Posted: 2/6/2009 5:41:14 PM EDT
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Residential system...
4 zones. Zone 3 quit working. The actual control module is in the garage. The wires come out and are buried. I don't know where the solenoids are but the pressure valve is in my front yard along with the water line tap. Is there way to find the solenoids? |
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2 ways usually.
Some sol. are located in a plastic hand hole burried just below the surface, sometimes you can visually see them. the second way is to use a wire hound. Some tool rental places have them. Have you jumpered the suspected bad zone to a known good zone contact point? It may not be the sol, it could be a bad relay in your controller. |
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Depending on how long the system has been in place you may still be able to make out the trenches, slight low spots running in straight lines. This makes it real easy. If the valves are coming off the main line, line coming from the double check to supply all the valves, the valves should be out in the zones throughout the yard. These will be in small round plastic boxes with green lids that have been overgrown by grass or covered in mulch. In the grass you can walk about your yard with something such as a shovel tapping around until you hear a hollow sound. That's most likely it. Are you looking for one in a turf area or landscape beds? They should be easily found along where the pipes are running between the heads. Typical home system is installed with a path of least resistance mindset so you may find 2 or 3 valves really close to each other. Once found you should run the weedeater around them in the yard to keep them visible. In beds where they would get mulched over I push a short piece of pipe in the ground next to the box to make them easier to find.
If you have a volt meter you can check the electrical side of things by disconnecting the wires for said zone at the controller and checking for resistance, if you have continuity then you have a valve problem. No continuity then you have a bad solenoid or bad wiring/connections somewhere else. Are you getting voltage to the terminals in the controller for said zone? Also some controllers can be real hokey about getting set up right. Old enough to remember the early VCRs that were such a beeotch to set? Hope this helps |
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Quoted:
2 ways usually. Some sol. are located in a plastic hand hole burried just below the surface, sometimes you can visually see them. the second way is to use a wire hound. Some tool rental places have them. Have you jumpered the suspected bad zone to a known good zone contact point? It may not be the sol, it could be a bad relay in your controller. yeah and It blew the fuse.... |
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Quoted:
Depending on how long the system has been in place you may still be able to make out the trenches, slight low spots running in straight lines. This makes it real easy. If the valves are coming off the main line, line coming from the double check to supply all the valves, the valves should be out in the zones throughout the yard. These will be in small round plastic boxes with green lids that have been overgrown by grass or covered in mulch. In the grass you can walk about your yard with something such as a shovel tapping around until you hear a hollow sound. That's most likely it. Are you looking for one in a turf area or landscape beds? They should be easily found along where the pipes are running between the heads. Typical home system is installed with a path of least resistance mindset so you may find 2 or 3 valves really close to each other. Once found you should run the weedeater around them in the yard to keep them visible. In beds where they would get mulched over I push a short piece of pipe in the ground next to the box to make them easier to find. If you have a volt meter you can check the electrical side of things by disconnecting the wires for said zone at the controller and checking for resistance, if you have continuity then you have a valve problem. No continuity then you have a bad solenoid or bad wiring/connections somewhere else. Are you getting voltage to the terminals in the controller for said zone? Also some controllers can be real hokey about getting set up right. Old enough to remember the early VCRs that were such a beeotch to set? Hope this helps I'll look. What confused me was the control in garage in the rear of the house and the water line in the front yard. Seems bass ackwards. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Depending on how long the system has been in place you may still be able to make out the trenches, slight low spots running in straight lines. This makes it real easy. If the valves are coming off the main line, line coming from the double check to supply all the valves, the valves should be out in the zones throughout the yard. These will be in small round plastic boxes with green lids that have been overgrown by grass or covered in mulch. In the grass you can walk about your yard with something such as a shovel tapping around until you hear a hollow sound. That's most likely it. Are you looking for one in a turf area or landscape beds? They should be easily found along where the pipes are running between the heads. Typical home system is installed with a path of least resistance mindset so you may find 2 or 3 valves really close to each other. Once found you should run the weedeater around them in the yard to keep them visible. In beds where they would get mulched over I push a short piece of pipe in the ground next to the box to make them easier to find. If you have a volt meter you can check the electrical side of things by disconnecting the wires for said zone at the controller and checking for resistance, if you have continuity then you have a valve problem. No continuity then you have a bad solenoid or bad wiring/connections somewhere else. Are you getting voltage to the terminals in the controller for said zone? Also some controllers can be real hokey about getting set up right. Old enough to remember the early VCRs that were such a beeotch to set? Hope this helps I'll look. What confused me was the control in garage in the rear of the house and the water line in the front yard. Seems bass ackwards. Either can be anywhere. I think most areas around here have the water coming in the front. That make it easy for city/water to get water to your house, fix said lines without going in your backyard, and read the meter without going in backyard. The controller is in the garage because you probably don't want it somewhere else in the house. "Oh love your kitchen! And that's the nicest sprinkler