Grr. Mr. Fix It....can I ask for some more help? Okay. First question. Are all of the valves supposed to be in the on or off position. I would think "on", but my boyfriend's father tells me that "on" is the manual override that is supposed to make all sprinklers controlled by the valve turn on. That under normal conditions, they should be "off" and the timer handles the rest. Here's my setup.
What a freaking mess. Anyway. When I turn the far left one on (this was the one missing its float), the sprinklers in the front yard pop up. When I turn the 2nd from the left on, the drip waterers in the flower beds in the front yard turn on. When I turn the two on the right to "on", they do nothing whatsoever. Except leak a little. Which probably doesn't count. None of them seem to turn the backyard sprinklers on, or the sprinklers in the rear flower beds. The timer in the garage, apparently, does nothing but sit on the wall and mock me for being a failure. I've tried putting it in manual mode, it won't do anything but turn zone 2 (front flower bed drippers) on/off.
Even without knowing anything about sprinklers, I know that the wiring is REALLY effing bad. I don't know what the wires are supposed to go to, but some of them are shoddily capped, some are taped off with....medical tape? I dunno. But honestly, paying our current yard guy to fix them (if this is what his work looks like) is totally out of the question.
oh, and by the way. What the HELL does this do? I spent 20 minutes bailing water out of the hole to find out what was in there. Another valve. Yipee.