@azdavidr Yeah so much of our water bill is non-water usage items
In the winter when Iām not irrigating I normally use just ONE CCF a month, and my bill is STILL $33! When I added my second meter to separate out my irrigation from my house usage, my bill went up $11/month year round.
Iām still in shock about how much cheaper the water seems to be in AZ than in NC!!!
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There are service charge fees for water service no matter if you use 1 gallon or 100,000 gallons. The meter service charge depends on the size of the meter. Get ready. Water prices are escalating everywhere.
One of the chatty kathyās on my neighborhoods facebook group mentioned in a post that her lawn serivce was coming out next week to seed her grass. Since I refrain was getting into facebook commentary, I didnāt say anything. But in our neighborhood, it hasnāt reached below 70 at night lately and daily temps are still flirting with just under 100. Seeding now will cause some great competition between established bermuda and the new rye seedsā¦ good luck lady
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If you are following the plan outlined above, you should have already stopped any type of Nitrogen fertilizer.
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Yes, our service charge fees keep escalating ā the couple of winter months where I only use 1 Ccf each month, the actual charge for the water usage is $1.58 ā the other $32+ is all fees - sewer usage, water fee, sewer fee and storm water fee ā and what gets my goat a little bit is that to the best of my knowledge, my storm water does not even go into the drains - it goes into a small creek in my back yard that then feeds into a privately owned lake!
The good news is that by having a second meter for my irrigation, my sewer usage is not impacted by my irrigation watering.
The costs to maintain the infrastructure of a water utility are enormous. Donāt complain. Be thankful.
I was spoiled when I lived in Northern Virginia ā I had a septic system and old horse pasture for lawn, so I only had to pay for the house water usage ā and my bills for a family of 4 ran about $7/month, usage fees and all! So while I understand there is a lot of cost involved, I would LOVE to know how Northern Virginia could do it SOOOO much cheaper than NC!! ---- OK. Off my soapbox. Sigh ā¦
That was definitely a low water rate. When I lived in western Massachusetts, my rates were incredibly low. Rachio is helping me save water now. My cool season grass seed is coming up nicely.
14 days before overseeding
o Raise mowing height 30-40% above normal
o Decrease irrigation by 30%
I wil now be mowing at the higher setting going forward. As far as decreasing irrigation, I was thinking of just adjusting the coefficient down until I see watering twice a week. Right now with the standard 0.65 coefficient, my grass will water every 3 days at these temps, so going to twice a week should be a 30% decrease.
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Wow, you are watering 3 times a week right now? Mine has been running twice a week. I donāt really have much to show for my schedule being good/bad/indifferent since the area were I have my Rachio set up is my test bed to work out the kinks and the grass was in atrocious shape to begin with, due to a previous spastic clock and iffy valves.
I did go back in and realized that I never readjusted my root depth to account for an almost redo of the lawn. I had planned to raise the root depth to 6" to adjust for the poor condition of the lawn prior to Rachio.
Lowering my coefficient doesnāt seem to be changing anything at this pointā¦
Yeah I think that plays a big part in trying to revitalize a lawn. If you have roots only a couple inches deep and you are watering to 9" (default), you are leaving your true root bed pretty dry before the next watering.
You may be doing this already, but the best way to see the impact of your coefficient on your frequency is to look at the moisture graph and check out the Crop Evapotranspiration number. That number (mine is between 0.08 - 0.12 daily) will go down when you decrease your coefficient. If I were you, Iād just keep it at the twice a week itās doing for you right now and focus on the other steps to get your lawn ready for overseed.
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For Phoenix, Accuweather has a cool graph to look at the predicted overnight lows for October. Based on this and the info provided by the UofA (daytime temps 80-85, nighttime 55), looks like seeding shouldnāt take place until end of October to possibly very early Nov. Am I missing anything from that? Itās crazy knowing that other people will have seeded for over month before that.
I live in Gilbert AZ and seeded (perennial rye) mine last week and itās sprouting up just fine. I did everything wrong according to the list. I stop watering about two weeks before (clay soil) and each time I mow I take it down a notch until no more green from the summer lawn shows. Iāve never had a problem doing it this way for the last 12 years.
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Yup, there are obviously several ways thatāll work and still produce results. Iāve never had a problem with getting rye to grow the past several years doing different methods. However, I did previously things like dethatch right when I overseeded and it severely impacted the health of my bermuda the next season.
While everyone and their mother has overseeded already, my goal is to do it this Sunday in the late afternoon. This weekend in phoenix will hopefully see the last push towards the upper 90ās and the 10 day calls for temps to go <90 after Sunday, with overnight temps dipping below 65.
I am mowing my lawn back to normal height today, which (and Iām not botanist/whatever) will cut off the top energy producing layer of the grass, then water tomorrow morning like normal, then on Sunday proceed w/ the cutting shorter than normal and overseeding.
I know a lot of people turned off their water for the last several weeks before overseeding, but Iām hoping and thinking that keeping the bermuda lawn nice and healthy right up to overseed with allow it to come back in the spring strong and healthy, and not look like crap for half the summer while it fills in patchy.
I actually did my front yard a week ago and it is already starting to come up. I still need to get around to my back yard.
I found the sweet spot for my run times with my MP Rotator heads in the front yard. It is keeping the top layer moist without being squishy or leaving standing water anywhere.
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@tmcgahey Did you use a fertilizer? If so, whenā¦ when your seeded or a couple weeks after? I think I messed up by not using a starter fertilizer.
My rye is starting to come out, not the more uniform growth but I noticed that itās coming in better where it the grass gets some shade during the day. Iām sure everything else will come fairly soon. Iāve been watering 4/day for 10 days now so Iām looking to cut back but trying to determine to what amountā¦ and then Iām trying to figure out when I want to go back to the flex daily schedule
I havenāt used any fertilizer. Not that I have scoured around, but on a quick search, I couldnāt find anyone that sold the ammonium phosphate 16-20-0 recomended in the overseeding guide. Mine has come in pretty well and uniform. A few spots that could fill in a bit more, but I think they will fill in on their own. If not, I may throw a bit of seed down in those areas.
Iāll snap a couple pictures tonight. Looks like a nice green carpet, minus the gopher that invaded one area of my lawn!!! 
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