How To Tell If Water Valve Is Open

Today I'll encompass the basics of shut-off valves; we'll discuss unlike types and the pros and cons of each. We'll kickoff with my least favorite valve first. And yes, I accept favorites.

End Valves

Stop valves, aka globe valves, are simply meant for water. They're commonly found at plumbing fixtures, such equally the water supply line to your toilet or every bit part of your exterior faucet. A stop valve works by moving a stopper upwardly and down. The photos beneath show a finish valve in the open position, halfway open up position, and fully closed position.

Open up or airtight:To know if the valve is open or closed, take a wait at the stem. If you carefully examine the stem in the photos above, you'll see that when the valve is fully closed, the stem isn't visible at all. Most end valves are much smaller than the one pictured higher up, but I decided to use a larger one for my example considering it gives the best view. The photo beneath shows an exploded view of the guts of a stop valve.

And here a quick animation of 1 in action:

Stop valves have several paw movements to operate and they tend to get hard to operate over time. They besides leak when they haven't been touched in a while. For this reason, no dwelling inspector should ever touch one of these valves. Yep, I've learned the hard way. If y'all take a leaking finish valve, you can often stop the leak by using a wrench to tighten the nut right beneath the handle. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. But this won't always stop the leak, because sometimes new packing is needed.

Gate Valves

Similar stop valves, gate valves are simply meant for h2o. They have a round handle that'll shut off the catamenia of water by substantially endmost a gate. The 3 photos below show a gate valve in the open position, halfway open position, and fully closed position.

Open up or airtight:Every bit you tin see, the handle never goes up and down every bit the gate opens and lowers; for this reason, it's incommunicable to know if a gate valve is in the open or closed position merely by looking at it. The exploded view beneath shows what the guts of a gate valve wait similar.

And here's an animation showing it in action:

A gate valve has a very large opening for h2o to laissez passer through, making it less restrictive than a stop valve. Like end valves, these tend to stick over fourth dimension and they're decumbent to leaking when they oasis't been touched in a while.

Brawl valves

Ball valves, besides known as quarter-turn valves, are used for water, oil, and gas. They take a handle that operates a curtained brawl with a pigsty through the middle. Equally the name implies, yous give this valve a quarter turn to fully open up information technology or shut it.

Open or closed:When the handle of a ball valve is parallel to the valve or pipe, information technology'due south open. When information technology's perpendicular, it's airtight. This makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to know if a ball valve is open or airtight, only by looking at it. The ball valve beneath is in the open position.

Ball valves rarely leak, they're much easier to operate, and they don't stick with age. So aye, these are my favorite.

Lube Valves

Lube valves, aka grease valves, are used for gas. They're similar to ball valves, but they rely on a lubricant to help go along them operable. They're easy to distinguish from traditional brawl valves considering they have a nut directly beyond from the handle, allowing y'all to disassemble the valve to add together lubricant.

The prototype beneath shows an exploded view of a lube valve.

Open up or airtight:Just like brawl valves, the valve is open when the handle is parallel with the pipage, closed when perpendicular.

These valves work fine if they're periodically serviced, which isn't that big of a bargain. You simply turn off the gas to the entire house, take the valve apart and lubricate it, put information technology back together, turn the gas back on, and re-light your pilot lights. Oh wait, maybe that is kind of a big deal. That's why nobody always does this, and that's why we notice a lot of gas leaks at these valves. They also go very difficult to operate over time, and so we oftentimes observe broken handles at these valves. It's because someone couldn't plow the valve off, so they put a wrench to information technology, and it was and then stuck that the handle actually snapped off.

If y'all take any of these valves at your home, it's a expert idea to have the valve replaced when you have the appliance replaced that it's serving.

Summary

Gate valves, stop valves, and ball valves are the most common types of shutoff valves to observe in your home. If you have any projects that crave replacing valves, I recommend using ball valves, also known as quarter-turn valves. They're better in every manner, and they don't cost much more than the other types.