I just moved into a new house. The front set of sprinklers all work fine. The rear set (3 valves) are not. The controller seems to be functioning properly.

I tried the manual bleed screw on all 3 valves. Some water comes out but there doesn't seem to be any pressure. I'm guessing there should be pressure here as when I do the same thing on the front set, the sprinkler turn on.

The rear plumbing setup is like this. Metal pipe is coming out of the house and goes direct to a garden hose. Below the hose, the metal pipe continues to a shut off valve. The other side of the shut off vale is PVC and goes to the set of sprinkler valves that aren't working.

The garden hose is working fine and has good pressure.

I think there might be something wrong with the shut off valve although the guy at the hardware store said these things rarely fail. I tried turning the shut off valve and it turns maybe 1 to 1 and a half revolutions which seems odd.

Is there a way I can verify this is the problem? And if it is, how do I replace it? I tried taking a pipe wrench to it and it looks like the PVC is cemented to the shutoff valve. Do I have to hacksaw it off?

Yes, shut off valve do fail - especially the ones with yoke. Do this:

1. Close main water valve to the whole house
2. Go to that sprinkler shut off valve and remove the stem (see photo)
3. Crack open main water valve / go to see if you have water running through that sprinkler valve
4. If yes, replace the valve with ball valve

By remove, do you mean completely unscrew?

I'm not sure I understand. What should happen once it's removed? Should water flow through the valve freely or will there be an opening by which water will come out when I turn the main back on?

Unscrew the nut where arrow in the enclosed photo points to. Once you unscrew the stem you will have valve with no interior parts to obstruct flow. You will be able to see if the valve was the problem or not.

But don't forget to close water off to whole house before you work on the valve...

Thanks Milo!

I got it working and I was right! The problem was here.

Here's are some more details in case anyone else comes across this problem.

The symptom was that the knob on the shut off valve was only turning about 1 or 1 and a half revolutions. I loosened the packing nut all the way and tried to see how far I could unscrew the valve stem. At that point I used a little muscle and the valve stem unscrewed at least 4-5 revolutions and it felt like the valve was opened.

I turned the main water back on and tested the sprinkler (by turning the manual bleed screw) and the sprinklers turned on.

I tightened the packing nut so that it was snug again and rested the valve stem and it appears to be working fine now (several turns to open and close). I guess some gunk might have gotten in there.

It's probably worth replacing some time but appears to be functioning fine for now.

Glad you have got it working ! Good luck... Milo