Watering
 

Yes, or cut the times in half. After the first frost when the lawn turns brown and goes dorment turn it off the grass won't need water.

It depends on your grass type and your soil. Everyone making suggestions likely has a different situation then your exact one.

Thus far, Happydaz has given the most accurate answer.

Know what you have and provide what it needs.

Dormant, brown grass still needs water because the roots are still alive and storing nutrients for the time the grass blades need it.

No 2x/wk 20 min / zone is fine. Just start your cycle no later / earlier than 5am or 4pm

I water all six areas for one hour each every day in June and then nothing else the rest of the year. I forgot my plan this year and tried to play catch up in August and September when we returned. No luck. I take pride in my lawn. I screwed up big time. I got a call from the water company in the Villages telling me that my water bill is going to be around $200. I did wrong I own it and it will never happen again. A beloved neighbor of ours has to have their 5 lbs yapper that waits until it arrives at our property to unload everything it has like an elephant on the first 10 feet of the lawn. I did put massive amounts of pepper there until I found out it could hurt the dog, not just drive it away.
Anyway grass down south grows where you don’t want it to grow and won’t grow where you need it to grow.

I just got even with my thoughtless neighbor. Our house is under contract and they are going to poop when they see who’s moving in. Checkmate Bro! Let your 5 pounder poop on their lawn, I know what will be on the barbecue menu that night for all 29 people living in our precious former home with 10 feet of bad lawn!

Perhaps you should talk to the Person/Company who cuts your grass for their suggestion as your neighbor next door or down the street might have very different soil conditions under their sod.
As we lived in TV for 12 years always took advice from the services we hired.

Note that water bills are public information and can be viewed by address on "districtgov.org". You may want to compare your irrigation water usage to your neighbors to see if you are using more or less than they are.

When i read the answers to your question it really made me laugh. 5 min, 10 min, no water, lol

During the summer months you need to water 1 inch of water per zone per week. The only way to know if your system is doing this is to put out a measuring device, cup, etc and check. The builder did a good job setting up the zones but you need to see how long you need to run each zone to get this 1 inch of water. Once done you can water twice a week during the summer months and once a week in the winter.

Best thing to do if you want to save money and not worry about all these changes is to get a Rachio lawn sprinkler controller. It will make all the seasonal changes for you and the payback is relatively quick.

Also after 5 years your rain sensor probably isn't working any more because the sponges dry up so you will need to replace it. $20 at Lowes for a replacement. It's unbelievable how many lawns are watered after a heavy rain because the rain sensors aren't working any longer. With the Rachio you can disconnect the rain sensor if you want because it uses the weather forcast to know if its going to rain or it did rain.

I'm sorry but I don't understand your comment. Can you elaborate? Thanks

Joe, welcome to TOTV’S. You need t hit the quote button before you ask a question like that. Nobody but you knows who you are asking to elaborate? We’re all here to help you learn the ropes.

A Different Kind of Grass
 

If we all had bahia grass, the grass that the builders mostly use in Deltona and many other communities in Florida, we wouldn't need to ever water our grass. That's the grass that you see along all the main highways. Never watered, never fertilized, just mowed. No sprinklers in those Deltona lawns. I had bahia grass in St Pete in the 60's and 70's. Beautiful lawn. No maintenance except mowing. U of Fl accepts grant money from sod industry, fertilizer industry, etc, and develops the Zoysia and st Augustine varieties that the builders are advised to use by them. Floratam as an example. Just saying. With 130,000 homes we could have saved millions of gallons of water over the years. One day it will probably be mandatory that we don't use those high maintenance grasses.

Maybe a little high. If it rains, skip a cycle

I turn mine off in the winter and my grass looks great

Lawn water_n
 

My current water_n time 20 min. Twice a week.
The irrigation spec.
Said in winter once a week is fine

Water Shortage
 

Gonna have to disagree with you…..

From National Geographic ;

Within as little as 50 years, many regions of the United States could see their freshwater supply reduced by as much as a third, warn scientists. Of all the freshwater basins that channel rain and snow into the rivers from which we draw the water we rely on for everything from drinking and cooking to washing and cleaning, nearly half may be unable to meet consumers’ monthly demands by 2071. This will mean serious water shortages for Americans.

Shortages won’t affect only the regions we’d expect to be dry: with as many as 96 out of 204 basins in trouble, water shortages would impact most of the U.S., including the central and southern Great Plains, the Southwest, and central Rocky Mountain states, as well as parts of California, the South, and the Midwest. And if 50 years seems like a long way off, the reality is much sooner: shortages could occur in 83 basins as early as 2021. With 40 out of 50 states expecting water shortages, it’s time to start thinking about where our water is going.

St Augustine grass here, 9,900 sq ft lot. Shut water off four weeks ago. My grass looks identical to my neighbors who water twice a week.