the sprinklers and for how long.
Many other benefits too, like turning on a station from your phone from anywhere in the world or inside your house. No more running to the garage to start and stop a station.

Well sure BUT who got 2.5 inches of rain?

my Rainbird is Wi-fi , no mechanical Rain sensors.. all rain detected from local weather radar...I love the fact that I can operate my controller from anywhere in the world , that i have wifi... I was in Nuka Hiva and decided to try this feature..i paid just under 100.00 bucks for the controller.

It’s probably hard to except the concept, that TV is not just your village. We definitely didn’t get the 2.5” that rained on you. I have seen it rain across the prairie but not at our house.
Maybe you could stick with your small area, have a neighbor meeting, about helping your neighbors, instead of criticizing.

You could offer to switch their controller to a smart one. Which you posted is only 5 minutes to change. You could save the water usage for your neighbors. Then could educate on use, and do follow up monthly on how their system works. Because not everyone is going to understand the concept.

We have a smart irrigation system, that ran last week, my pool needs a top off, could you just send down the clouds, to take care of that? Oh and a rainbow would be a nice ending :a040:

I have a Rachio and I tried letting it use the weather to adjust my schedule. I’m part time so not there to see every drop of rain. Well my lawn almost died and luckily my lawn guy said it wasn’t getting enough water.

The problem with the weather reports seem to be that it adjusts on the forecast and not actual rain. In addition to that, we all know that a neighbor 2 houses away can be getting a downpour while your house has nothing.

I put mine on a schedule and if I know we got a bunch of rain I’ll adjust. But I don’t always remember.

Plus our irrigation is reclaimed water. It is basically going right back where it came from.

A easy fix When we were part time our exterior cameras, would go off in heavy rains. Even though we had smart irrigation, some weeks rain wasn’t enough. I could adjust because sometimes we only got 5 minutes of rain.

Not only could I see how many times it rained, I could see the lawn guy, and whoever walked the yard, including the occasional bear, bobcat, one gator and mama duck with all her babies coming up from the pond. Our home watch would wave as he walked in, and could talk to us if needed. Cameras are you unpaid guardian, of your home.

2.5"? Maybe somewhere, in some isolated spots. But this is Florida. There can be a torrential downpour in one spot while another spot maybe a mile away can be dry as a bone.

I have our system on manual, with my eyes supplying the "data". During the rainy season I'll water after two dry days after a good rain (not a sprinkle) and follow that cycle pretty regularly. Winter, twice a week: usually Thursday and Saturday mornings before dawn.

$84. not bad, but $168. for the wi-fi module besides? Too much $$$

I’ve got cameras but it’s hit or miss if I catch the rain. Busy life unfortunately because we are not yet retired. The cameras go off for all sorts of things.

The one that came with my house works just fine if you program it correctly. My neighbor on one side goes off daily. Clearly they have it set to that and to bypass the rain sensor. It’s the home owner, not the product.

A pipe busted on our system so we now use a hose sprinkler and the hose itself. All manual, nothing underground anymore.

The rain sensors with the leather pads inside are useless. I’ve had 2 homes with those and they never worked.

We’re just a wasteful society.

People don’t care that they are wasting natural resources. The OP has a point, if it’s raining at your house, turn off the irrigation system. If it didn’t rain, sorry. I understand the disappointment. But if it did, and you got 2”, please turn off your irrigation.

Become more involved in helping to save the planet for future generations. Being “Green” is not cheap, easy or convenient. There is technology readily available to prevent your lawn from being overwatered. No excuses.

Or here is an idea.....allow desert lawns.

Mine still work after 7 years.

What's to save it's re-claimed waste water and that is why it was re-claimed.

omg i was thinking of moving to TV,, but this is a way too complicated place to live

I stay in my lane and don’t get excited about what others are doing with their yard watering.

I can see the advantage, but it isn't hard for me turn off/adjust if we are getting a good amount of rain. Just because you can automate/wi-fi something doesn't mean you should.

Save it for those days/weeks/months when we won’t get any rain…..

Also have not had success with the "Smart Watering" option. Rainfall is too variable here.

I'm looking at getting something like this to measure rain when away.

https://a.co/d/01j0iJhG

Stay logged in.....it only gets better!

If you have a Rachio controller there is a setting to change the weather source. If you go into settings, controller settings, weather source, select station and then personal. You will see a list of Rachio users that have their own backyard weather stations and you should see a list of weather stations that are in your area and how far away they are located. I am connected to one that is 0.1 mile away but there are five as close as 0.5 miles away. I find this a lot more accurate and they also have rain gauges that you can see if you are wondering how much rain we received. It works well being north for my last summer before being full time this September.

Not at all. I set my irrigation for 6 months at a time (rainy season or dry season). No problem. If lawn looks dry I increase watering one day (takes 30 seconds to change the controller panel) or if water bill is too high I decrease 1 day. Works fine for years. I don’t check daily pond levels, or rain forecasts, or if the neighbor has his sprinkler on. It’s like your room temperature thermostat, you could change it every hour for each room or just set it at one comfortable setting all the time.

As a betting man....i'd say the poster you're responding to was being a teeny weeny...facetious!

Ahh, found it. Thanks. I read about that before but could not find it in the settings. Thanks for the detailed description. I've updated to a station 1.5 miles away. I've also put it back on the flex daily schedule. Now that we are finally getting rain I can water let the system do it's thing.

How do you “waste” water?

I'm afraid all the rainbows have been spoken for by the endothurmophyumatairisns.

Speaking from experience, keep an eye on it. 1.5mi is too far away in FL.


FYI, many of the stations are Tempest which use "haptic" sensing for rain which means they measure the sound of rain drops striking the unit. This can be wildly inaccurate.

Do know where pipe busted? Not that hard to fix. Mine has been busted by underground cable contractors. Finley had to run relocated line along villa wall away from street.

Well can waste money letting run down street drains for 30 mins each station.

Money if letting run down street drain with double charge.

Seriously????? WHO CARES!

Start a rain watchers club and get that number up to 3001! :coolsmiley::coolsmiley::duck:

What brand goes in in five minutes? Everybody I know who bought one says they loved theirs, but the installation was a bear. I had a Hunter in New York so when I got here, I was happy. But the Wi-Fi adapter does not work for many people. Including me.

I am retired. Toooo much unwanted Tech Info for me! :cus:

Totally agree. Better yet, try turning off your sprinkler system altogether. Mine has been off for years and the lawn is fine. It's Florida, things grow easily!!!

Oh sure. Let's confuse the issue with some facts.

I'm sure the 5 minutes was an exaggeration. My Rachio took almost 10 minutes to install and another 10 to program.

We just overseeded our lawn with particular interest in some bare spots. We have been instructed to keep the seed moist until germination so need to water more frequently.