controller I've ever seen! Wish I had one like that." Ever hear that? The wiring is is just laid in the trenches with the pipe and goes and connect to all the valves. Can you tell if the conductors are individual #16 or #14 wires probably all red and a single white with real thick insulation or a black jacketes cable with a rainbow of colored wires that are closer #18 or maybe #16 with thinner insulation? The latter you might say looks like a heavy duty phone wire. This can be found at HD or Lowes to look at for example. The type of wire is not real critical unless it gets to be a real nightmare to troubleshoot. The good news is it sounds like you have a coil that is shorted because it only affects the one zone. Another possibility is short in the wiring running from controller to zone but to blow the fuse as you described to soowah you have to cross the wire for that zone and the common. Could happen out there but not as likely and only affect that zone. Your luck is probably better than mine in this regard. You are now back to your original question of how to find the valves out in the system. Irrigators can do some hair brained stuff sometimes but for the most part it makes sense how the system is laid. find the double check box or pressure vacuum breaker, this is the device that separates the sprinkler system from the regular water system. Visualize where the heads are and how to get pipe to them, think fast and using the least material. Or at least get an idea as to how the pipe might be laid from head to head. Go around this area with a shovel or some stick a little heavier than a broomstick hitting the ground listening for the hollow spot. When you find one don't just stick your finger in it pop the cover off, spiders and other critters love these things and might get offensive when you go turning the lights on while they're napping or hunting. There is also a possibility that the problem is not in the box for that zone, really like hearing that don't you? The wiring will likely run from box to box to box to box or maybe to another 2 or 3 from one box. Therefore you may have to find them all. If you find the one for said zone disconnect one wire from the coil and keep it from touching anything. Then do what you did to blow the fuse. If it doesn't this time then go get a coil and replace it and you should be good to go. If not then you have greater problems than I will be able to help you with by posting here. Enjoy! |
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Quoted: Residential system... 4 zones. Zone 3 quit working. The actual control module is in the garage. The wires come out and are buried. I don't know where the solenoids are but the pressure valve is in my front yard along with the water line tap. Is there way to find the solenoids? I was a licensened irrigator years ago. If you feel comfortable moving some wires around you can open up the control box, turn on one of the zones that you know is working, figure out which wire goes to that zone and short the rest of the zones to that terminal to see if they turn on. If they all work then your controller is bad, if the one zone still doesn't work then either the wire to that valve or the valve itself is bad. Most likely the valve for that zone went bad. It's going to be located close to the heads that aren't working. It's probably in a little plastic circular valve box. If the system has been there for a while the grass has probably grown over it and it will be impossible to see. When the system was installed the home owner is supposed to receive a blueprint or drawing of where the pipes are and how the system is laid out but in a lot of cases they don't or it gets thrown away. If you have that it's a plus because it will make it easier. You can use a metal detector to try and find the valve but what we've had to resort to in a lot of cases was to get a small diameter metal rod and go around poking in the ground until you hit it. In any case, you'll need to find that valve. Go to Home Depot, get another valve, some pvc pipe, pvc pipe connections and a little can of primer and glue. Turn all of the water off, dig out the valve and the surrounding pipe around it for two or three feet, cut the pipe with a hacksaw or buy a pipe cutter at HD if you want, then use your parts to put it all back together. Try not to get dirt in the pipe because it will go into the valve and cause it to stick open when you turn everything back on. It's really simple, the hardest part is usually finding the valve. |
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Depending on how long the system has been in place you may still be able to make out the trenches, slight low spots running in straight lines. This makes it real easy. If the valves are coming off the main line, line coming from the double check to supply all the valves, the valves should be out in the zones throughout the yard. These will be in small round plastic boxes with green lids that have been overgrown by grass or covered in mulch. In the grass you can walk about your yard with something such as a shovel tapping around until you hear a hollow sound. That's most likely it. Are you looking for one in a turf area or landscape beds? They should be easily found along where the pipes are running between the heads. Typical home system is installed with a path of least resistance mindset so you may find 2 or 3 valves really close to each other. Once found you should run the weedeater around them in the yard to keep them visible. In beds where they would get mulched over I push a short piece of pipe in the ground next to the box to make them easier to find. If you have a volt meter you can check the electrical side of things by disconnecting the wires for said zone at the controller and checking for resistance, if you have continuity then you have a valve problem. No continuity then you have a bad solenoid or bad wiring/connections somewhere else. Are you getting voltage to the terminals in the controller for said zone? Also some controllers can be real hokey about getting set up right. Old enough to remember the early VCRs that were such a beeotch to set? Hope this helps Yeah I have done this before at my old house but i knew where stuff was. I may try following the pipe tomorrow. I'll look. What confused me was the control in garage in the rear of the house and the water line in the front yard. Seems bass ackwards. Either can be anywhere. I think most areas around here have the water coming in the front. That make it easy for city/water to get water to your house, fix said lines without going in your backyard, and read the meter without going in backyard. The controller is in the garage because you probably don't want it somewhere else in the house. "Oh love your kitchen! And that's the nicest sprinkler controller