# Hunter Hydrawise questions



## 1028mountain (Oct 1, 2019)

I just got this installed along with my irrigation and have some questions.

1. I setup all my zones and I can't run them all at the same time and I would like to use the 'Cycle & Soak' but not sure how to do that along with staggering when the zones run. Ideally it would be nice if I could say water zone 1 for 15 minutes, soak for 45 and run another zone during the zone, or 2 zones during the soak. Then finish zone 1 soak & cycle. That way it wouldn't take an hour and 15 minutes to full water one zone. Is anyone doing this and if so can you share your settings?

Also if I didnt utilize the soak feature would I simply have 1 program start time for every zone? Is there no way to stagger them by saying 'run all zones for 15 minutes one after the other?"

2. Does the Frequency under 'Zones' override whatever you configure under 'Program Start Times?' I ask because you can set Frequency to every day, every 2 days, etc... under zones but the start times ask for 'water days' as well.

3. Does anyone use any of the 'Watering Adjustments?' If so good or bad?


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## RVAGuy (Jul 27, 2020)

I installed my Hydrawise controller this summer and have played with the settings pretty extensively. I don't claim to be an expert, but I do have some experience with setting it up.

1. The cycle and soak feature will work as you want it to. It will run for 15 minutes, go on to the other zones, then come back and finish the initial zone. Read about it here https://support.hydrawise.com/hc/en-us/articles/232172528-Cycle-Soak-Operation. It's important to note that it will run the rest of the zones and THEN check to see if the cycle time has passed. In your example, if you have 8 zones at 15 minutes each with a 30 minute soak, Zone 1 would run for 15 minutes then again in 2 hours. Also note that running a zone outside of the automatic run will not enable cycle and soak.

You also do not need to try to calculate when zones are run. You can set all of your zones to start at say 5am. Say you want to water each (of the 8 example zones) for 30 minutes with the soak and cycle you described. At 5am, zone 1 will run, 5:15 Zone 2, and so on. Then when all the zones have run their initial 15 minutes, it will return to zone 1 for another 15 minutes around 7:00.

2. I did some experimenting here. Look at Program Start Times as just an "enable." Say you set a zone with 3 start times at 10AM, 2PM, and 4PM. If you set the frequency to once per day, it will run only the 10AM schedule. If you say run 4 times a day, it will only run at 10AM, 2PM, and 4PM. The Frequency drives how many times a zone is asked to run, and the Program Start Times state when it is allowed to run. They must be coordinated.

3. I don't have enough experience watering a real lawn to weigh in on the watering adjustments. However any adjustability is good. Just leave it at 100% until you notice problems would be my way.


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## RVAGuy (Jul 27, 2020)

I am doing a renovation and used MP rotators, so my times are calculated for that (0.4"/hr). I have my zones set for "New Seed" currently and will transition once grass is established to something different. Anyways, you can still see what I mean about coordinating schedules. Each zone will run 3 times a day for 10 minutes starting at 10, 2, and 4.

Once grass is established, I will switch to Custom ET Schedule and run each zone for 90 minutes every third day. I will modify my program start times once I do that. Cycle and Soak is enabled, so after running 15 minutes, it will move to the next zone. Then swoop back and run another cycle until it's done. Because I have 11 zones, I'll probably stagger adjacent zones to run on different days, so parts that overlap slightly don't get drowned.


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## 1028mountain (Oct 1, 2019)

@acampinoob yes thanks a ton man. The installer came by yesterday and explained it along the same lines as you did. I have a mix of spray heads and rotors along with flower beds (8 zones)so it will take some time for me to figure the best way to arrange them.

Right now I just have them all running for X amount of minutes until I get used to it. I also bought a Rachio3 to see if I like that interface better.

Is there a way to cancel an entire day ? I am not using anything predictive and have had to cancel two days (first two days of having it) due to rain. I just removed Friday and Saturday from the schedule cause I don't know how else to do it.


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## RVAGuy (Jul 27, 2020)

Yes, click the "Suspend All Zones" as can be seen here. You can select which zones to cancel and for how long too.


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## 1028mountain (Oct 1, 2019)

Fucking A. Thanks man.


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