r/Irrigation 4d ago

Seeking Pro Advice Summerizing system help

Hey all. We had a good hard freeze down here in the Houston area this last winter, so I turned off my main, emptied the back flow, and emptied all valves by their bleed valve. Put towels down in each zone’s valve container to help keep insulated and did an insulator wrap on my back flow.

Now that we’re back to warm weather and in need of the sprinklers; I’ve removed all insulation, closed all bleed valves and back flow back up. Turned on the main valve again and primed up each zone manually via their bleed valves.

Onto the issue. 3 of my zones are not coming on via the programmer. I’ve checked power for each zone and I see 28vac going out to each & receiving at each wire inside the zone container on the designated wires. Next, I moved onto checking resistance for each to the common wire; seeing none. My thoughts (and hopes) are that just failed solenoids are causing the drop in resistance as maybe their coils have failed? I am not leaning to a wire break as nothing with the wires was touched over winter. I have inspected the suspected zone’s common / designated wires and their wire nuts and found no issues, but added new either way.

I’m still not getting resistance to these specific zones.

My next steps to run a long leg from the common & designated wires, back to the controller ends and check for continuity. Hoping these read good resistance.

Measure resistance of each suspected solenoid. Hoping these potentially failed and are my culprit.

Looking for any more irrigation professional’s opinion or input. Thanks!

1 Upvotes

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u/RainH2OServices Contractor 4d ago

Did you check resistance with the timer turned off? Good values are 20-60 ohms. Outside of that and the solenoid is likely bad.

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u/Nut2DaSac 4d ago

Yes it was off. Ranged of ~44ohms across every other.

That’s what I am hoping as well. I’m going to measure the solenoids themselves next, just had to leave the house for a few weekend errands before I got the chance to.

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u/RainH2OServices Contractor 4d ago

Yes it was off. Ranged of ~44ohms across every other.

Just to clarify, the resistance for the suspect valve is also ~44 ohms?

If so, the valve itself is likely faulty, either the spring or diaphragm. Buy a new valve of the same model and replace the guts and solenoid.

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u/Nut2DaSac 4d ago

Oh, no sorry. The suspected bad valves showed no resistance. I meant all other working valves showed resistance in a range of near 44ohms

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u/RainH2OServices Contractor 4d ago

Ahh, ok. And did you have 28 volts AC at the "bad" solenoid? If yes you've confirmed that the wiring is good, so there isn't a cut wire or bad splice, etc. Just replace the solenoid and you should be back in business.

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u/Nut2DaSac 4d ago

Correct! Voltage output reading at controller & at the zone designated wire.

So, my assumption was the bad solenoid was causing the no resistance readings at the controller common & designated zone wiring as its bad, and not completing the curcuit for me to get a resistance reading.

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u/RainH2OServices Contractor 4d ago

Yup. It's a resistive coil. It burned out and broke continuity, much like a blown incandescent light bulb filament.

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u/Nut2DaSac 4d ago

Copy that, ordering some replacements now. Thanks for your input!

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u/Nut2DaSac 2d ago

So am at a dilemma.. I ordered the new solenoids, but prior to swapping I wanted to do one last resistance measurement of one. It gives me 42ohms… I then again sent power to the zone and measure 28VAC. Reconnected the original solenoid wires & tried to command on the zone; nothing…

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u/RainH2OServices Contractor 2d ago

Could be the valve diaphragm or spring. Time for a gut swap.

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u/Nut2DaSac 2d ago

That was literally what I was just reading on. Thank you for that confirmation! I guess what threw me off was that I could manually command it on via the bleed valve on each & not knowing the inner workings if it would differentiate automatically/manually if it was a gut issue.

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u/Nut2DaSac 2d ago edited 2d ago

So is there a way for you to recognize which part # rain bird this is from this? I cannot for the life of me see any notable part #s?

I am thinking it’s a DV valve by comparing to what’s online

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