Thanks, man.

Hey, I'm glad to help. Thanks for the followup!

Irvin Rogers Thanks, man!

Thanks for the followup, I"m sure others will find your example useful.

+Ken Osborn No problem, thanks for the followup. If you live in a frost area, remember to carefully blow out each branch of the system, one at a time, with compressed air in the fall. It's pretty easy to do if you have a good compressor, with as large a tank as you can afford. You don't want high air pressure but you do want a good volume tank. I routinely leave all the solenoid valves open in the winter to avoid pooling of any remaining condensed water behind the valve.

What a kind remark, you made my day!

I agree with Doug B

Hello I'm we doing my garden as well it looks really good I'm doing it professionally. My parents have the exact same system you just showed I know it well and the how it was built

That's a good plan. If you are looking for an inexpensive substitute for those specialized connectors, look for "dielectric grease" in any autoparts store. One tube will last a lifetime, and you'll find lots of uses for it if you do any kind of auto repair. Some technicians put it on every electrical connector they open, to prevent oxidation and electrical shorting. The grease is a nonconductive barrier to water, oxygen, and other impurities.

Thanks!

Hey man, it is so nice to hear from you, after all these years. You still working on cars? I did another more recent video on how the valves work, they have an intriguing design. Around this time of year, sprinkler videos get more action, ha ha.

Thank you for the kind feedback!

You're welcome, I'm glad it helped.

Thanks!

tomificationable You're welcome, thank you for the feedback.

Thanks!

Oh, this is a riot: I've just finished a big hardscaping/remodeling project involving a six zone irrigation system. My guys couldn't get it working, so I had to roll up my sleeves, bust out the continuity tester/voltmeter/line tracer and diagnose it myself. When I was probing the bad solenoid hypothesis, I pulled up THAT VERY SAME VIDEO. Seriously. About two weeks ago. I remember thinking that guy was very helpful.  Turned out to be the Rain Bird controller; when you short out one of the circuits, the controller takes that zone out of service until you fix the short and reset the controller. My guys had shorted out half the circuits while thrashing around with the lines. They got them all straight, but they never reset the controller, so confusion ensued. Speaking of Bob Ross, are you aware of the whole ASMR cult? it's actually huge business on KZfaq.

Thomas Scoville spelunkerd I had the sprinkler system installed in the house I'm in right now years ago, when I was traveling. Now that something was wrong with it, I had to both familiarize myself, as well as learn the interface to my controller, remember pascals law so I could recall how these valves work, pull out my multi-meter, and remember where everything comes and goes, because in America no one marks anything (very odd). When I got to my first valve I realized I should do a quick check on the web. While I know how all of it works, it was really wonderful having someone just calmly walk through the 1 2 3 of it. So, I walked back outside, started at the controller, and followed it to its end. Of note, everything is working now, not because I did anything clever or smart, but it seemed ultimately that unscrewing the sprinkler valve assembly, and just putting it back together again made everything happy again. I'm now going to label everything, and draw arrows for water direction on the pipes.

Thomas Scoville ASMR - Yes. LOL I even know people into it.

Reichart Von Wolfsheild oh, labeling is a pathology with me. Compulsion. I have a label maker, a dozen different kinds of line tags, and fine line sharpies at the ready. You should see my work in the server room and the punch-down block. In a similar vein, you might want to check out www.reddit.com/r/cableporn. Not what you think: it's a forum for OCD server-room line jockeys. Lots of zip tie embroidery and Velcro straps and color-coding schema. We obsessives take control where we can. 

I"m glad it helped, thanks for the followup.

Great, thanks for the followup, I'm glad it helped.

Finding a broken wire can be tricky if it's in a garden. There are moderately expensive tools to help do that (trace wires and find breaks), but for a big area it might be simplest to just run another wire. Before doing that double check the connections at both ends, which are always problematic areas. Good luck!

+spelunkerd luckily the wires are bundled, and we had a few redundant wires, so we just swapped in one of the unused wires at both ends and it worked like a charm.

I love remarks like this. It says I'm hitting my target audience, guys like you and me (grin).

Thanks! I did a few other videos that homeowners might find interesting, too, including a couple on hot water tanks.

I find it interesting to see how you have the personality to cultivate a dedicated following of viewers, soon to eclipse my subscriber list in the next couple of months. My videos on the other hand are almost all found through Google searches by homeowners who have a problem, wanting a deep dive into understanding how their system works. I admire people who are able to captivate an audience, but in any case these humble old videos still serve useful a role.