I've ever seen! Wish I had one like that." Ever hear that? The wiring is is just laid in the trenches with the pipe and goes and connect to all the valves. Can you tell if the conductors are individual #16 or #14 wires probably all red and a single white with real thick insulation or a black jacketes cable with a rainbow of colored wires that are closer #18 or maybe #16 with thinner insulation? The latter you might say looks like a heavy duty phone wire. This can be found at HD or Lowes to look at for example. The type of wire is not real critical unless it gets to be a real nightmare to troubleshoot. The good news is it sounds like you have a coil that is shorted because it only affects the one zone. Another possibility is short in the wiring running from controller to zone but to blow the fuse as you described to soowah you have to cross the wire for that zone and the common. Could happen out there but not as likely and only affect that zone. Your luck is probably better than mine in this regard. You are now back to your original question of how to find the valves out in the system. Irrigators can do some hair brained stuff sometimes but for the most part it makes sense how the system is laid. find the double check box or pressure vacuum breaker, this is the device that separates the sprinkler system from the regular water system. Visualize where the heads are and how to get pipe to them, think fast and using the least material. Or at least get an idea as to how the pipe might be laid from head to head. Go around this area with a shovel or some stick a little heavier than a broomstick hitting the ground listening for the hollow spot. When you find one don't just stick your finger in it pop the cover off, spiders and other critters love these things and might get offensive when you go turning the lights on while they're napping or hunting. There is also a possibility that the problem is not in the box for that zone, really like hearing that don't you? The wiring will likely run from box to box to box to box or maybe to another 2 or 3 from one box. Therefore you may have to find them all. If you find the one for said zone disconnect one wire from the coil and keep it from touching anything. Then do what you did to blow the fuse. If it doesn't this time then go get a coil and replace it and you should be good to go. If not then you have greater problems than I will be able to help you with by posting here. Enjoy! |
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Do you have a multimeter? If so, open up the control box and test the resistance on all the valve wires. Normal is I think 13 ohms. Higher means the solenoid is broken. Zero means one of the wires is broken.
For finding the valve boxes, there is a tool you can rent at the sprinkler supply house that makes them chirp. You can also turn the zone on and listen for the humming sound. (Or if you're in the San Antonio area, I'm licensed and I do sprinkler work for ammo) 
edit - oh yeah it looks like you need a new solenoid. |
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Sprinkler guy found it today with a line tracer, about 20 feet from where we both thought it should be and under 4 inches of soil. Worth my $60. I had that exact experience. but my valve was on the other side of one of my driveways from the zone that was messed up. go figure. but now I know what to buy to find the lost valve if (when) it happens again. "chatterbox" know it.....remember it. |
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Any sprinkler guys here in Houston?
My Rainbird system is acting up, or not acting at all really. The control box is working fine, but no water coming out anywhere when I run a manual cycle, or it is on auto. I had it shut off for about a month, probably a bad idea, and now it does not want to work. I guess maybe a stuck main valve or something... |
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Any sprinkler guys here in Houston? My Rainbird system is acting up, or not acting at all really. The control box is working fine, but no water coming out anywhere when I run a manual cycle, or it is on auto. I had it shut off for about a month, probably a bad idea, and now it does not want to work. I guess maybe a stuck main valve or something... Tried manually activating an individual control valve? You can either turn the little plastic screw or the coil, CCW to turn on for either. |
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Quoted: Any sprinkler guys here in Houston? My Rainbird system is acting up, or not acting at all really. The control box is working fine, but no water coming out anywhere when I run a manual cycle, or it is on auto. I had it shut off for about a month, probably a bad idea, and now it does not want to work. I guess maybe a stuck main valve or something... That's what it sounds like. |
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Any sprinkler guys here in Houston? My Rainbird system is acting up, or not acting at all really. The control box is working fine, but no water coming out anywhere when I run a manual cycle, or it is on auto. I had it shut off for about a month, probably a bad idea, and now it does not want to work. I guess maybe a stuck main valve or something... That's what it sounds like. Or his common wire is broken Or his clock isn't putting out any power to the valves. Or his rain sensor is fubared. |
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Quoted: Or his common wire is broken - Since this happens a lot Or his clock isn't putting out any power to the valves. - Again, possible, but not normal Or his rain sensor is fubared. - Shouldn't matter when he tries to run it in manual Just playing the odds here. If the water doesn't come on, odds are it's a valve. 
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Quoted: Last Monday I fixed one of those. The installer had tied the rain sensor directly into the common wire. So when the weed eater came along and snapped the rain sensor wire near the ground, the whole system ceased to work. Yeah, even on manual. That's an installation issue. Rain sensors should be setup to have the system normally on and then off if it's raining, not normally off and then on when it's not raining. Whoever did that is an idiot. |
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Last Monday I fixed one of those. The installer had tied the rain sensor directly into the common wire. So when the weed eater came along and snapped the rain sensor wire near the ground, the whole system ceased to work. Yeah, even on manual. That's an installation issue. Rain sensors should be setup to have the system normally on and then off if it's raining, not normally off and then on when it's not raining. Whoever did that is an idiot. 90% of the installs are done by idiots. |