Sprinkler valves buried

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Is that standard practice or was that a shoddy installation?

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Bought this house, large property, lots of trees and scrub, unlandscaped portions. Two previous owners.

First owner changed a small portion to lawn for a small dog run/back area.

Second owner massively expanded grass area, 9 zone sprinkler/flower beds.
A lot of dirt moved and I can only find one box with 3 valves. The other 6, no clue, buried somewhere.


I had no idea that the controller may have a valve locator, but that makes sense. I'll have to check that.

I was going to rent a line finder and follow the wires or the PVC pipes.

Well damn:

"Limitation: This feature diagnoses wiring and solenoid faults but does not physically "find" or locate valves in the landscape."

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MasterDigger

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You will be earning that username unfortunately.

I dug a bunch of exploratory holes and drew irrigation “as builts” on my site plan. I dug out all the valves and labeled the zones on the box covers. I also added underground utilities to the site plan based on various line locates over the years. It’s nice to have as a reference when I want to change things around.

i dont have much to add to this story except my wife redid one of our garden borders that goes pretty far up a hill. we had excessive ran this summer in nashville so i only recently turned the irrigation on for the first time (i didnt need any extra help growing 8' weeds in every bed).

i was walking around inspecting the sprinklers on the first run and i got out back and one of those heavy-arse stone border bricks had been lifted out of the ground where it had worked its way in for months, on top of a sprinkler that was there the whole time, balanced like a woman carrying water in africa

i didn't know whether to be upset with my wife or impressed by the fact that little plastic sprinkler in the ground was strong enough to lift that heavy arse stone border and still do its job.

so i had to redo the border all the way down the hill so it ended up 6" further in and now we have an ugly section next to the border with no grass. it will come back in the spring.

i know CSB

I guess I did mine an old-fashioned way. I have 4 zones, 3 heads on each zone. My sprinler "manifold" is under my porch. It contains all my valves. All of my sprinkler lines are schedule 40 PVC. Been in the ground 34 years. Only changed one head when the mail lady ran over it right after they were installed. I have a copper to PVC transition/ backflow preventer that is industrial size. ?????

Valve outside the box was probably a DIY after installation didn't spend money on larger box. For tracing lines a Vevor Underground Cable Locator for under $35 should work. If your valve is made to discharge back-flow water. Rig a hose to a sprinkler head to create extensive backflow, then look for a wet spot around the hidden valve.

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If your valve is made to discharge back-flow water. Rig a hose to a sprinkler head to create extensive backflow, then look for a wet spot around the hidden valve.

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Good idea, but as i said, i was able to locate the valve(s) using the locator option on my controller- worked well. The cable locator is something to keep in mind.