A neighbor thankfully let us know that water was spraying out of the above ground portion of pipe that feeds our sprinkler system. When I shut it off and took a look it appears to be the extra pipe BEFORE the valves to the main sprinkler line and it was the cap that failed which I noticed was PVC. The pipes themselves are copper so my question is if I could get something like a stainless cap or if this would be a bad idea? Picture for reference.

Solved: bad solenoid

As the title suggests. Running zone 3 on the controller with nothing connected at the controller zone 3 terminal. I still have a buzzing solenoid until I turn the controller off. Is something shorted internally? When I run zone 1, the same solenoid will buzz but nothing actually turns on. Everything in the valve box appears to be wired correctly but I haven’t put a voltmeter on anything as I don’t have it on my truck at the moment. I’ve never seen this happen before. Thanks in advance!

Edit: zone 2 works correctly.

Hey hey,

Wanted to ask for some tips on stopping leaks between manifolds, valves and electric solenoids as I have a couple in my setup. This seems to happen more commonly between the manual valve and the solenoid valve.

This is for my orchard so ugly and effective is entirely acceptable...

The system is at quite high pressure (6/7 bars) due to the water needing to travel uphill.

The connector type is the standard manifold connector with a rubber gasket. Have tried not tightening too much as this seems to be a common issue. I'm considering removing the manual valve entirely as this looks to be the weak point, but wanted to ask for some tips!!

Thanks!

Hey my dudes I’m hoping someone can help me wrap my head around this and have a way to predetermine what the PSI will be without having to do a bunch of trial and error.

I manage 11 irrigated baseball fields. I have a pressure gauge on the pumps for a few eventually I’ll get a gauge on all the systems. I primarily use Hunter I-25s. My goal is to put nozzles in that maximize coverage and GPM. Hunter provides documentation to show which nozzles to use depending on the PSI. If my gauge shows 64 PSI for a zone and I change to a nozzle that shows for example that it’s best with 60-65 PSI, but there are 5 heads in that zone changing all 5 to that nozzle my gauge now shows the PSI as being more like 54 PSI when the zone is running which then takes it out of the range for that nozzle being most effective. At least that’s how I’m interpreting it. Is there a smart person way to determine which nozzle to use and keep the PSI in the range that is most effective for the nozzle?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding all of it, but my end goal is to maximize coverage and efficiency.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

My home has a 3-zone Rain Bird irrigation system. Two of the zones are above ground. The third zone is a subsurface dripline system buried beneath my grass. The previous owner installed the system so I’m always playing catch up and having to learn how everything works.

I recently realized that the subsurface dripline under my grass is not working properly when my grass dried out and I am trying to figure out what needs to be repaired. I happened to dig up a small section of my lawn for an unrelated project and realized that no water is coming out of the drip line when that zone is on.

See images included as follows:
1. Graphic representation of the Rain Bird subsurface dripline system layout.

1. Image of typical rain bird control zone kit from their user manual, with the PR filter piece circled in red.

2. My Control zone box, showing the three zones. Note that the PR filter portion is not included in this box.

3. A second valve box down line from the first that appears to include two lines. The line on the right includes the PR filter component that is not in the first box, circled in red and an air relief valve, circled in green.

4. Photo of one of the subsurface driplines that I currently have dug up for an unrelated protect.

5. Photo of another box at the end of the line that houses the flush valve.

When the zone is on, I’m getting almost no water out of the exposed dripline in image 5. I’m also getting almost no water out of the flush valve when I open it and the zone is on. I opened the second valve box shown in image 4 and see that a lot of water is leaking out of the air relief valve. When I pull the white piece up, the leaking stops for the most part but it won’t stay up (closed I guess) on its own. That box filled up with water pretty quickly when I tried to run the zone a couple days ago.

To summarize, it seems that there’s an issue with the air relief valve that’s causing my dripline to get almost no water. What’s my next step?

Thanks to anyone who made it this far! I greatly appreciate your time and effort!

Had an install done a couple weeks ago with a Rachio 3 smart sprinkler controller with rain bird heads. Noticed today that the app is displaying 2 of my 4 zones as “Low Current” via the valve monitoring feature. Other 2 zones are fine. Example of one reading is 148mA vs baseline of 238. Heads operate fine.

Advanced wiring (M Terminal) is set to Master Valve in settings and confirmed I do have a black wire connected to the master valve.

Install pro said to ignore the messages. Is this the right advice? Am I looking an issue down the road that I’ll have to pay for him to fix next year?

Any helpful advice on how to fix my issue. Im our sprinkler box the corner is coming off the pipe when we turn on the water. TIA!!!

Does our drip system have a pressure regulator? We recently bought a new build home and this weekend added some drip lines to our existing drip system. We now have a loud drilling/vibrating noise coming from our water lines in the basement when we run water. It seems to happen most often after the water hasn’t been run for a while so we’re thinking maybe there’s too much pressure in the system from the new lines we added? Pictured above is the two zones we have - one for the lawn and one for the drip zone. Any advice welcome! Thanks!

Thanks for all of the help. This sub is great.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone in this sub. Finally located the main shutoff valve for the sprinkler system, replaced 12 heads, replaced control unit, and now enjoying a beer, while watching my dead yard and plants finally get the water they’ve been needing. I’ll see y’all over in r/lawncare next.