Best valve for main water shut off

[George E. Cawthon]

[Ron26]

Off topic but...,

that reminds me of a Yogi-ism (a Yogi Berra quote).

When someone suggested a place to go eat, he said, "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."

Here's a link that I just found to some other Yogi Berra quotes:

[Ron26]

Thanks for the link. That explains it.

As someone else said, I think it would be important to add a bypass grounding wire across dielectric unions.

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[Ron26]

Thanks.

[H2Oldman]

I worked in public works water supply and distribution for 34 years. Do yourself a favor and NEVER use a gate valve for anything other than throttling applications. Gate valves have packing around the stem that WILL leak eventually. Also, if gate valves are not exercised regularly, mineral deposits will build up on the seat. That leaves you with a valve that will not close completely. If you try to turn it harder to get it to seal, the stem will break in the closed position. That leaves you with two choices. Either replace the valve or remove the valve cap and take out the gate portion of the valve rendering it totally useless. Unless you are throttling flow, I would never recommend anything but a ball valve. I, personally, use brass bodied ball valves with a stainless steel ball and Teflon seals. They will last practically forever.

[micky]

I'm not building my own home, so I have the valves the house came with.

My main water valve works fine after 43 years, though the packing nut had to be tightened, for the first tiem, 3 years ago.

The toilet supply valves with the cats-eye handles seemed frozen, and using a water-pump pliers crushed the mostly hollow handle, so I replaced the handle with an identical good one and made a wrench from a

1-foot piece of 2x4. At one end I chiseled out a hole shaped just like the handle, and with it, it was easy to tighten or loosen the valve.

I made the hole at an angle so that I could make a hole at the other end at a different angle, so I could use it like an offset open-end wrench, which can be flipped over when there is not enough room. Also, 12" is about right for a toilet but maybe you will need a shorter one for under a sink if there is a cabinet. Thinner wood might work too.

I'm surprised they don't sell these things.

[Marilyn Manson]

My daughter bought a 1930-ish house. Standard gate valve as the main shutoff. It was not only missing the handle but looked a little beat up. You see fairly fresh markings from a vice grip or channel locks on the stem.

I was going change it for her, then I looked at the <2" of galvanized pipe sticking out of the poured concrete wall and decided to call a pro. No way I wanted to break that pipe while changing the valve.

The city she lives in requires that any plumber working in the city be licensed, and actually has a list of licensed plumbers on their website. I called a guy, explained that I wanted the gate valve replaced with a ball valve and set an appointment.

He came over, looked at the <2" of galvanized pipe sticking out of the poured concrete wall and (just like me) said "Nope. I don't want to touch that." He turned the water off at the street, picked a spot about 2' downstream from current shutoff and installed a ball valve there. He secured the new shutoff to the wall so that when it's operated, it doesn't move the section of pipe coming from the old one. (no stress on the old shutoff)

As long as the original one doesn't spring a leak on its own, it won't ever need to be touched again.