SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

It does appear your problem maybe in the wiring with the valves.
Allot of contractors will use the same color of wire at the controller for a zone as they do for the valve.
So what I would do is go back to the controller and see what color of wire they used for zone 3 and 5 and then
start opening valve boxes until I find the valves that are wired with the same color of wire and see if they wired
the zones together. If they didn't use the same colored wires, you can figure out what valves are zone 3 and 5 by simply manually turning the valves on at the valve boxes, then check to see if they are wired together.

I have only had this house 1 year. I spent last summer fixing all the leaky joints that were not glued properly so I imagine installation may be an issue. It has a rainbird ESP modular controller model ESP-4Mi. It has 1 master module inside with stations 1-4 assigned to it. There are 3 add-on modules that have 3 additional stations each on them. (total of 12 stations)Each terminal has only 1 wire with the last terminal #13 being empty. I disconnected the wire from #3 and manually ran #5. All the heads came on in both stations. I reconnected #3 and removed the wire from #5. I manually ran #3 this time with the same result. All the heads in both stations come on. Am I correct to assume that I have a wiring issue in one of the vale boxes?

Doug

Sounds like you do have a problem. I would guess this is an older system that your not familiar with. Do you know where all of the valves are in the yard? this soesnt sound like a stuck valve issue but an electircal issue. If this system is very new to you look at the wires coming into the controller. If look at numer 5 and 3 and make sure they only have 1 wire coming into them on the controller. If thats ok then I would remove #3 from the controller and manually run zone 5. I would do the oppsite at this point and note the results. I would also manually inspect the conections at the valves. Once this is done then let us know

I am not sure where the problem lies but I will try to explain. I have a Rainbird ESP modular controller and it seems to me as if two stations are tied together somehow. When cycle #3 comes on I have heads on in the front flower beds and in the west side yard. These are not even close to each other. When it gets to cycle #5 the same heads come on again. It does not do this with any of the other 12 cycles. I would think that these would be seperate stations because I need to run the flower bedones more often, but with it the way it is now the side yard gets more water than the rest of the yard. Any help would be appreciated.

Doug