# Rachio spraying middle of the day



## Jimefam (Jun 22, 2018)

So I installed the rachio 3 maybe 6 weeks ago and it seemed to be doing fine was watering what i think is a good amount grass seemed to be doing well. When it ran it would usually start at 1 or 2 am and finish up by 6am. About 3 weeks ago I switched from its weather intelligence plus setting to using a single weather station about 2 blocks from me. Since then it has been watering at 4pm to about 8pm which is annoying as the kids are usually playing outside at that time. Checked and the settings still say finish before sunrise so i switched back to weather intelligence plus but its still programmed for the afternoons. Not to mention its also watering much less then it was. I had the minimum saturation at 50% but it lets it get down well below that. Any ideas whats wrong?


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## LAG Gamecock (Apr 23, 2019)

Mine is set to weather intelligence and I set mine to start at 4 in the morning. I read somewhere folks had problems with the end by sunrise setting. I haven't had any problems with starting time setting and it has adjusted the duration a couple of times based on the weather.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I like the end by 6am one. This avoids any complaints of the lower shower water pressure.


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## DuncanMcDonuts (May 5, 2019)

The issue with the "End before sunrise/specified time" programs is that the Rachio cannot time it to end at that specified time. Say you program the duration to be 6 hours, but the total program with soak times is 10 hours. You set the Rachio to End before 6am. It will always start your program at 8pm so that it can complete the whole program, regardless if your smart weather intelligence calculates it only needs to run for 3 hours because of rainfall earlier in the week.

I tried looking up Rachio support on the issue. They are aware of the inconvenience but they say it's difficult to program a tentative start time for the "End before xx:xx" programs. My program always started at 11pm even though I wanted it to end before sunrise, regardless if it was the full irrigation or half. I set it to start at 2am now. It takes nearly 7-8 hours to complete with soak times, so at longest it ends at 10am. I rather it continue through sunrise than constantly water at night that would promote fungus growth.

Also, I'm not a fan of personal weather stations, even though I have multiple within a couple miles of me. The monitored weather stations actually report rainfall totals whereas the PWSs don't. I wish they did because the rainfall totals I get are about 7 miles from my property, which can be inaccurate from isolated thunderstorms.


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## Jimefam (Jun 22, 2018)

DuncanMcDonuts said:


> The issue with the "End before sunrise/specified time" programs is that the Rachio cannot time it to end at that specified time. Say you program the duration to be 6 hours, but the total program with soak times is 10 hours. You set the Rachio to End before 6am. It will always start your program at 8pm so that it can complete the whole program, regardless if your smart weather intelligence calculates it only needs to run for 3 hours because of rainfall earlier in the week.
> 
> I tried looking up Rachio support on the issue. They are aware of the inconvenience but they say it's difficult to program a tentative start time for the "End before xx:xx" programs. My program always started at 11pm even though I wanted it to end before sunrise, regardless if it was the full irrigation or half. I set it to start at 2am now. It takes nearly 7-8 hours to complete with soak times, so at longest it ends at 10am. I rather it continue through sunrise than constantly water at night that would promote fungus growth.
> 
> Also, I'm not a fan of personal weather stations, even though I have multiple within a couple miles of me. The monitored weather stations actually report rainfall totals whereas the PWSs don't. I wish they did because the rainfall totals I get are about 7 miles from my property, which can be inaccurate from isolated thunderstorms.


That would work terrific for me if it started at 8pm and because of the cycle soak times finished right before sunrise. But mine is starting at 4pm and never runs past 9pm so it has nothing to do with trying to time it so it ends before sunrise. Also I was not aware the PWS didnt report rain totals that seems pretty damn useless then lol why would i want one then? Is anyone really that interested in monitoring wind speed? Btw i also submitted a ticket with rachio weeks ago and never heard back.


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## Jimefam (Jun 22, 2018)

Look at the next two water schedules lol thing is crazy. Also wife said it rained a bit this morning.


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## synergy0852 (Jun 30, 2018)

The rachio DOES pull rain data from a PWS, mine works just fine. Takes a few days to show up on rachio, but once it does it will pull the data.


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## DuncanMcDonuts (May 5, 2019)

synergy0852 said:


> The rachio DOES pull rain data from a PWS, mine works just fine. Takes a few days to show up on rachio, but once it does it will pull the data.


It depends on who is running the PWS. I've monitored my closest ones for days and the rainfall totals are always 0. The temp, barometric pressure, wind speed etc. appear to be automated. Some report the rainfall, some don't. It's quite unreliable for me. Rachio should make users aware of that instead of advertising its personalization.


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