Sprinkler Valve Box Solenoid Replacement and Repair

You probably won't believe me if I tell you that I hadn't turned on my front sprinklers until last week. We have had rain almost daily for a month and a half. I think there were maybe four or five days in all that we didn't have some rain. 
 
I made a video for this that will hopefully answer any questions that you may have but I will try to write it down for those that can't watch videos. 

Because of all the rain, I didn't know that the sprinklers weren't working. When I did turn them on last week, we had a few days of rain so once again I didn't recognize that they were not all working. 
 
I would see some going off or could hear the valve opening or shutting after a cycle so I couldn't figure out why my front lawn was so dead.

After a few days of high heat, the grass was crunching under my feet. It was so dry that I figured something was wrong. You can clearly see in the pictures how green the back grass is vs the front grass.

The first thing I did to diagnose the problem was to check the timer. Since some of the sprinklers were working, I didn't think it was the timer. Because three weren't working, I thought perhaps something got into the line and clogged the valves. 

To do any work on the sprinkler valve boxes or solenoids, you have to turn off the water. The way to do that is to find the "water turn off" valve which is usually near the valve box. Once you locate the turn off, use a tool to turn the water off usually a quarter turn in either direction. 

You will hear it turn off. Next, you need to slowly turn the solenoid until you feel water spurting out. Hold it there, don't take it off or you could lose parts. Just unwind it to where water spurts out as this sometimes will clear the line. Re-tighten it before turning the water back on and testing to see if this worked. 

Do this with each solenoid that isn't turning on when you run the sprinklers. This fixed one of the three in my box that wasn't working. 

Sometimes, solenoids get old and start splitting as you can see in one picture. Other times, it will short out as a power surge can cause that. 

Once you have tried cleaning out the valves, you can test the solenoids by turning on each section individually. 

To do that, push the "manual" button, then push the arrow button to select with section you want to test. 

You can see this by what color wire your solenoid is hooked to in the box and then see what number that color wire is attached to in the timer box.  Then push the "plus" button to add a minute or two and push the "enter" button and this should turn on the sprinkler testing it to see if the solenoid is working.

If you need to change out the solenoids, disconnect each from the wires that run into the house. Make sure the water is turned off. 

Then, turn the broken solenoid and only remove it once there is no water spilling out. You will need to put your finger under it as you pull it out as there is a pin in the center that will drop if you turn it.  

After that, put the new solenoid in and hand tighten it. Once it is in, attach one wire to the colored timer wire and cap. Then attach the other wire to the "power" wires and cap. turn on the water and re-test the sections with the timer. This should fix any problems you have. If it doesn't work, you may need to strip the wire and try to reconnect them again. 

Hope your sprinklers work without incident! :-)