water valve leaks if not fully opened or closed. Problem?

[Tim Smith]

The valve on the hot water line to my washer is fine if fully open, or if fully closed. If it is somewhere in between, there is a small leak, around the shaft that you turn to open and close the valve. By small leak, I mean around a drop a second comes out.

(I'm assuming that this is not normal, because the identical valve on the cold water line does not exhibit this behavior).

Is this something I should worry about? I would normally keep the valve fully opened, or fully closed if I needed to disconnect the water line to the washer for some reason. (I only found this out because, based on something I think I read here, but maybe in another group, I decided to periodically close and open all my water valves, to make sure they stay easy to turn).

[Meat Plow]

Normal in hot water because of the increased particulate matter. If it doesn't leak when open or closed don't mess with it. If you get it to leak by messing with it too much which is a possibility you can try to tighten the nut on top of the valve underneath the valve handle. But just don't mess with it, it's stupid (no offense meant)

[BobK207]

Tim-

Tighten the packing nut & the drip should go away.

cheers Bob

[Joe]

Your valves have stem leakage which may stop if you tighten the stem nut under the handle. However, this may be a good excuse to get rid of the problem and replace the old timers with modern quarter turn ball valves or a single lever assembly made just for washing machines. HTH

Joe

[hallerb]

yeah quarter or 1/2 half turn on packing nut should do it.

a good friends outside faucet had leaked this way for years, the water was running inside the house behind the breaker box.

her hubby said new plumbing no money, I showed her on my faucet she fixed hers instantly, still fine 2 years later