Thanks!

+Enid Baldock Ha ha, thanks.

Thank you.

Cool, thanks for the followup.

+Javier Lopez Thank you.

I hoped Google would find people like you (and me), analytic thinkers who have the curiosity to understand how things work. Thanks for the feedback, it worked!

Thanks, man, you're right. I've rarely made a video that I didn't think was glaringly amateur in some way, and especially audio has been a steep learning curve. There's a balance between showing everything and keeping viewers entertained. Showing every step is better for serious viewers, but I try to respect the time of all viewers by reducing how long they need to sit still, ha ha!

***** Thanks, man. The first things you should check are, first, the manual shutoff valve inside the house. Then check to be sure that the solenoids are all manually closed. Over winter, most homeowners leave the solenoids manually open so that water can't pool near the valves, possibly destroying them in a freeze. That's usually done as the final stage after blowing out the circuit with compressed air in the fall. If you try to restart without closing all the solenoid valves, then every valve is left open and the water can't build up enough water pressure to drive any sprinkler head.

Thanks! So far ive had to repair a break in the line where a new main water line was installed and broke the irrigation line in two. Luckily my system is lake fed and I was able to get the pump up and running after replacing a bad relay. Ive manually opened all of the values and I have at least 1 that is stuck open and 1 with a broken solenoid line somewhere between the timer and the solenoid (fun). Sadly it was in the high 90s today so I surrendered after fixing the water break. Tomorrow's another day! 

***** The broken wire problem can eat a lot of time. If you've ruled out a connector issue it's sometimes easier to run a new line. There is a device, colloquially called a 'fox and hound' tool to help hunt down a broken wire, but those can be expensive. You could make your own fox and hound set with headphones and some kind of electronic noise generator, but that would be a weekend project, too. Good luck!

Yep im planning on running a new line. Not even gonna try to find the break lol. Thanks for all the help!

spelunkerd

Thanks, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks, I'm glad it helped. Funny how people talk about my accent, I never noticed, ha ha.

Some systems have a manual control that will adjust how much the valve opens with the solenoid, I would look for and try that first. Make sure the solenoid is tightened all the way down, and I would remove it carefully and clean the seat. If that fails you could temporarily swap a neighbour solenoid to see if it works better. If it does, then it's time to replace the solenoid, they aren't very expensive.

Hello sir thanks for the prompt response been 5 tears for this video. I'll check that. My diaphragms are the same as the ones in your video

Thanks!

I didn't know that! Thanks for adding your thoughts to the thread, for others to see.

You make a good point, that is the technique used by many professionals who have replacement parts handy and who can easily recognize the situation. Coming from the auto repair field, some parts are special orders and hundreds of dollars, so it makes sense prove the part is bad before replacing it. I like testing because it gives me insight as to how the system works, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do the testing.

spelunkerd

Thanks, there's always more to learn. If a whole sprinkler zone won't shut off at all, it is often a problem inside the valve. Hunter valves have a small passageway that can get blocked with debris, preventing the solenoid from allowing the valve to open when power to the solenoid is removed. You open the valve and clean it out, pass a small wire into that opening to be sure it's unblocked. Hunter have a video here on KZfaq showing how that is done. If you think it's an electrical problem you could measure voltage at the solenoid to be sure it turns off when the time limit for watering on that zone expires. If the voltage fails to drop, you've got a programming issue. When one zone fails to close, all the others that are up next won't work properly because water pressure in the line is too low to open the next zone in line.

Norj Be if your sprinkler head is not shutting off that is an indication that the zone valve is weeping due to a bad valve solenoid seal or bad diaphragm which is in my opinion best to replace both and be done.

Yes, originally from Alberta, ha ha. Thanks for watching.

The major clue is the fact you couldn't get them on by opening manually. I would abandon any though this is an electrical problem or a problem in the solenoids. Valves can stick shut mechanically, but it is a little unusual for that to affect two valves at the same time. One commonly neglected cause is poor system pressure from a leak somewhere else. If pressure is too low to drive fluid through the line (such as with a different valve that is sticking open, or a leak somewhere), your valve can open but not deliver adequate volume to pop sprinkler heads up.... Valves sticking open can be intermittent, and system pressure can be low because other appliances in the home can rob the sprinkler system of adequate water pressure. When the sprinkler system goes through its cycle, pay attention to those zones that get water before the problem zones. Make sure those zones turn off properly, and make sure there is no puddle of water forming where it shouldn't be. Good luck!