Hmmmm. Seems like you would have to put a stethoscope on each square foot of the yard. Unless the clatter is really loud and pretty shallow you got your work cut out for you.

 

Before you ask, yes all valves work…

I am looking to find my hidden valves in my yard.

@yardood ... you should be able to find/follow any wires from a controller to the valves using a wire / cable tracer / tracker. They can be found easily on Amazon ... or at some big box stores. Prices vary by brand/quality but aren't unreasonable imo.

I bought a cheap one last year at Harbor Freight that they were discontinuing. I used it to follow wires in a wall after a remodel (contractor) screw up. It worked great for me.

I have a good friend who grew up working for his dad doing commercial irrigation installs and repairs. He has a NICE (spendy, STRONG signal) one that he used all the time when they needed to find buried valves or find breaks in the wires. His will detect signal to something crazy like 6 feet deep.

You connect / alligator clip the signal sender to the end of a wire and turn the gizmo on. It sends electrical pulses thru the wire. Then you take the hand held wand part and put the antenna near the ground. When it is near the wire it will beep or some models buzz. It will beep/buzz louder and more clearly the closer you are to the wire. You simply follow the sound til it stops in any direction and you've found where the wire ends .... or is broken .... the you'd dig there to find the valve ... or the continuing wire and then you'd need to hook the signal sender to the continuing wire and go til the valve is found.

Here is the cheap one I got at Harbor Freight before they discontinued this model. It doesn't mention irrigation wires (signal may not be strong enough for deep soil dives), but I've accidentally "discovered" valve wires with a shovel in my yard since they weren't run deep when put in. .... so I definitely think I could find wires in my yard with this cheapie one.

 

ohhhh ... and I've also heard them called a Tone Tracer.

 

a tone tracer would be a different tool used to do similar things.

Being a plumber, I have a tool called a line tracer. It will send a current into a wire and using a locator I can walk along the yard and find the lines. It’s used to located tracer wire, which is usually wrapped around a pipe or near a pipe, helping to located buried utilities. Really, it can be used on anything thing that is conductive.

I wouldn’t recommend one to buy a line tracer like what I have, but I do know many tool rental places will rent them out, often for $100 or less for a few hours or a whole day. This would be the route I would go if I didn’t already own the equipment.

 

Most locators are intended for in wall wiring. UG is a whole different story. You need a strong signal generator and sensitive pickup. Buy a cheap one on Amazon and try you may get lucky. If you don’t send it back. You can buy an expensive one or just call those who do it for a living.

How big a yard you have? If not big after a rain lay a string out and use a pitch fork to poke the ground. Move the string to keep your search area straight and spaced.