SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

okay... i am a total newbie here.... sorry.... i recently just moved into a new house with a sprinkler timer system on the front sprinklers and a seperate timer system on the rear sprinklers. These sprinklers had not been turned on 3 months.

I was able to program the front zones and all went well there. I had to replace the unit with a Toro 4 zone auto timer in the back. I guessed with the wiring as the instructions were not the greatest..... it is 3 zones, i spliced the left wire of all 3 zones to the 'COM' on the timer and then each zone had their own (right wire) to the 'SL1', "SL2", etc...

Okay... so i could not get the sprinklers to manually start so waited until the timer went off.... it was dark. I heard some load vibration noise from the main waterline... so i went out to the street where the main shut off valve is and the meter was out of control spinning super fast and loud!!.... by the time i went to the back yard the zone one was already switching to zone 2, so i was unable to see if water was normal flow or what.... but the grass was wet.... not soaking. .... and the rest of the zones went on fine. So, long and run on of my story.... but what the heck is going on with zone 1 and why is my main water meter spinning out of control when it came on? What should i check? what does this sound like it is signaling?

well, yeah... i just didn't have a chance until it was light out... today (but currently at work)..... but in the mean time i was wondering if anyone knew what this symptom could be signaling??? just to have some top things to troubleshoot first.

Wild Guesses are greatly appreciated!! I was looking for anything to check out.



Okay.... so here is the update since i was able to run the zone 1 yesterday in the light :-)..... The timer came on like it should.... ran the time specified. Now... i did go out and check the main water valve meter at the street and the dial was still going crazy (only with zone 1) but the flow coming out of the actual sprinklers was normal.... maybe a lower flow... but not too far off. The valve itself had no leaks squirting out of it and the ground after the sprinklers ran was not swap saturated anywhere... was watered normal. Okay... so any clue what the problem is now? or what to replace or check next?

and one more SEPERATE question... zone 3 valve has a tiny spray leak out of the anti-siphon side when that zone is running its sprinklers. No reduction in flow..... can i use RTV on the threads on that anti-siphon side to get a little more life out of that valve?

YES and No... the craziness with the water meter spinning out of control while running zone one stops when it moves to the next zone, but will stay crazy the whole time zone 1 is running.

and no, zone 1 doesnt really have any more heads than the others.... actually there are only like 4 or 5... my zone 2 has the most but no craziness there.

i did open the bleeder screw a bit and just some water came out but didn't change the sprinkler flow at all really.

and the flow i assume is the plus sign type handle (sorry... pretty new to sprinkler stuff)... it is all the way open and when i closed it a bit... didn't really effect anything either.