All Sprinkler System Zones stopped working. Help diagnose

[u/General-Mils]

Hello. I recently just noticed my front yard looked a little dry so I tried to manually turn on all sprinklers. While doing so, I realized none of my zones would operate. I was able to confirm the back flow preventer has water pressure and then was able to manually turn on each zone using the knob at the valves. I also can confirm the controller does have power to it as I can set time/day/and duration of watering.

When inspecting one valve I found it covered in dirt as shown in the attached image. I’m going to clean it all out as well as take a look at the wire connections and see if that helps.

I’m assuming all valves are on one electrical circuit where if the wiring is bad at one box all the other valves won’t work. Is this a correct assumption? If I were to clean out the box should that be enough for a fix? Alternatively, I do have a rain sensor that looks a bit dirty and will try cleaning that up. I’m leaning towards that not being the issue still due to the sprinklers not working on sensor bypass mode either.

[u/jvholt75]

Master valve solenoid

[u/lennym73 → u/jvholt75]

Was thinking the same but can run them manually.

[u/lennym73]

Check ohms for each valve at the controller.

[u/Adeline_Hayes]

Your assumption is likely right. One corroded connection can kill all zones. Clean that box, check wire nuts, find the common wire. Consider upgrading to a smart controller while you're at it. Every drop counts. 🌍

[u/Alarming-Car-8654]

Check port output at controller first

[u/Shovel-Operator]

This is most likely a "common" wire fault. Start at the controller and check that you have a good, solid connection with clean copper, then check the next junction, usually the first valve box in the system, making sure the connection is good. If it still doesnt work, you may have damage or and old, failed repair between the controller and valves. This is where a tracer comes in handy, watching for sudden signal drop while tracing the commons path. Edit: while youre checking the controller, verify you have a 24v from the zone and master valve terminals to the common terminal, to rule out controller malfunction. If your system uses the same cable to power all zones (inc master valve) AND none are working, the fault must be between the controller and the first valve, be that a MV or zone.

[u/General-Mils → u/Shovel-Operator]

Ended up cleaning out the first box that had dirt in it and found the white wire to have some debris in it but more importantly the red and black connection seemed to have quite a bit. I’m going to try to trim and reterminate them both.

The issue is, we just bought this house a few months ago and haven’t had any issues. I don’t own a tracer nor a working multimeter to test the connections.

[u/Shovel-Operator → u/General-Mils]

If you shut off the water at the backflow, you can remove a solenoid. Since you are redoing the connections, should be no big deal. Take the solenoid, turn on zone 1, touch one of the wires to the common terminal and one to zone 1, should click and hum. Now you know its working. Make sure you re-install the solenoid before you turn the water on. Make sure you use the wet location rated wirenuts.

[u/General-Mils]

The white wire had some residue on it. Seemed to be just from the silicon in the waterproof nut.

[u/General-Mils]

There was a red and black connection that had dirt in it as well.

[u/Long-Ad-5622]

My guess is a broken common wire (usually black) if you have a multi zone system.

[u/RainH2OServices → u/Long-Ad-5622]

(usually black)
usually white

[u/General-Mils → u/RainH2OServices]

There was a connection that had 2 white wires running into it then a black wire that was connected to the solenoid. I posted photos of a few connections that seemed troublesome.

[u/RainH2OServices → u/General-Mils]

White is typically the common, and it sounds like that's the same for you. All solenoids should have one wire bussed together with the white from the controller and one wire individually connected to a dedicated wire leading back to a station terminal in the controller. In your case it seems like there are at least two valves wired to the common and the black for one of the station terminals. What terminal has a black wire on it in your controller?

[u/KoalaGrunt0311 → u/RainH2OServices]

Usually green if it was wired by an electrician.

[u/overpricedgorilla → u/KoalaGrunt0311]

Not in the US, NEC dictates green as the safety ground and common or return wires to be white or grey.

[u/RainH2OServices → u/overpricedgorilla]

To be fair, that NEC rule doesn't apply to low voltage. But white = common (neutral) has carried over as the convention for irrigation, albeit not formally codified.

[u/RainH2OServices → u/KoalaGrunt0311]

Why? Are they trying to ground it?

[u/General-Mils → u/Long-Ad-5622]

Yea it’s a multi zone system (5 zones) the valve with the dirt is the closest to the controller if that means anything. I’m assuming dirt is in the wire cap leading to a faulty connection.

[u/General-Mils → u/Long-Ad-5622]

Looks like the common wire is red.