Rachio 2 zone won't turn off

I have a Rachio Gen 2 that’s been working great, and believe the controller itself is fine. Starting 3 days ago only one of my zones turns on and runs for about 5 hours before shutting off. This occurs after the morning schedule turns on and off and before the evening schedule does the same. I checked my Rachio controller, as well as the app, and the system shows as off.

I test the system by running a manual cycle through all zones and each zone turns on and off manually, all while the one zone continues to water. I unplugged the controller from the wall and the zone continues watering.

I’m not sure how to fix this other than to shut off the water to the entire system, because if it was a defective valve or similar how would the system shut off on it’s own after about 5 hours? It’s been doing this at the same time each morning and ending at the same time - as though it was on a schedule.

Any help is appreciated.

Rob

@lsu1993 - sounds like there is debris in that valve. I’d clean out or rebuild that valve. Sometimes one can clean out a valve by turning off the water, removing the solenoid and then turning on the water for a period of time to flush things out through the solenoid opening. Other times one needs to take the valve apart and replace a diaphragm.

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I just got my Gen 2 and had a similiar problem. What i did was adjust the value and that fixed the problem.

Hello Retired,
I have the same problem as lsu1993. You said you were able to fix this problem. What does “adjusting the valve mean”. What exactly did you do?
Thanks in advance.

@hk1975, to increase the odds that you’ll get a reply I’d mention @Retired (like that) in the post or send them a direct message by clicking on their icon and then the message button.

They may have tried what I suggested: turn off the water, remove the solenoid valve, turn on the water to flush out the valve through the solenoid opening, turn off the water and put the solenoid valve back in.

When you say “adjust the value” what do you mean? My Gen 2 was working fine for a month, but now my zones all turn on and off properly only from the wall unit. When I run from the app… zone 1 never turns off; even when the rest of the zones go through their time. And I can’t turn off zone 1 with the app either… hmm.

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Rachio 2 controller does not shut off zone

Same happened to me. My Zone 6 that controls my backyard plants and bushes by the pool would turn on but not shut off at the end if it’s scheduled run. Drove me crazy! I had to shut off the sprinkler system manually at the main water shut off valve everytime that zone ran. I called a professional and he says that the solenoid and valve for that zone are still clean and ran tests. Valve and solenoid were fine.

So here’s what I found. My Rachio 3 was connected to my 5Ghz network of my router. Just as an experiment, I changed it to my 2.4Ghz network. Low and behold as soon as Zone 6 ran again, it turned off at the end of it’s schedule and has been working since! My guess is that my router and Rachio 3 controller are slightly too far apart so that when Zone 6 runs, the 5Ghz signal drops so by the time Zone 6 should be finished running, there might be some communication cut off between my Rachio 3 controller and router that the message to stop the Zone is not received. The 2.4Ghz network has a stronger range and thus the connection between router and Rachio 3 controller remains stable. Why only is this affecting Zone 6 and not my other 5 Zones is beyond me! Rachio 3 needs a better 5Ghz radio controller or perhaps a newer firmware update to fix this zone shutoff issue that some are having.

WiFi cannot account for the issue you are describing. Any command to start a zone also contains the duration information, that is why it’s impossible to start a manual run without specifying how long it has to run. Even if WiFi drops the second a manual or scheduled run starts, the controller will have all of the information it needs to complete the irrigation. This is also why, in case your internet goes down, Rachio will continue to abide by the regular schedule.

How were your valve / solenoid tested & deemed good? Were they taken apart for a detailed examination or simply turned on / off once and deemed good?

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