need help, please

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m1964

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Recently I heard a story that someone's washer lines broke while the family was on vacation and their basement got flooded, so I decided to close main shut-off valve in my garage - has a red handle on it. When I started turning it clockwise some water started to go through the packing nut -when the valve was fully closed, water stopped coming out.

After we came back, there was some little water on the garage floor, and again it started coming out as I was turning water supply back on.

I had to tighten packing nut some 1/4 of the turn -is that a good solution or do I need to do something else?

Thanks a lot

PS

the house is 9 y. old.
 
Replacing the gate valve with a ball valve will help,but why not just shut off the washer bibbs? Also replace the washing machine hoses with fluidmaster braided "no burst" washing machine hoses for peace of mind.;)
 
Gary Swart said:
Avoid those no burst hoses like the plague.
Click to expand...

No absolutely get No-Burst hoses.
Make sure they have brass or stainless steel ends on them.

It is the Watts Floodsafe hoses that need to be avoided like the plague...

FS-5560WMSS.jpg


They are bad news!
 
To answer your question about the packing nut, it is not uncommon to have to tighten them a little to stop them from leaking. I say 99% of the leaking valves calls I get are leaking packing nuts and out of them most are fixed with snugging up the packing nut.

Now as for the washing machine supply lines, most manufacturers of these machines recommend you shutting of the water supply to the machine when not in use. Not only that the hoses may burst, the solenoid valves in the machine can fail. I have always installed the following valve for people when I pipe in water supplies for a washing machine.
wm_shutoff_valves.jpg
 
Ditto on ratz valve...with no burst braided stainless steel hoses...
 
valve

Tighening the packing nut is all that is necessary, until it cannot be turned any longer or the valve breaks and the handle just turns endlessly, (hopefully while the valve is still open so you have water in the house). The valves used originally in the house for a main shutoff are typically the lowest quality and break after just a few on/off operations. Usually when they are turned off and the pressure to shut the flow completely breaks the operating stem. Which is why plumbers turn them off to the point where there is resistance and then deal with any bypass flow differently.
 
thanks a lot to every one for your help- I do have the double valve on washer suply's line, but I figured out turning water off alltogether will be ven safer and will prevent other potential problems as well (leaking toilets, etc).

After i did spme research on this site I realized that the main valve is city's resposibility, so if there is a bigger problem I will speak to the city.

Thanks again
 
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