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    #16
    So Pete, your gaining a greener grass, but how's you water bill? You think you have saved money using MSCsprinkler?
    Hector
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      #17
      Yup.

      It stayed relatively low with less than $300 per month; neighbors on a rainbird sprinkler schedule without shutting it off went to $900 during the drought.

      I didn't care before when the water bills were less than $100. Now I do care about how much I am watering and I believe its helping keeping the water bills low.

      That is me and my preferences relate to not doing a whole manual thing (which during the drought did happen).

      Really I should just paint the grass green and forget about it; sometimes don't know why I bother with it...some folks a few years ago did let it go dormant during a drought; never did come back and they reseeded or put new sod down.
      - Pete

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        #18
        Thks Pete for your feed back, seams it's worth giving a try... Think I may have too start reading the manual of mcsprinklers before pulling the trigger......lots to read
        Hector
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          #19
          Over the years have changed / adjusted it to suit my needs a little bit at a time.

          Originally just started by putting in a schedule which meet the watering "restrictions" for my little subdivision (which always existed). That and configured the weather stuff but didn't really utilize it much until the cost of watering went up; then I started to pay attention some to it using the % and ET more.
          - Pete

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            #20
            A few things to clarify and provide perspective. The use of a technique such as with ET provides benefit when the weather is variable week to week. If you summer is hot every day and little rainfall, then you are better off just using a timer because moisture content will be a direct function of time since last irrigation.

            The data that is touted in the industry is usually around 20% to 30% saving in water use when weather-based scheduling is done vs. timer-based scheduling. This is for typical temperate climates where this is variabilty in weather.

            Different soils have different abilty to hold moisture and the volume of water distributed over any given period of time is a function of the density and flow rates of the sprinkler heads. This means mcsSprinklers cannot know how long to run a zone, but what it can determine is the interval between when a zone should be run. The scheduling assumption is that the user has identfied the duration a zone needs to remain open to allow soil moisture to penetrate down to 1" depth. This is a somewhat emperical activity for the user to determine the time a valve needs to remain open to soak the soil. Starting point is typically what the user had set the timer to in the pre-automation installation.

            The mcsSprinklers manual has a lot of information, but should be considered more of a reference manual than a training one. The software has an interview process and the responses to the interview questions will result in the setup desired.

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              #21
              During last summer's drought I did go to some granular zone timed watering depending on where the area was as I have some lawn that has less topsoil than other parts. I can tell by how fast the lawn color changes when its been dry.

              I have redone much of my landscaping to change the storm water run off a bit such that the berms / trees I put into place slow down the run off and redirect it a bit. The topsoil is thin and underneath it its mostly clay. The moisture content though was very uneven and over the years I have changed a bit of the landscaping infrastructure such that much of it today is more even than say 10 years ago. Tree's planted, new berms, redirecting drainage probably costs some $6000 or so over the years; but that really isn't too bad.
              Last edited by Pete; April 15, 2013, 08:29 AM.
              - Pete

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