All stations stopped working

Troubleshooting
1
  1. I weeded through all the posts, but they seem to be focused on controller not working (dead). I am confident my controller is working and wired properly.
  2. Noob here to the technicalities of the sprinkler world so be gentle.
  3. If there is a troubleshooting post already out there that can walk me through this, I would greatly appreciate the link and thank you in advance.

Had an older Rainbird ESP-Me panel, 6 zones. Eight years, no problems. All the stations stopped working last week - controller display is on, says it’s turning on the stations, etc. but the stations no longer work. All of them. I hoped this was a simple controller problem/death so I purchased the Rachio 3 and installed it. Confident wiring is exactly as stated and matching old unit. Set it all up and still nothing works.

So I assume, the problem is “in the ground.” OK, maybe obvious.
I also assume, again not knowing much about systems like these, that the problem would be somewhere between the controller and the first underground junction point? I picture the underground “stuff” to be linear (controller → underground junction 1 → underground junction 2 → underground junction 3). Given that everything is out, I assume the beginning of the line is where the problem is.

I know I have at least two junction points as I can find them. One on the side of my house, one on the back. I assume there is a third one, somewhere in the front near the garage where the controller is but I haven’t been able to locate it yet.

Any tips on how to proceed fixing this? Since they all went out at once, is there a likely culprit?

Again, any help/tips would be appreciated.

Thank you!

2

First, can you manually turn on the valves, at the valve, by turning the solenoid (or sometimes a bleed screw depending on valve manufacturer)? This would tell you that you have water to the zones…

If nothing turns on, find the water source and make sure the valve isn’t off.

If yes, then we can assume that there might be a wiring issue. If ALL zones went out at once, that would usually tell me that there is an issue with the common wire (usually the white wire). Make sure that this is properly connected both at the controller and at the valves (many times all solenoids will be wired to 1 common wire in the valve box).

From there, we can start testing the wiring itself with a multimeter to see if there is a break somewhere. Again, if all went out at the same time, some digging in the area could have cut all the wires.

Very slim chance that all your valves/solenoids went bad at the same time…but is in the realm of possibilities…

3

Thank you, this is very helpful. I had a wild thought, I have gopher activity very close to the valve box in the back yard. Are gophers known to eat through or cause problems with wires?

4

Good question . . . I did find a website that said,

Occasionally gophers damage plastic sprinkler pipes or underground cables with their chewing

5

If the wire is in their path, 100%. They aren’t necessarily like mice where they tend to seek stuff like that out, but if it is in the way of one of their tunnels, they will chew right through it!

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