Heads going up and down while watering

post by tstensie on Jul 31, 2019

Hello - odd question here (aren’t most of them! 😄)

I’ve had my Rachio 3 up and running for about 3 months now, and progressively since then I’ve noticed that while it’s working it way through my 9 zones, the heads won’t stay up while watering for more than a few seconds. Initially I didn’t have this problem - and there have been no changes to any part of the system. But now, when a zone kicks in, the heads will pop up and start watering. Then, after a second or two, they retract back into the ground as the water pressure tapers off, just like the zone is finishing. A second later, the heads pop back up and waters for 2-3 seconds, and then drops back down.

This process continues throughout the whole time that zone is running. Then the system moves on to the next zone and the same thing happens.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

post by tmcgahey on Aug 1, 2019

Sounds like possibly a failing diaphragm inside the valve, or possibly a bad solenoid…

post by tstensie on Aug 4, 2019

Thanks Troy. Sorry have been out of town. When examining closer, it only does this weird cycling when on a scheduled run – unscheduled, adhoc runs do not cause the heads to go up and down like that.

post by Rstod22 on Aug 16, 2019

Hi, were you able to resolve the problem? My sprinklers just begun doing the same thing? Thank you much

post by tstensie on Aug 18, 2019

Not sure. I disabled the Saturation mode, but have been on Rain Skip since then, so don’t know if that fixed the problem or not.

post by Rstod22 on Aug 18, 2019

Thanks. I was able to fix mine. The control box needed replaced as it was having power fluctuations every 6 seconds…weird.

post by tstensie on Aug 18, 2019

Would that happen if you were doing a quick run as well as a scheduled run? My situation only occurred on the scheduled runs, not the adhoc ones I would do to test it.

post by babu_rect on Jul 8, 2020

Im also having the same problem. Heafs going up n down during scheduled runs where as adhoc runs are fine. Whats the fix? Did anyone found the solution?