Leaking Gate Valve Replaced with a Ball Valve in Bothell, WA

The Call: A Valve Nobody Looks At, Until It Drips

This valve sits low on the wall where the water line comes up out of the concrete floor, tucked under a storage shelf full of paint cans. It's the kind of spot you walk past for years. Then the homeowner noticed it was leaking.

A leaking valve on a line that's always under pressure doesn't fix itself. The water keeps coming, day and night, and the joint it's leaking from keeps getting worse.

What We Found: An Old Gate Valve Giving Up

The valve was a gate valve, the style with the round red wheel handle you have to crank several turns to close. Green corrosion had built up on the copper at the top connection, and water had left stains on the concrete wall behind it. Both are signs that a joint has been weeping for a while.

Why gate valves wear out

Inside a gate valve, a metal wedge slides up and down on a threaded stem. Packing around the stem keeps the water in, and over the years it dries out and starts to seep. Valves that sit wide open for a decade also collect mineral scale, so when you finally need to shut the water off, the handle is stiff and the wedge doesn't always seal all the way.

A ball valve works differently. A ball with a hole through it turns 90 degrees: handle in line with the pipe means open, handle across the pipe means closed. There are fewer moving parts to wear, and you can see at a glance whether it's open or shut.

The Fix: Gate Valve Out, Ball Valve In

Swapping a valve sounds simple, and when it's done right it is. Here's what we did:

1. Shut off the supply and drained the line. The water was turned off upstream and the line drained down so we could work on it dry.
2. Cut out the old gate valve along with the corroded fitting above it.
3. Installed a Jomar JP-100G ball valve. It's lead-free brass, full port and press-connect, with new copper press fittings above and below.
4. Pressed the joints. Press fittings are sealed with a press tool rather than a torch, which is a better fit in a tight spot under a shelf. The valve is also built to leak visibly if a connection hasn't been pressed, so a missed joint shows up straight away.
5. Turned the water back on and tested. We checked every joint under full pressure and ran the handle open and closed.

Most of our pipe repair work comes down to this: find the part that's actually failing, replace it with something better, and leave the rest of the system alone.

The Result: Dry Wall, Solid Shutoff

Here's where the homeowner ended up:

• Leak stopped. The failing valve and the corroded fitting are gone, and every new joint was tested under pressure.
• Quarter-turn shutoff. If a pipe ever bursts, the water can be shut off in one quick motion. No cranking a stuck wheel.
• Full flow. A full-port valve has an opening the same size as the pipe, so it doesn't choke water pressure to the rest of the house.
• Drinking-water safe. The valve is lead-free brass, and the handle carries its NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 certification for potable water.

Small jobs like this are a big part of why homeowners across Bothell and the rest of our service area keep calling us back. See what they say on our reviews page.

Could Your Shutoff Valve Use the Same Swap?

Go find the valve where your water line comes into the house. It's worth a service call if you see any of these:

• A round wheel handle that takes several turns to close
• Green or white crust around the joints
• Drips, damp concrete or water stains near the valve
• A handle that won't turn, or water that keeps trickling after it's closed

If there's water showing up and you can't tell where it's coming from, our leak detection service can track it down before it does any damage.