Water Saved Calculations are WAY off???
My dashboard says I have saved 5500 gallons in last 7 days. Where is the logic here? The system has no idea how many heads a zone has, so can't know how much water got used in a cycle. Also if they went off as scheduled then no water was actually saved. If rain stopped a watering cycle then 1 day of water saved or it cuts down on the time X mins saved, but unless I added how much water a zone uses, accurate Water Saved is kind of bogus to state. Thoughts? Guidance on how to calculate a zone, or change to percentages, mins and days watering did not happen. No way I did not water 5500 gallons.
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Official comment
Hi Michael,
You have 2 ways of configure water consumption:
1. By your zone area which uses the precipitation rate of the Sprinkler Head that you selected.
See here for default precipitation rates: https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/articles/228001328-Sprinkler-Head-Types
2. By entering entire zone flow rate (GPM) usually done by checking your water meter. Read the current meter gallons, start a zone for 1 minute and when it's done check the new gallons value. Enter this value in zone configuration.
Comment actions -
Both of the methods are cumbersome to use.
1. To calculate the "Precipitation Rate" you need to know the total area it's watering. It's useless because the nozzle does not care the area. It still outputs the same amount of water. To calculate the "Application Rate" you need to know the Nozzle Diameter, Line Spacing. Nozzle Diameter are hard to get, at least I could not find it on the Rain Bird's web site. Line Spacing - not every one has all heads line up perpendicular, let alone installed as per manufacture's recommendation. It's lots of ambiguous values.
2. To get the GPM you may use the water meter but not everyone's water meter tell you up to the gallon. My water meter tells me only hundreds of gallons. So it's very hard to read the meter to get anywhere correct value from the water meter. Plus, if you run for 1 minute it may not start at full speed till 30 seconds has passed, because it may not have pressurized enough.
What information do I have:
1. Number of heads
2. Type of spray/rotter nozzle
3. Water pressure (Either using the sensor or spray head's rating)
4. I can get GPM using above three information (from performance chart of the nozzle)
(In case of Drip - Length of the drip, flow rate and spacing of emitters)
Here is a example of Technical Spec I found on Rain Bird's web site for a nozzle.
http://www.rainbird.com/documents/turf/ts_HE-VAN.pdf
EDIT: I think answered my confusion. I can get GPM using the information I have and don't need to use water meter. Now, only if you use the GPM I entered instead of type of head type (drip or not) to calculate the water saved.
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Interested in this topic as well. I think I may have to try method two (checking water meter before and after) as the sprinkler system was installed before I moved in and I don't know the specs on each sprinkler head. I'm not sure even if my meter is readable though to be honest. It's under a lid out in the front yard and I think the city reads it through the cell network or something. Here's to hoping there's a display...
My question is... Is there a way to reset the 'water saved' on the dashboard short of like resetting the entire device and/or my profile?
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