Question
My rainbird system has never had problems before but this year station 1 stopped working. I sent my son-in-law under the crawlspace to flush the valve and after that station 2 stopped working as well. He flushed both thoroughly and they manually turned on and off but not via controller. Station 3, meanwhile, is still going strong. I notice that every once in awhile station 1 & 2 will come on at their regularly scheduled times. Do we need a new controller, selonoid or valves? Or just clean the valves and strip the wires and reseat them from the selonoid? I have already moved the wires from stations 1 & 2 to the 3rd screw on the controller and got no response. We have also attempted to get a voltage reading on the controller but get no response, which we know is not correct since station 3 comes on. We have checked all the inside wires and they all seem secure. Also, it is very inconvenient for the valves to be under the crawlspace. I'd like to have my son-in-law extend them into the yard and put them into valve boxes. How difficult would that be for him to do? Thank you in advance for your expert help.

Answer
Your problem is more likely with the wiring than the valves.  Replace all the wire connectors with new waterproof ones, and see if that works.  If not, you may have a bad solenoid, but I doubt it if two valves are involved.  To relocate the valves, you need to stub out the main line from the crawlspace, remove the old valves, dig a big hole for the new installation right where lines come out from the crawl space, hook them up to the mainline and the sprinkler line, and run new wires from the controller.