Rachio Not Watering

Hello Rachio Team,

My Rachio stopped watering and I have overridden the weather intelligence section without success. I can manually turn on my sprinklers by turning the valves. Obviously, this is a temporary solution for us.

I live in New England and have been using your great product for several years. Once you added the delay between zones, it made this product great. That is until that last couple of days. :frowning: It has been 90 degrees off and on over the last couple of weeks here and I try to water the heck out of my lawn at night. It is the only way I can keep up.

Is there something going on, I see some other Rachio 2 people have indicated that their Rachio has stopped watering as well. Thanks in advance!

From app.rach.io, when you do a Quick Run of a zone:

  1. Does the page show the zone running and counting time?
  2. Does the zone light flash on the controller?
  3. Do the sprinklers operate?

If 2 but not 3, check voltage at the controller and at the valve.

Thank you Stewart,

The app works fine and I can access the controller from both my phone as well as my computer.

  1. I run a zone or a schedule that has weather intelligence disabled and no sprinklers pop up.
  2. The zone light flashes on the controller blue, which looks normal to me.
  3. The sprinklers do not operate unless I manually open a valve.

I have tried multiple zones and schedules without success. I can manually turn zones, so not sure what is going on?

Thoughts?

Possibly, you have a rain or other sensor in the common wire that is malfunctioning and preventing watering, or a wire got broken. If you have a multimeter, check for approximately 24 VAC between the zone output and common. If present, check at the valve to see whether a wire has broken.

If there is no voltage output at the controller, possibly a factory reset will fix it. Otherwise, call 1-844-4RACHIO (1 844 472 2446) for support; they will likely need to replace the device.

I will test the voltage later tonight. Thanks!

Stewart, thanks again for your help. Just tested the voltage for all seven zones and the reading is consistent across all zone, which is 26 and change.

This appears to indicate that the Rachio is providing enough voltage to the valves, but none of my zones are activating with the app. I have been manually turning them on to keep the grass watered, but hoping to get back to Rachio automation soon.

Any thoughts on next steps? What should I be looking for in the irrigation box?

@jbroady I’m having the same issue, it has been going on for about 2 weeks. Will be following this to see what happens. Thanks for posting.

I called support and spoke with Connie. She was very professional and helpful and is sending out a replacement controller. Let’s hope it fixes the issue. We are in the middle of a heat wave here and manually opening valves is not easy while I am working from home. Cheers!

Well, then check it at a valve (while doing a Quick Run for the zone). If it’s missing there, you have a broken wire or possibly an external sensor interrupting it. If ok at the valve, do you have a master valve, shut-off valve or pump that could be the problem?

This is next on the list and doing some research on continuity testing for the common wire. Looks like several people are also discussing similar issues though on the forums, with the Rachio 2 no longer working. I am not certain this is the issue yet, but it has got my attention.

Good news is I have a multimeter, bad news is I have to watch a lot of YouTube videos to get the best mileage out of it.

We don’t have a master valve or shut-off valve. We have a pump for our well water, but that is working fine, as is manually turning the valves in the irrigation box.

Thought I knew more than the average person about sprinklers, now I definitely do! LOL!

Hoping the new controller fixes the issue as we are on vacation next week and I need my irrigation automation back fast and furious!

Thanks again for all the support Stewart!

Okay, here is the latest update. I tested several valves in the irrigation boxes and it is getting 26 volts when it is not connected to the associated valve. When I connect any one of the valves to the wire the voltage drops significantly. This appears to be normal behavior, as I ran a similar test at my neighbor’s house and his sprinkler system is working without issue.

One anomaly is that when no zones are active, the voltage for all zones sits at a pretty negligible rating. when I activate any of the zones, that is where it gets interesting. All zones read between 26 an 27 volts, regardless of which zone is not active. This is not normal behavior as my neighbor’s zone only register 26 to 27 volts on the active zone. The rest of the zones display a much lower voltage.

I redid a bunch of the connections to see if anything was frayed, cracked or broken. Including restriping all the common wires, without success. One of the wires did look suspect, but after repairing it and feeling potentially good about the out, it proved to not be successful.

Manually turning on the valves all day is getting old fast, so I am open to ideas and suggestions.

Thanks again for all the help!

Kudos to the Rachio team and Connie from support! Installed the new controller today. It was just as easy as the last controller and the migration of the legacy settings made the process a breeze. Nicely done Rachio development team! My irrigation automation is back and boy did I miss it! I never took it for granted, but when it was not available, it was painful. I Love Rachio! :slight_smile:

Thank you kindly and I did try these steps, which were very helpful. Cheers!