# Seemingly never ending leaky zones



## Skeetr (Oct 14, 2018)

Started off with a leaky zone in my sprinkler system. After many hours of troubleshooting, replaced the solenoid, cleaned out and replaced diaphragm, with no signs of slowing the leak. I eventually changed the whole valve system out. That however didn't fix it, and then I went ahead and loosened the spring above my diaphragm so that it could press harder and seal my valve and that actually worked out. And so Well I got that one working just fine. And so after turning back on my main water then the valve next to the newly replaced valve (which is working perfectly) it starts doing the same thing as the other so I take apart, clean around diaphragm, then replace diaphragm, replace solenoid, try loosening spring for tighter seal, but nothing does anything to help. I am lost.

Do I just cut out and replace the whole valve system?

I'm afraid that when I do that there will be a problem with the next valve in line... is it possible that they all need new valves ? And we're only working before because they were all the same? Is my new valve causing too much pressure on the old one next to it and not allowing it to close fully?


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## Delmarva Keith (May 12, 2018)

Sounds like you got some dirt or debris in the system when you were working on it. The dirt is spreading to multiple valves. You should not have to mess with the springs to get the valves to close.

You can use water and a shop vac to get more "clean space" around the valves and pipes when you work on them. Also flush the valves by turning on the water just a bit - enough to flush but not so much as to make a complete mess - before buttoning them up.

It's also possibly just coincidence. The valves are old, one fails, you replace it, the next one fails, etc. But if messing with the spring seemed to fix the one valve, my guess is there was debris in it that you dislodged while messing with the spring.


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## Mr McTurf (Jun 21, 2018)

If you do end up replacing valves, I would not use Orbit again. I think there are better quality valves for not much more money.


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