Broken wires

Troubleshooting Wiring
1

I was helping a widow neighbor with her sprinkler system after she told me she was going to stay up past midnight to see why her grass was turning brown in an area. I told her that I could test it and probably fix it. I thought I would share the experience in case it helps any others.

  1. Turning on EITHER zone 2 or zone 3 on the controller turned on BOTH sprinkler zone 2 and 3
  2. Disconnecting either the zone 2 or 3 at the controller did the same thing
  3. Manually turning the valve on directly from the valve only turned on the appropriate zone
  4. Disconnect both zone 2 and 3 wires at the controller and testing continuity with a multimeter showed they were connected
  5. Various tests on the controller with and without (especially) wires connected told me the controller was fine
  6. Similar to 4, disconnecting the same wires at the valve end (making it both ends) and testing for continuity showed they were connected
  7. This told me that somehow the wires are touching somewhere between the ends (voles, something unknown)
  8. I was finding the wires kept breaking off and found cracks in the insulation. Cutting it back did not help the short (retested). I inspected the length of wire coiled up by the valves and everything looked good.

As I was looking at the wires and the situation, I really did not want to have to try to dig up the wire for obvious reasons. Also, the wire terminates at the controller in the basement so am not sure where or how the wires enter the basement.

Here is what I found and learned:

  1. 4 of the 7 wires were used (obviously leaving 3 wires available). So, I stopped using the red wire and started using the orange instead. It was not shorting with any of the other wires. This fixed the problem thankfully without digging anything up!!!
  2. Another neighbor stopped by to see what I was doing. I told him about it and he told me he WISHED he ran more wires that would allow him to split zones. I told him I now wish that I ran more wires (in each bundle) as well for this kind of problem if I ever run into it as well as for splitting zones if I needed to. This is what I learned.
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I ran into a similar situation at my mom’s house. The sprinkler clock was in the back which ran to a box i the backyard that ran the rear grass zones, and dedicated shrub and tree zones around the whole property. In the front, there was a box that managed the 3 grass zones. The grass started dying, and found that I had ZERO signal to any of the wires heading to the front box, and no spare wires to play with…although, I’d bet there is rarely a situation where only some wires are affected but not others…

Running a new cable 100’ was an option, but I needed to get the grass watering again, so I popped a dumb controller on the front 3 zones near the front valve box…been like that for a couple years and I haven’t managed to get back and re-run a new wire to the original Rachio… :disappointed_relieved:

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