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hmmmmm. lol. I have blown out thousands of systems,you only need to do it from the clock. But,if you want to do it all three ways,its certainly not going to hurt a thing.
-1st, They really shouldnt leak,or you should not see any water comming out of them.Water may pass through them for a second. If thats what you mean by leak,you are correct. If you are seeing water,thats not really normal.
-2nd There does not need to be any current to manually open/bleed a valve. Valves are basically operated by high and low pressure differences above and below the diaphram. The solenoid and bleeder makes a seal,when you break that seal pressure pops open the diaphram and allows water to pass through,no electricity needed.
-3rd You dont have to,but its a good idea. they are normally closed by tightening,on weathermatic's,the lever should be horizontal to close,and vertical to open. most other valves everything is tight when closed and loose when open/bled.
-4th Wire them up anytime. If you have water to a new valve,they are going to open. if you get a faulty one it may not close.Rain bird DV 100's had a flaw in the o ring that goes on the solenoid,it caused them not to close,thats fixed now. I believe it was a yellow O-Ring,might of been green. If you have one of those that should be the only time youd have any issues,new valves work 99.9999% of the time.
i assumed the original post was talking about new installation "blow out" since they mentioned connecting wires before or after. here in tx since we dont need to winterize irrigation systems "blow out and flush" are used interchangably, both mean the first flush and pressure test on new mainline.Are we talking "Winterizing Blow Out" or "Flushing the Mainline"?