All lawn sprinkler systems are a maze of pipes, electronic parts and sprinkler heads that work in concert to irrigate lawns and other landscapes with the water they need to grow.

One of the most critical components of these systems is the remote control valve. Also known as known as a station, zone, or solenoid valve, an automatic lawn sprinkler system will include a remote control valve for each separate watering station it controls.

A watering station is composed of a group of sprinkler heads whose water supply lines are linked to that remote valve. When a watering station is activated from the timer, an electrical signal is sent via a pair of field wires to the connected `solenoid,` which opens the valve hydraulically, thus allowing the water to flow to those linked sprinkler heads.

Many homeowners will no doubt be scratching their head over their contractor’s choice of remote control valve locations. The reason? Most contractors won’t group all the remote control valves together because it’s usually more practical to build in a solitary primary supply pipe, then site the remote control valves where they intersect each watering station around the irrigation area. If they sited all the remote control valves together in a single location, it might make finding and repairing them easier, but it would necessitate a separate water supply pipe from every valve to the water station associated with it. On big jobs, this would require many water supply lines in a very big excavation on the property, not to mention sizable pipe sizes. Not very practical, after all!

Yet there are some cases where grouping valves would be a smart idea. For example, if a particular location gets a lot of traffic from vehicles, animals or humans, bunching the remote control valves all together, in a protected location would be a wise move.

To be honest, sometimes valve placement isn’t based on best principles but is simply selected because that’s where the control wires end. Or it was chosen because some feature of the landscape forced the location on the contractor.

Then again, the remote control valve — if installed properly — should not need much maintenance, so locating it won’t be all that important. If he has to, the contractor knows there are all sorts of ways he can find it.

Want to find out more about automatic underground lawn sprinklers in St. Louis? Then visit MPR Supply’s site to discover all your options.