ball valve, stopcock, gatevalve - which one???

[a]

such choice - is it just personal preference or are some types more suited than others for certain applications? I have always liked ball valves for their ease and speed of operation, but I need to add/replace some valves and wondered if ball is the way to go here (all 15mm copper pipe)

• Cold feed to boiler (& washing machine) and hot water from boiler to rest of house

• Isolation for outside bib tap

• Sink taps (I assume small "service" valves with a screw rather than a handle - these are small ball valves too arent they?)

Also, does a 15mm end feed elbow add significant restriction to the flow as opposed to a 90deg bent pipe (bearing in mind there is ~10 l/min restriction on the flow anyway in the combi boiler)? I could always reuse the existing bend after cleaning it up but I have no means of bending new pipe at the moment.

cheers

Dave.

[Andy Hall]

Lever ball valves are a good choice for these.

They are, but are not full bore and do restrict the flow somewhat. If the taps are on the mains (and as you say, a combi), then this may not be too important.

Another option is to use lever ball valves and to take the handles off if they are in the way.

It's equivalent to approximately 0.5m of pipe, so again not a big deal if you have one and the supply is from the mains, but have ten and you would notice it.

You can get swept bends which have less of an impact, but if it's only one bend, I doubt that you would notice.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[a]

Thanks Andy, balls and elbows it is then :o)

[mike ring]

"a" wrote in news:4130ee67$0$20250$ [e-mail]:

I would always fit full bore ball valves from new, and always replace stopcocks and gate valves with them when replacemnent is required; and replace with them right away in flow critical areas.

Recently on advice from here (maybe Andy, I can't recomember) I put a 22mm full bore lever valve in the feed to my new HW cylinder.

It stayed for weeks with the cold tank full, and no pipe connected, and didn't lose a drop; no gate valve would do that.

When I'd finished and opened it the flow was scary! It beat the mains supply to the cold tank by gallons.

mike