Ball Vs Gate

Whats your take?

Tom

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There is no comparison. Ball valve everytime.

Some applications demand an open-stem-and-yoke gate valve. I like gate valves for non-critical shutoffs on outdoor above-grade applications, where a ball valve could retain water and crack in freezing temperatures.

valve

If the ball valve is going to freeze and break, the gate valve and/or the pipe to it can also do so.

I've heard that rumor about ball valves. I heard if you don't let them drip they will burst from the water trapped in the ball while closed.

All I can say is that I've never had a ball valve drip water pasted the valve but I've had many gate valves do this.

I'm also all for the ball valve.

I figured if you guys can argue over wire nuts why not valves.

Tom

hj said:

If the ball valve is going to freeze and break, the gate valve and/or the pipe to it can also do so.

Click to expand...

But the gate valve doesn't have the additional requirement of setting the handle to a 45 degree position to allow water between the body of the valve and the ball to escape into the pipe that's being drained. Resilient-wedge gate valves were, for a time, the best of both worlds. Drip-tight shutoff, and no 'pockets' of water to freeze. Nibco had them, but I no longer see them. Anyone still making them in sweat pattern in sizes under two inch?

But as HJ said if the ball valve is going to freeze enough that the water inside the housing will freeze and burst the valve than the pipe connecting it to would freeze and burst long before the valve would crack especially if its copper.

Anyone still making them in sweat pattern

Click to expand...

I thought OS&Y gate valves were used for application when a visual check of the valve to see if it was opened or closed (seeing the stem outside of the body).

One thing about a gate, you wont bump it into the fully on position by mistake....

I thought I'd revisit this question. Having worked on lawn sprinkler systems that were installed before the advent of ball valves, I deal with gate valves used as a main shut off for the system. Surprisingly, some of them still work fine, and shut off drip-free. Others are not so fine. In the days before ball valves, the most deluxe shut off valve for sprinkler systems was the "sprinkler angle valve" shown here.

I've used gate valves as a secondary system shut off, mounted just a few inches from the foundation. In some instances, the gate valve served as the only valve that was shut for the wintertime, since the copper exited the basement from the same room that contained the heating system, which was good protection from freezing, with any plumbing downstream of the gate valve having an open boiler drain to get rid of any potential leakage through the gate valve. In fact, a (appropriately slow) drip might be an advantage, as it might serve as additional protection from freezing.

Anyway, I recently had to replace one of them, a made-in-Taiwan Watts gate valve they used on their backflow assemblies. What I'm wondering about, is there anything that might have been done as preventative maintenance on a gate valve, such as unthreading the valve bonnet and applying grease to the inner stem, where it threads into the wedge? I have on occasion removed a gate valve bonnet, in order to thread a valve into a tight space, and at that point, it wouldn't be any burden to apply some grease.

It might be like using Drano in a sink drain that is working perfectly. In other words, it may not help, but at least it won't cause any problems.

Some of the newer gates I've installed are on their way to failure, so I may end up trying to rescue them. Thank goodness for Knipex pliers, which are about the only thing that doesn't round off the hex on the bonnet covers.