The Irritrol RainDial Sprinker timers don’t turn on valves at the same time to prevent too much water pressure drop. If you have a sprinkler timer that is turning on valves twice, or running an entire schedule more that once when you don’t expect it to, it usually means it’s one of these programming issues:
- The schedule starts and is currently running when the next scheduled start time is reached. E.g, you may have a start time of 7AM and another at 9AM, but the total run times are longer than two hours. So the first 7AM schedule is running when 9AM is reached is delayed until the first one finishes. This makes it look like the schedule ran twice, when in reality, the schedule was started twice and the timer queued it up to run a 2nd time. .
- Too many start times. Make sure you only have one start time programmed; sometimes people get the dial off a little and end up programming a 2nd start time when they thought they were programming the first one.
- Check days of the week – ensure there are no overlaps with the timer running one schedule and also trying to run a 2nd schedule. I.e., Make sure schedule A doesn’t overlap with Schedule B or C for the day of the week, start time, etc.
If that doesn’t help, consider these
- If you can’t find any programming overlaps, follow the instructions on the DIY Troubleshooting page to reset the timer back to factory defaults, then reprogram it. This usually clears up any programming issues.
- Sometimes in rare cases, one valve going on can trigger another one to go on because of the water pressure change. This is rare, and likely due to a ‘weak’ diaphragm in the valve that should be replaced..
We’ve put this information together on this page to help you. If it’s been helpful, please help us by making a reasonable donation. This information often helps people avoid hiring a landscaper come out and ‘help’ and sometimes they recommend replacing parts that don’t need replacing. We despise hearing of people be being taken advantage of, hopefully this is worth something to you.
I’m not sure how much longer I’ll continue to pay for the website hosting, very few people donate and it’s getting costly to keep it going. Besides, any extra goes to children’s education funds, so it’ll go to a good cause.
Thanks for your support!