We tested the sprinklers a few months ago and they all worked. Now
only those in one zone work. All others don't respond at all, as if
wires were cut. The control panel is in garage. On the outside wall I
see the pipe containing the wires go to the ground. A few feet to the
left there's a capped well (what do you call it?) about 4'' wide. This
is the side of the zone that works. I looked inside the well and saw
some wires and two cylinders. To the right of the wire pipe there's no
such well. But around a far corner of the house I see two similar
wells. They both have 2 white wires, 1 red wire and one or two
cylinders in them. I suppose these are for the sprinklers and at least
one cylinder is a solenoid. But none look in bad shape and the
cylinders can't be (easily) taken out. Previous owner had a good
drawing of sprinkler heads. But the current problem is I don't hear
anything when the control panel dial is switched to any of these
zones. How do I go about troubleshooting? If needed, I can show
pictures. Thanks.

Yong Huang

"Yong Huang" wrote in message
...
We tested the sprinklers a few months ago and they all worked. Now
only those in one zone work. All others don't respond at all, as if
wires were cut. The control panel is in garage. On the outside wall I
see the pipe containing the wires go to the ground. A few feet to the
left there's a capped well (what do you call it?) about 4'' wide. This
is the side of the zone that works. I looked inside the well and saw
some wires and two cylinders. To the right of the wire pipe there's no
such well. But around a far corner of the house I see two similar
wells. They both have 2 white wires, 1 red wire and one or two
cylinders in them. I suppose these are for the sprinklers and at least
one cylinder is a solenoid. But none look in bad shape and the
cylinders can't be (easily) taken out. Previous owner had a good
drawing of sprinkler heads. But the current problem is I don't hear
anything when the control panel dial is switched to any of these
zones. How do I go about troubleshooting? If needed, I can show
pictures. Thanks.

Yong Huang

Reading between the lines, you may not have a lot of experience with these
kinds of systems. This may be a time when you have to either bring in a
friend with experience, or get someone expert to check out your system. You
may not hear anything at your control panel, and perhaps you have solenoids
that are mounted at a distance from the control panel, or perhaps you have a
sequencer that operates with water pressure -- it's not clear from what you
wrote. First guess would be you have a controller problem, which could
merely mean replacing a couple of parts -- if you had a recent severe
thunderstorm it may be that a lightning bolt fried some of your controls.

But from what you've written so far, I would look to someone with experience
to do a physical inspection and offer help.

On Wed, 28 May 2008 20:49:14 -0400, "JimR" wrote:


"Yong Huang" wrote in message
...
We tested the sprinklers a few months ago and they all worked. Now
only those in one zone work. All others don't respond at all, as if
wires were cut. The control panel is in garage. On the outside wall I
see the pipe containing the wires go to the ground. A few feet to the
left there's a capped well (what do you call it?) about 4'' wide. This
is the side of the zone that works. I looked inside the well and saw
some wires and two cylinders. To the right of the wire pipe there's no
such well. But around a far corner of the house I see two similar
wells. They both have 2 white wires, 1 red wire and one or two
cylinders in them. I suppose these are for the sprinklers and at least
one cylinder is a solenoid. But none look in bad shape and the
cylinders can't be (easily) taken out. Previous owner had a good
drawing of sprinkler heads. But the current problem is I don't hear
anything when the control panel dial is switched to any of these
zones. How do I go about troubleshooting? If needed, I can show
pictures. Thanks.

Yong Huang

Reading between the lines, you may not have a lot of experience with these
kinds of systems. This may be a time when you have to either bring in a
friend with experience, or get someone expert to check out your system. You
may not hear anything at your control panel, and perhaps you have solenoids
that are mounted at a distance from the control panel, or perhaps you have a
sequencer that operates with water pressure -- it's not clear from what you
wrote. First guess would be you have a controller problem, which could
merely mean replacing a couple of parts -- if you had a recent severe
thunderstorm it may be that a lightning bolt fried some of your controls.

But from what you've written so far, I would look to someone with experience
to do a physical inspection and offer help.


I agree. I think the first time (at least) you should hire a
professional to explain to you and watch them closely to learn as much
as possible. Ask questions too to help yourself. Hopefully after
that, you can do "most" of the maintenance. On my systems, the most
often repair was replacing heads and after you see how to do it, it's
not hard unless you can't dig into the soil.