[Topspinmo]

My water usage up last couple months from 4500 to 5000 gallons to 6000 to 6500 gallons. In my area been in drought for about 7 weeks till last week.

[Pairadocs]

Originally Posted by Ignatz

Well sure BUT who got 2.5 inches of rain?

LOL, that's for sure, still looking for the 2.5. Sounds like a thinly veiled ad to me, especially knocking the premier brand by NAME yet. Wonder if the poster knows there are MANY other ways to stop an auto system without purchasing a thing....LOL !

[Jim1mack]

Don’t tell anyone but when I go on my 6am walk when home's irrigation systems are running I take a pliers with me and adjust the heads that are spraying into the street and gutter. Just hate to see those rivers of irrigation water running down the gutters.

[LeRoySmith]

Originally Posted by Jim1mack

Don’t tell anyone but when I go on my 6am walk when home's irrigation systems are running I take a pliers with me and adjust the heads that are spraying into the street and gutter. Just hate to see those rivers of irrigation water running down the gutters.

If I gave you my address would you walk by here?

[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by Jim1mack

Don’t tell anyone but when I go on my 6am walk when home's irrigation systems are running I take a pliers with me and adjust the heads that are spraying into the street and gutter. Just hate to see those rivers of irrigation water running down the gutters.

And....we have a confession!

[Freehiker]

Originally Posted by frayedends

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

I just bought a new Rachio as well and will be installing tomorrow. This Hunter controller that the builder installed is garbage.

[Freehiker]

Originally Posted by Jim1mack

Don’t tell anyone but when I go on my 6am walk when home's irrigation systems are running I take a pliers with me and adjust the heads that are spraying into the street and gutter. Just hate to see those rivers of irrigation water running down the gutters.

My yard has a slight slope to it so tons of water runs out into the street. It stinks.

[jjdlad]

Over the past two months, I have been manually monitoring the rainfall and the irrigation system just to see how much savings there really was. Before that, my irrigation water bill was about $86 (17,670 gallons used) from May 10th - June 12th since we were in a drought and I was watering 3-4 times per week to "save the lawn".

I am using the Rain Drop app to monitor the amount of rainfall we have gotten over the past 24 and 72 hours. If the 72 hour number falls below about 0.5", I turn the irrigation system on to water the next morning at 3:00 AM. During the time between June 12th and today (July 31st), I have only had to water with the irrigation system 2 times. My water bill last month was about $19 (3,130 gallons used). It takes maybe 2-3 minutes every day to check the app and turn on/off the system in the gargage.

The rain sensor on the house does work if the rainfall is at least 1/4" but I noticed that it doesn't stay on for more than 1 day, so even if we get 3/4" of rainfall, the system will come on the next day if scheduled to since the rain sensor goes off. This is where the overwatering waste comes in to play. The Rain Drop app is free and you can set up a pin at your specific address to monitor the rainfall there (I am certain it uses local weather stations to predict the rainfall at my specific address, but it has been close enough so far). My lawn is green and lush so far using this method. I probably won't do it forever, but again I wanted to see what the real savings was by monitoring it manually versus relying on the system and the rain sensor to predict when the lawn should be watered.

I'm open to other ideas as well...

[jrref]

Originally Posted by jjdlad

Over the past two months, I have been manually monitoring the rainfall and the irrigation system just to see how much savings there really was. Before that, my irrigation water bill was about $86 (17,670 gallons used) from May 10th - June 12th since we were in a drought and I was watering 3-4 times per week to "save the lawn".

I am using the Rain Drop app to monitor the amount of rainfall we have gotten over the past 24 and 72 hours. If the 72 hour number falls below about 0.5", I turn the irrigation system on to water the next morning at 3:00 AM. During the time between June 12th and today (July 31st), I have only had to water with the irrigation system 2 times. My water bill last month was about $19 (3,130 gallons used). It takes maybe 2-3 minutes every day to check the app and turn on/off the system in the gargage.

The rain sensor on the house does work if the rainfall is at least 1/4" but I noticed that it doesn't stay on for more than 1 day, so even if we get 3/4" of rainfall, the system will come on the next day if scheduled to since the rain sensor goes off. This is where the overwatering waste comes in to play. The Rain Drop app is free and you can set up a pin at your specific address to monitor the rainfall there (I am certain it uses local weather stations to predict the rainfall at my specific address, but it has been close enough so far). My lawn is green and lush so far using this method. I probably won't do it forever, but again I wanted to see what the real savings was by monitoring it manually versus relying on the system and the rain sensor to predict when the lawn should be watered.

I'm open to other ideas as well...

I understand why you did this experiment but you should get a modern irrigation controller like the Rachio. It will pay for itself in 6 months and it will do everything you are doing manually and enjoy monitoring it.

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by rsmurano

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.

So what brand name of the magical controller? I see water running down street drain for 20 minutes wouldn’t that be waste of water?

[DonH57]

Originally Posted by Jim1mack

Don’t tell anyone but when I go on my 6am walk when home's irrigation systems are running I take a pliers with me and adjust the heads that are spraying into the street and gutter. Just hate to see those rivers of irrigation water running down the gutters.

You could check ours but we do run them the zones start at 3 in the morning. Haven't run ours in I don't know how long.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by frayedends

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.

Same with a B-Hyve water controller linked to a forecast weather station. I reviewed the weather station forecast, and the rain in the forecast which the controller was showing wasn't anywhere near the forecast on the TV, and the TV forecast was correct, no rain.

I lost a lot of lawn from the weather forecast link not being accurate and eliminating watering when forecasted for weeks never materialized. I have my controller on manual to insure that the lawn is watered, rain or not. . and the water just goes back to the retention pond with some filtering, so its better for the wildlife which is dependent upon cleaner water.

so maybe the OP's observation and conclusion needs some re-work...

[Eg_cruz]

Originally Posted by asianthree

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

We did get 2.5” in Sumter Landing. I drove across the Morse bridge and it was flooding. It was one of the fast and heavy rain I have drove in in awhile. 466 and Morse had flood waters so yes if you were in this area you got 2.5 inches