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2 Sprinklers will not come on

mac3457

Unregistered

1

Monday, March 26th 2012, 1:41pm

2 Sprinklers will not come on

Hi,
Well I recently purchased an older home back in May and noticed that 2 of the 4 heads in the back yard were not coming up. Now that Spring is rolling around I'm getting my sprinkler system turned back on and wanted to figure out my problem. I removed the heads completely from the line and turned the system on and water is not shooting up sky high from the pipes. So no water is getting to the pipe. I have dug up the pipe from the non working heads and found no breakage. I also noticed that the 2 heads that do work are on their own seperate pipe. I'm assuming my problem is in the valve ad wiring box area. The system looks pretty old school compared to pictures I've seen on here of valves and components. Any help as how to troubleshoot or what to check or replace would be appreciated. All other sprinklers on my system work perfectly minus the 2 heads in my back yard.
Thank you :)

grey

Advanced Member

Posts: 90

Location: Eastern WA

2

Monday, March 26th 2012, 2:26pm

Are all 4 heads on the same zone? Any tree roots in the area?

wsommariva

Supreme Member

Posts: 332

Location: Northern New Jersey

3

Monday, March 26th 2012, 2:42pm

Check the valves. You may have one valve for those two sprinklers and the valve is bad. Go to the valves and put them on manually using the bleed screws. If water comes out of those two sprinklers, then you have located the problem valve. Then check if you have current going to that valve using a multimeter, or just listen to it. You may hear it working. If no current, fix it. If you have current, then the valve needs to be fixed or replaced.

Pictures would help.

mac3457

Unregistered

4

Monday, March 26th 2012, 10:14pm

According to the pipes I dug up, the sprinklers are on different zones. I found 2 other pipes when I reached the corner of my house that led to the 2 working heads and the other pipe to nowhere other then the end being above ground and capped off for like a future zone. I do have a picture of this. Which I can't attach, cause its asking for a URL.

I do have 4 valves up front that are totally buried and can only see the top of the solenoid valve. It totally is not professionally done, so who ever did it, did it themselves and did a shotty job of doing it. I think wsommariva is right. I have a feeling its a valve. And until I get the valves unburied from the dirt around them I'm unable to provide pictures of that, otherwise I would have for you. But I will do what you suggested. Thank you.

wsommariva

Supreme Member

Posts: 332

Location: Northern New Jersey

5

Tuesday, March 27th 2012, 6:32am

Do you think the capped off zone was for those two heads?

mac3457

Unregistered

6

Tuesday, March 27th 2012, 9:03am

No, because the two pipes are not connected at all. I really wish I could attach my pic. In any case I have an old school Rain Bird controller that can only control 4 zones and I turned each zone on manually and nothing turns on for zones 2 and 4. Zone 1 is my front yard. And zone 3 is the 2 good working heads in the backyard.

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 3,615

Location: Metro NYC

7

Tuesday, March 27th 2012, 9:58am

Check your wiring for continuity. Find the valve(s) that feed the non-operating heads and manually open and close them.

wsommariva

Supreme Member

Posts: 332

Location: Northern New Jersey

8

Tuesday, March 27th 2012, 1:43pm

When you turn on 2 and 4 does water flow through the valve? Maybe you can hear it, or if you water meter has an indicator you can see it spin assuming all other water in the house is off. If water flows through the meter but not out any sprinklers, I guess you have a break in the PE or PVC.

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