Orbit Yard Watering Kit Valve

List Price: $14.99 Discount Price: $14.99

Features:

• Orbit Underground #62035 YD WTRing System
• ORBIT UNDERGROUND

Customer Reviews:

Works as advertised [Posted on 2008-04-27]
Been about a month now and no problems from this device. Works just fine. Only annoyance is in manual (water now) mode, you can water either one station or all of them, there is no option for subsets.

In programmed mode you can water any set of the four per "time". You get three of these "times", independent of each other, per 24 hour day.

Waters stations in a given "time" in series, not in parallel, so only one valve is open at a time. This is a Good Thing for us, but it doesn't seem to be changable if you want different behavior.

poor quality control, beware [Posted on 2008-07-01]
It's a great idea but is built too poorly to be worth investing in. I bought the kit that includes timer, 4 way splitter and 2 valves. One of the two valves failed within 90 days; i disassembled it, there is nothing visibly broken, and the filter and washer are clean.
The second valve lasted almost a full year before it did the same thing - no broken parts or wires or anything, just stops working and emits a high-pitched whine as water struggles to go through a closed valve.
The rub here is, you get used to not having to water and don't realize the valve has failed until you notice your dead plants or hear the whine. That ticks me off; if I water daily, I know when I missed a day. If I let Orbit do the job it may cause a disaster when it decides to not work. Buyer Beware - as noted elsewhere, the quality is wildly inconsistent.
UPDATE AUGUST 2008: NOW the "brass" 4 way splitter has disintegrated, within 1 year. It isn't all brass - the neck isn't, it's some thin composite, it just wore away, and my spigot has a cover to protect it from rain and sun. As for valve, I'm a sucker; tried a second one now that Vigoro is distributing the brand. It failed within 10 days. I took it back to the store and took a hammer to the rest of the useless system, and went with a Melnor 2-valve timer. Much simpler operation and reliability so far.

Convenient, inexpensive yard watering, but the valves are flimsy [Posted on 2008-07-22]
I originally bought an Orbit watering kit with a 4 channel controller, 4 way hose manifold and two valves at a local hardware store to water my front yard. It worked well, so I added another valve and eventually bought another kit for the back yard. A few years later the controllers are still chugging along (had to swap the batteries once, otherwise they just do their thing).

But these valves are flimsy plastic and tend to break around the brass connector that connects to the water supply. I've replaced 2 or 3 already and am back buying some more to restock my supply. It's still much cheaper than having underground sprinklers put in, but I wish these valves were $25 instead of $15 and better built.

Orbit Yard Watering System [Posted on 2008-08-04]
The controllers work flawlessly and are terrific for busy or absent minded people.

The valves are terrible! I would never trust one enough to go on vacation and expect them to turn off the water at the proper time or not to break and shoot water out of the fractured plastic valve. If they made a premium quality valve assembly I would gladly pay way more for one that was robust and reliable. It would be real nice if they had a brass valve/solenoid assembly that could be rebuilt with an inexpensive kit.

I just ordered another replacement valve but this is the last time.

Overall Good product for the money [Posted on 2008-08-18]
I have 2 full orbit systems on my home. One for the front yard, one for the back. This is my 3rd summer with them. The electronics seem to work fine, but programming them is a pain. The valves are the weak link. After sitting in the sun (attached to the brass 4 way) they dont close as good as they should, which creates howling water pipes. At first i thought my new house was haunted, but it was those darn valves. The silver lining? These bad boys have a 5 year warranty. Who gives warranties like that anymore? No one! This alone makes it a wise purchase. As the valves start to die, i call orbit and tell them of my problem. They ship me new ones. I actualy just bought 2 more new ones to have as spares. Know that they are gonna give out on you, but also know that Orbit IS there to back thier product.

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