For years, when we've had an irrigation issue, we've called our installer. Things are a little tight lately so I'm really trying to troubleshoot an issue myself, but I've got hours with no luck. Our controller can be off but when I turn on the water main, one zone immediately comes on.

Some quick history:

• We have a Hunter system that's about ten yrs old.
• It was working fine at end of season last year.
• This year, when turning on the system, I over-tightened a plug and snapped the external plumbing. Once I got everything rebuilt, I finally turned on the system and discovered the "constant running zone" issue. I first went looking for PVC shavings in the valve.

Here's what I've done so far:

• I have eight zones total. Turning solenoid heads, I was able to identify that six of them were NOT tied to the faulty zones because i could get those zones to run manually.
• I zeroed in on the other two zones. Removed the solenoids. Temporarily swapped solenoids in the box to see if I could narrow it down to a solenoid issue. The problem persisted.
• So I took apart the valve assemblies for the two suspected zones. First thing that happened was water completely filled my boxes, so now I've got dirt and grass floating all around. I inspected the assemblies, no tears, no pre-existing debris, was able to squeeze the valve and shoot water out. So they valves SEEM fine, but now I've got debris in there.

If you're still reading, THANK YOU. Now, my questions:

• How do I prevent my box from flooding when taking a valve apart?
• How do I now clean out the area of the valve assembly that is under water and now full of debris?
• Why does that one zone continue to run???

Really appreciate your help on this, everyone!