Moved in a week ago and this is the second thing to break.
March 15, 2012 8:17 PM Subscribe
Could a loose ground wire explain my sprinkler system troubles?
Last week, the sprinklers worked just fine. Yesterday, we had a water softening system installed, which necessitated some digging for a line.
Today, we tried to use our sprinklers, and the only zone that watered was the one closest to the control box. I noticed yesterday that the installer did uncover some sprinkler wires during his excavation, at a point that likely would have impacted all sprinklers except the working one.
Could he have accidentally loosened the single ground wire, which would have then caused all sprinklers after the loose point to fail, yet still allow the one before the loose point to work?
What other explanation could explain why all the sprinklers past this point don't function? I don't think he could have severed every hot wire to cause the failure that way....are there any other explanations for this strange sprinkler symptom?
We are having the company who installed the softener come to fix the issue, but some good ideas would certainly be appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Last week, the sprinklers worked just fine. Yesterday, we had a water softening system installed, which necessitated some digging for a line.
Today, we tried to use our sprinklers, and the only zone that watered was the one closest to the control box. I noticed yesterday that the installer did uncover some sprinkler wires during his excavation, at a point that likely would have impacted all sprinklers except the working one.
Could he have accidentally loosened the single ground wire, which would have then caused all sprinklers after the loose point to fail, yet still allow the one before the loose point to work?
What other explanation could explain why all the sprinklers past this point don't function? I don't think he could have severed every hot wire to cause the failure that way....are there any other explanations for this strange sprinkler symptom?
We are having the company who installed the softener come to fix the issue, but some good ideas would certainly be appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
If your sprinklers are connected in parallel (imagine sprinklers replacing resistors in the diagram), cutting either wire after the first sprinkler would leave the first working and kill the rest.
posted by jamjam at 9:48 PM on March 15, 2012
posted by jamjam at 9:48 PM on March 15, 2012
A few years ago I spent a huge amount of time (and money) fixing a long abused sprinkler system.
Sprinkler valves are NOT connected in parallel. A parallel connected system would only allow you to turn all the valves on and off at the same time which would defeat the purpose of having more than one valve. The reason you have more than one valve is that you don't have enough water pressure to run the whole system at once. If you did turn on all the valves you would just dribble water out of all the sprinkler heads.
Your system has a large ground/return wire that connects all the valves back to the controller. It also has a individual wire (typically smaller) for each valve. All these wire are usually run together past all the valves with the so it perfectly possible that the installer broke all of them simultaneously.
So you could either get the installer to find and fix all the broken wires or do it yourself. If you decide to fix it yourself you will need 'direct bury' wire connectors (example). Don't use ordinary wire nuts since they will quickly corrode and stop working. There are also special sprinkler system wire nuts that are filled with silicone grease to prevent corrosion. (example), don't get these since they're just waterproof and meant to be in the sprinkler valve box.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:20 AM on March 16, 2012
Sprinkler valves are NOT connected in parallel. A parallel connected system would only allow you to turn all the valves on and off at the same time which would defeat the purpose of having more than one valve. The reason you have more than one valve is that you don't have enough water pressure to run the whole system at once. If you did turn on all the valves you would just dribble water out of all the sprinkler heads.
Your system has a large ground/return wire that connects all the valves back to the controller. It also has a individual wire (typically smaller) for each valve. All these wire are usually run together past all the valves with the so it perfectly possible that the installer broke all of them simultaneously.
So you could either get the installer to find and fix all the broken wires or do it yourself. If you decide to fix it yourself you will need 'direct bury' wire connectors (example). Don't use ordinary wire nuts since they will quickly corrode and stop working. There are also special sprinkler system wire nuts that are filled with silicone grease to prevent corrosion. (example), don't get these since they're just waterproof and meant to be in the sprinkler valve box.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:20 AM on March 16, 2012
Response by poster: Update:
I was able to use a multimeter to read what is going on at the sprinkler controller.
For the zone that functions, when turned on, I am able to read a 26VAC current through the wires. When off, I am able to read 55 ohms resistance.
For every other zone, when I turn an individual zone on, I read 26VAC going through the wires. When off, I read 0 ohms resistance. So this is consistent with a broken wire(s) right?
But it gets weirder:
Strangely, when I turn on one non-functional zone, I am able to read 26VAC through all the other non-functioning zones as well. The functioning zones read 0VAC, as I would expect because it is supposed to be off. Please, why is this happening?
I dug up the area the installer dug, and found the wires, but found no obvious breaks in the wires. Did we somehow short my controller box?
posted by nasayre at 11:13 AM on March 16, 2012
I was able to use a multimeter to read what is going on at the sprinkler controller.
For the zone that functions, when turned on, I am able to read a 26VAC current through the wires. When off, I am able to read 55 ohms resistance.
For every other zone, when I turn an individual zone on, I read 26VAC going through the wires. When off, I read 0 ohms resistance. So this is consistent with a broken wire(s) right?
But it gets weirder:
Strangely, when I turn on one non-functional zone, I am able to read 26VAC through all the other non-functioning zones as well. The functioning zones read 0VAC, as I would expect because it is supposed to be off. Please, why is this happening?
I dug up the area the installer dug, and found the wires, but found no obvious breaks in the wires. Did we somehow short my controller box?
posted by nasayre at 11:13 AM on March 16, 2012
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posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:22 PM on March 15, 2012