Long run times - Should I combine zones?

Everytime I talk to Rachio support, they mention how my flex schedules are 19 hours long. I don’t understand why it’s that much of a problem, I have several zones setup.

  • West Front Plants
  • East Front Plants
  • Front Trees
  • Back Plants
  • Back Trees

Each one runs for 2-4 hours which adds them. They all run different days so it’s not like I’m running it for 19 hours at once, but they still seem bothered by it.

I guess I could combine the front plants, and combine the trees together. So I’d only have 3. The other ones are all different emitters/sizes so it would be hard to group them. But, what advantages do I have by doing this?

The advantage would be that you could probably get it all done earlier in the morning so that it was absorbed by the time the sun was really beating on things. Also the hope is that you can get it all down and soaking before the wind picks up as well. The other downside to think about is that you’ll need to make sure you’ve got enough water pressure to handle the extra heads on all at once.

I don’t think I would take the time or energy to combine any zones. Like you said, they don’t usually run on the same days, and even if they did, you could try running overnight or very early morning, especially in the summer, to minimize loss from heat. Combining zones can be an issue if pressure is off like @brett said.

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Cool - thanks. Just wanted to confirm that I wasn’t missing anything obvious.

@optize out of curiosity, why are you always talking to Rachio support to where this “issue” of run time is brought up?

This time, I was asked why my trees have different run times, while the settings are the same… and when he logged into my account, he made that comment.

They’ve made that comment a few times now, I don’t know if it’s the same guy or what… but figured I should ask the community… I seem to get better support from the community than the official channels :expressionless:

Sounds like I need to have a little chat with an agent… I agree with everyone above, I see no issues with your times!

McKynzee :rachio: