pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
The first shutoff on our main line just past the meter is leaking out its handle. It is leaking at a "fast drip" enough that the box fills up halfway with water after half an hour or so, submerging everything but the meter cap. It always used to leak any time I used it, but more slowly, and it would stop after a couple of days. I did not have a camera handy so no picture yet. However it looks vaguely like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Br...484038?hash=item21548d8ec6:g:-jUAAOSwUVhb56Ax
in that there is "+" configuration (described here as if vertical, it is actually horizontal) with a brass lever handle on the top, flow from left to right. Differences, mine has a large sort of cap on the bottom, and the handle has a square base (which I turn with a big wrench) and seems to be held on by a set screw. (I can feel what seems to be a screw head, but cannot see it well. The handle wobbles like it is loosely on a shaft - and always has been like that.) It acts like a ball valve, in that when the handle is lined up with the flow direction it is open and when 90 degrees it is closed, and that is the total amount it can turn. I cannot rule out though that it is an odd gate valve which happens to lever like that. The house was built in 1957 and this valve almost certainly is the original.
Anybody familiar with valves like this? It is acting for all the world like there is a packing nut under the handle which is loose, or the packing has degraded. If so, could it be rebuilt? The valve itself still works fine to shut off flow.
I would replace it with something modern but the visible part of the main line is just a mass of rust. I think the odds of being able to screw another valve onto it are somewhere between slim and none. Replace the main line? Sure, but then the two irrigation lines that split out of it before the shutoff valve at the house (and under a concrete cap) would need to be replaced too. One just goes laterally 10 ft. The other goes all the way under the house (somewhere) coming up on the other side through the foundation, then down through another concrete cap and over to the other set of sprinklers. Basically if the valve cannot be rebuilt we're probably looking at repiping the whole house. 62 year old galvanized, it is time I suppose, although right this moment is not very convenient!
Thanks.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Br...484038?hash=item21548d8ec6:g:-jUAAOSwUVhb56Ax
in that there is "+" configuration (described here as if vertical, it is actually horizontal) with a brass lever handle on the top, flow from left to right. Differences, mine has a large sort of cap on the bottom, and the handle has a square base (which I turn with a big wrench) and seems to be held on by a set screw. (I can feel what seems to be a screw head, but cannot see it well. The handle wobbles like it is loosely on a shaft - and always has been like that.) It acts like a ball valve, in that when the handle is lined up with the flow direction it is open and when 90 degrees it is closed, and that is the total amount it can turn. I cannot rule out though that it is an odd gate valve which happens to lever like that. The house was built in 1957 and this valve almost certainly is the original.
Anybody familiar with valves like this? It is acting for all the world like there is a packing nut under the handle which is loose, or the packing has degraded. If so, could it be rebuilt? The valve itself still works fine to shut off flow.
I would replace it with something modern but the visible part of the main line is just a mass of rust. I think the odds of being able to screw another valve onto it are somewhere between slim and none. Replace the main line? Sure, but then the two irrigation lines that split out of it before the shutoff valve at the house (and under a concrete cap) would need to be replaced too. One just goes laterally 10 ft. The other goes all the way under the house (somewhere) coming up on the other side through the foundation, then down through another concrete cap and over to the other set of sprinklers. Basically if the valve cannot be rebuilt we're probably looking at repiping the whole house. 62 year old galvanized, it is time I suppose, although right this moment is not very convenient!
Thanks.
