I have a flume, and on the whole really like it. From its phone app, I can view the flow rate with only about 1 minute of lag. Plenty fast enough to allow fiddling with something then checking to see if that stopped the flow.
I do wish for some integration between flume and rachio.
Something that would reassure flume that rachio decided to water today, so that larger flow is probably not a leak unless it doesn’t quit after rachio is done.
It might also be nice to have rachio know what the flow rate is in a zone by direct measurement, and use that info to either raise alerts about different flow or to better inform its soil moisture models.
Thanks to both! I will look into Flume and see if it will work for me. My Moen Flo has already paid for itself when my washer had a clog at the fill tube and the sensors caught the spill before a flood.
Well it looks great as a flow meter but nothing for shutoff unfortunately. I’d love to install a Moen Flo out there but I am not sure how well that would work. Would be a pretty long electrical run too.
I am certainly no sprinkler expert, but just to say whenever I have had a problem like this in the past, I split the problem in half by removing the power connection to the sprinkler controller for a few minutes. If the water is still on, then you know it is nothing to do with the controller since no power is being delivered to the valve. Usually (but not always) when water stays on like this, it never turned off from the last time that the controller ran that zone. Not typical to just start on its own. Sounds like you found the solution.
So it all is fixed and the yard is back together. The small leak I had was in another valve, the one I originally thought was the bad valve. I had taken it apart and either got some dirt in it or broke. Since I had three Toro valves that I replaced with Hunter valves I just cleaned one of them and swapped tops. Saving the other two for future repairs.
All fixed!
Some things I have learned that may help another if this ever pops up on a Google search.
My valve failed because the solenoid on my Toro 254 physically broke off.
Like any project take pictures of everything you take apart. This will ensure you can put it back together easily.
The valve wires are all color coded in my system. Somehow I had a brain fart and didn’t realize this right away. This made it easy to see which valve belonged to the zone that failed.
Harbor Freight wire tracer worked very well but you need to wear headphones which means you will need a long wire. Attaching the tracer to a long stick and slowly moving worked great for me. Using it without headphones failed.
4.1 I found it by clamping to both common wires. I have two, not sure if everyone does. Common is on every valve so it makes it constant.
4.2 My valve was 6 inches underground and I found it by digging after a beep. My probe would t go down enough because of tree roots.
Mulch beds grow up and out over time. If you know where your valves are do your future self or next homeowner a favor and map it.
Replacing the valve tops are much easier than re-plumbing a valve. Mine were put in with two touching so it sucked but it was possible. I wanted to re-plumb for some dumb reason or just to show I could haha.
Never use a ratchet PVC cutter on installed pipes. It causes cracking.
Make sure you buy the right PVC cement made for irrigation.
Thank you all for you help. It was wonderful to find this community and I have a new respect for irrigation professionals and a greater love my Rachio.
Oh I use a rachet cutter all the time. The trick is to make sure it stays sharp, but more importantly, turn it back and forth slightly while ratcheting it to make sure it cuts through. I’ve never had a pipe crack on me.
Rachet cutters are fine, but they do need to be sharp. Sometimes giving it a quick back and forth wiggle to break the surface layer of the pipe will allow it to cut better without cracking.
As for glue, depending on how much water is left in your line, you don’t really need “irrigation specific” glue. You can use standard primer and glue for PVC, but honestly, a one step “hot blue glue” will work fine, just make sure your pipe ends are square and clean.
Glad you got all this stuff figured out! Sorry it was so much extra work, but it’s done!
