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

You say you don't know what a valve zone is but you've disconnected the wire at the valve. Each valve runs a specific area of the yard. Each area is a zone. Valve one is zone one. Valve two is zone two and so on. I'm confusing myself here back to your problem.

If the controller's set to off and the valve shut down when you disconnected the wire I highly suspect your controller.

I suppose it's possible the valve was stuck on and you jiggled it some while disconnecting the wire and it shut off. I'm going on the assumption that's not the case.

If the valve comes back on when you hook the wire back up the controller's bad. I have seen the Toro Greenskeeper fail telling a valve to run 24 hours a day.

If you need more help we'll need more information. What happens when you hook the wire back up?

You could try resetting the controller. Take the battery out. Unplug for 5 minutes. Reprogram. The storm may have done something to the controller.

If you've reset the controller and you still have the same problem then there's something wrong with the controller. The problem is not the valve.

Time to buy a new controller.

Before you buy a new controller, check to see if you have an empty zone terminal (post) in the controller. Move the troubled zone wire to that terminal and see if that solves your problems. It's not uncommon for a controller to malfunction and send juice to one of the posts. It's what we call a "Hot Post". There is definitely something wrong with your controller, but this fix might buy some time and save some money.

Quoted from "Central Irrigation"

It's not uncommon for a controller to malfunction and send juice to one of the posts. It's what we call a "Hot Post".
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I was curious how many times you've seen a "hot post" activate a valve?

I've seen it mostly on the older TORO Vision controllers. A few times on the Irritrol Total Controls. Don't know what causes it, but one of the circuits goes bad and constantly sends electricity to the post. I've seen it happen maybe a dozen times over the past ten years.

I've never seen a Toro vision controller other than in pictures. Maybe they didn't sell those in California. Then again Toro is based only a few miles from here. I wonder how long they've been in Riverside. I don't see many Total Controls installed either. I will say I've been seeing them more often the past couple years though. I can only recall seeing a rogue post hot enough to activate a valve one time in 16 years due to a fault in the controller. That was on a Toro Greenkeeper or EXC or something similar with the modules. Maybe it's a humidity issue.