I bought this house with the sprinkler system winterized. Spring came, and I started up the system. I have irrigation water coming from 3 large pumps along with a few other small farm houses. The main is 1.5" and comes through a meter. The meter is 100% open and then steps down to 1" and goes into a vacuum breaker. I tested the breaker and I have good pressure on both legs. It then goes into a master valve (1" orbit w/ flow control) and then into a 1.5" poly header that runs about 500 feet (don't know why they stepped it down and back up). 6 valves T off the header at 30 feet intervals each and run numerous rotors. The far end of the header dead ends into 2 control boxes with (
1" orbit valves with flow control. These valves do not have a manual bleed screw. I went to test the system by opening the main control valve (1" orbit w/ flow control) and all other valves were open. So I had 14 zones trickling all at the same time. I removed the solenoids, cleaned them, diaphragms, and reseated everything. The system worked for a bout 7 days and then all zones started turning on again. I replaced the main valve (diaphragm was in bad shape) and tried again. Still had the same problem. I am at my wits end and I have 2 acres of grass that is drying up. Do the flow control valves need to be tightened a minimum number of turns, mine are full open? Everyone around me has great pressure (3 35+ pumps supplying the water). I have great pressure on the down stream side of the breaker. Why are all my valves opening? They still look clean. I was messing with it today and the system trickled for 45 minutes and then I got great pressure all of a sudden. I watered for a while, turned it back off at the master valve and then had the same problem 1 hour later. This is driving me nuts!!!
And I've totally disconnected the controller and get the same problem.