Have you ever come home and wondered whether your lawn irrigation system had blown a fuse? It just might have.
A geyser is shooting out of a sprinkler head. The control panel is flashing. The sprinklers are staying on longer than the timer is supposed to allow. The system is on the fritz. Do you dare try to troubleshoot the problem?
If you want to try doing it yourself, here are some of the most common problems homeowners encounter and possible solutions you can try from Doug Hood of Hood Landscape and Chuck Pote of Ewing Irrigation in Fresno, Calif.
1. Leaking sprinkler heads
If you get geysers, “somebody’s cut the top of the nozzle off” the sprinkler head, Pote says. Simply replace the nozzle.
If water puddles around the sprinkler head, the seal inside may be bad and may need to be replaced. “Grit and sand will get in there and scar the seal,” Pote says.
2. Sprinklers don’t turn on
That’s often due to a bad solenoid, which turns the valve on and off and has two wires running from it to the control panel. Some indicators that a bad solenoid is at fault include if the top of the solenoid is bowed or bent, if the wires have been pulled away from the solenoid, and if it keeps blowing a fuse at a station.
3. Control valves that leak
Unscrew and remove the top of the valve, and check the diaphragm, which allows the water to flow into the valve and shut down. “If it’s old or has hard mineral deposits, it loses its flexibility,” Hood says. “Sometimes you have to open it [the valve], clean it out and get the debris out of there.”
Also, make sure it doesn’t have any holes, Pote says.
There also is a spring that is positioned on top of the diaphragm. “Over time, it can lose some of its strength,” Pote says. You can try turning the flow-control handle, which looks like a tiny handle or screw, on top of the valve to tighten the spring.
4. Loss of water pressure
Check your risers, which connect the underground pipes to the sprinkler heads, to see whether they are cracked. The pipes also may be broken by a shovel or affected by tree roots. If you recently added more sprinkler heads to a station, they also can cause a drop in pressure for the corresponding control valve.
5. Flashing control panels
When the word “fuse” is flashing, check the fuse and back-up battery. If the fuse is broken, there has been a short, “meaning wires have been cut or there’s a bad solenoid,” Pote says. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s the solenoid.”
If you haven’t changed the backup battery in years, do it. At least once a year and up to three times a year, change the backup battery.
When you do, Pote suggests that you unplug the controller from the wall, take out the backup battery, and let the controller sit for several minutes. Then “plug it back in, put in the new battery, and reprogram the controller,” he says. “You should be good to go.”
