Water Story: Rich Salkin

Rich Salkin
Omaha, NE
Rachio user for over 1 year




Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I heard about the Iro before it was available and thought that it was the best idea I've seen. I was looking for a replacement for my timer based controller for a while. I was getting frustrated having the sprinklers go off even though we just had a large rain storm. I liked the idea of a sprinkler controller being able to track rain fall amounts and decide if water was needed. After finding the Iro, I was hooked and pre-ordered it.

Q. How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. My lawn has never looked better! The back of my house faces south east and gets a lot of sun. It is also slightly sloped and never really greened up very well. It also turned brown in the late summer because of the sun and slope. My back yard improved dramatically after I installed the Iro.

Q. Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. From work! Believe it or not! I planted some new grass seed and forgot to water that part of the yard. So I opened up the app on my iPhone and started that zone.

Q. What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. I like to make sure that my sprinkler heads are in good working order so I love the ability to walk around my yard and turn zones on or off from my phone. It's a lot easier to control the sprinkler system when you are right in the middle of the yard.

Q. How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. Seeing the amount of water that was saved simply by knowing how much rain we've received or how much is forcasted has given me a respect for water conservation. I think that if more people would change out their timer controller for a Rachio Iro we wouldn't be having water issues.

Q. Do you have any other stories about the Rachio Iro you'd like to share?
A. I have be talking about the Iro and how it has saved me a ton of money on water bills to anyone that would listen. A number of my friends jumped on the band wagon and got an Iro.

Q. How long have you owned your Rachio Iro?
A. I was one of the first to receive one so I've owned an Rachio Iro since they were released.

Water Stories: Matt Beazer

Matt Beazer
Spokane Valley, WA
Rachio user for 3 months



Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I bought my home in early fall of 2014. It had been unoccupied for 8 years. In the spring I found myself faced with fixing most of a decade of deferred sprinkler maintenance. The sprinkler controller is in my basement, so doing sprinkler testing had me running across the house and down two flights of stairs every time I wanted to test a new sprinkler head or purge a line of dirt. The Rachio has saved me literally hundreds of trips up and down the stairs in the last few months.

Q: How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. I was guessing with my sprinkler watering times before, leading to browning of grass in some zones and overwatering in others. The Rachio gave me a baseline that kept the lawn green in the brown areas and avoided runoff into the street in others.

Q: Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. The best place I've used it is from work while watching my security cameras over the Internet. The neighbors across the street think my front lawn is their own personal dog toilet. I installed security cameras to catch them at it but the neighbors didn't care and sent their dogs over to "do their business" anyhow. Now when I see the dogs in my yard I use the Rachio app to turn the sprinklers on remotely, resulting in the dogs making a fast exit from my yard and returning to their owners soaking wet. Needless to say I've stepped in a lot less dog poo while mowing my lawn since installing the Iro!

Q: What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. Being able to turn on specific zones anywhere in the world I have Internet access at any time for any reason.

Q: How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. People don't realize how many gallons of water it takes to keep your yard green. I own a third of an acre and it takes vastly more water than I realized to water it until I got the Iro.

Q: Do you have any other stories about the Rachio Iro you'd like to share?
A. When it's hot outside and my kids want to play in the sprinklers, I just pull out my phone and turn the sprinklers on and relax on the patio while they play. Then when they get cold or tired I don't have to worry about the kids forgetting to turn the water off and flooding the yard.

Water Stories: Barry Jordan

Barry Jordan
August, GA
Rachio user for 3 months




Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I wanted to save resources and have a beautiful lawn. I was just guessing before. Now I feel like I'm getting personal advice from a professional landscaper.

Q. How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. I've seen areas of stress on my lawn "green up." But more importantly, Rachio is always working for me. I don't have to think about whether or not I should or should not adjust my sprinkler system every few months, only to find that after I increased it, it rained 3 times in a week! Rachio is always watching out for my lawn.

Q. Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. Work. We had some landscaping done and needed some sprinkler heads added to our system, so we had a guy come to the house. Since my wife and I were both gone that day, we didn't feel like leaving the garage door open for him (and anyone else) to wander in. He called me at work to let me know he was done and he would "just have to come back tomorrow and turn the system on to check it." I let him know I could do that for him now. Since I work on a computer and have Rachio saved as a favorite site, I was able to open the page the minute he called. He was amazed at how I was able to instantly turn on the zone he needed. It only took 2 minutes to ensure everything was correct! (He had a lot of questions about the Iro, which I was happy to answer for him.)

Q. What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. The analytic reports. I love seeing how many gallons of water I'm saving just by having the Rachio (almost 4000 gallons this month alone).

Q. How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. I feel I've learned a lot about my yard. I never had the interest or saw the need to do a simple soil test, for example, and was surprised to find that my soil was the exact opposite type that I thought it was. This only cost me a few minutes of my time and was well worth it.

If you would like to be featured on rachio.com for your water story, we'd love to hear from you. Just fill out this survey, and we'll be in touch!

Thanks to Barry for being our inaugural water story!