To clarify-Since the zone starting running on a day the system wasn’t scheduled to run, the only way for me to get the zone to stop was by turning off the water. After turning off the water and unplugging the system, I turned the water back on, and the zone turned back on. Then I plugged the controlled back on and the zone still continued to run. Therefore I turned the water back off to turn the zone off.
When I open the Rachio App’s watering history it doesn’t show the zone running. Also, from the app I tried to turn the zone on then off to see if I could get the zone to turn off. Didn’t work.
The two previous times this has happened the only way for me to turn off the valve was to remove the 4 screws and open up the valve itself, while the diaphragm didn’t appear to have damage to it I went ahead and replaced it with a new one.
Just an update, we are seeing manual runs on the 13th from an iOS device. This still does not explain the runs not showing in your watering history, so we are still investigating.
Do you have any integrations, perhaps? Have you shared access with anyone recently?
I did have it integrated with Amazon by creating an Amazon Alexa skill. I disabled the Alexa skill on Monday this week in case that maybe part of the issue.
The manual runs you see are me trying to see if turning the zones on and off will somehow get Zone 9 unstuck. Didn’t work.
I just ran into this problem today and I installed this a couple months ago. I had no schedule set for 9 am and it was on. The scheduled run was finished at 4am. I had to manually start and shut the system off via the controller in order to be able to turn it off, as opposed to unplugging. I could not stop it on the app since it doesn’t show that it was on. I am afraid that this will happen again if I am out of town and my whole yard will be flooded. I got a knock and a call from my neighbor this morning about the flooding. There was no way he can turn off my valve because it is located in my locked backyard.
Any fix? Is it bug in system? I have no other smart controller attached to my sprinkler timing system. Just the basic features of the Rachio.
I just ran into a similar situation this morning. top slope schedule says it started at 4:40 am and turned off at 4:59, but water was still running at 8:20 am. Front lawn started at 5:00 am, while top slope was still running, and this station I also manually stopped at the controller at 8:20 am. (Both sprinklers have a message that the zone was not skipped because of a weather station report.)
Neither one could be stopped by the app, but by manually turning on and off a few zones at the controller I finally got them stopped.
@semtrak Thank you for your feedback. I had the engineering team apply the latest controller firmware to your unit (iro2-firmware-5-109). Please let us know if you have any additional scheduling issues.
I’m running into the same issue. I have a zone that started today when I was at work. My neighbor called to let me know I was flooding his yard. This is the 2nd time this zone has done this. The last time I changed out the solenoid and when I turned the water back on, the zone was turned off. This was only a few weeks ago, so I’m having a hard time believing that it’s gone bad already. Any suggestions?
Curious what zone number and when did this happen? Upgraded your controller to newest firmware just in case but this sounds like it could be a solenoid issue.
I just had the same issue of sprinkler turning on out of schedule. Was there any fix to this issue? Firmware on the controller is 5-119. I don’t have integration with SmartThings or alexa
I am currently running into this exact same situation! This first occurred last fall but it was late in the season so I thought nothing of it and was just doing manual watering here and there before winterizing but this spring it is back. My system has been ‘active’ for about a month now but yesterday I came home from work to a soaked front lawn since one zone had been running constantly. Had to shut off the main to get it to stop then I reset the controller and reconfigured the zones. Today I came home to the same thing. @franz I have a ticket into support but would really love some help sorting this out.
But how does that explain it turning on by itself in the afternoon two days in a row when no other schedules were set to run? Or why if I manually start that zone from the app and then shut it off it has no problems? Something in the controller is telling to come on outside of the normal schedule but not shut off.
Yesterday when I shut off the main valve and turned it back on that zone started right back up again so that’s when I did the reset. Today I turned off the main valve and put the controller on standby. When I turned the valve back on the zone stayed off.
If this was a mechanical failure I’d expect much different results and also I would not expect a mechanical part to all of a sudden show signs of an issue at the same time each day outside of any other contributing factors.
Pressure spikes in the water system combined with a failing diaphragm valve can cause this. A pressure drop on the back of the diaphragm will act similar to a solenoid firing.
I’m not saying that there is ZERO chance of it being Rachio, but I’d look at more common things. Net time it does it, you can certainly check the wires for current at the valve to see if Rachio is feeding current.
When a zone is running when it is not scheduled, does the zone look like it is running in the app or on the controller itself? Is so, can you stop it? Have you looked at the zone history too?
