Installing a Ball Valve

Cutaway of a simple manual ball valve 1) Body 2) Head 3) Ball 4) Lever handle 5) Stem Italiano: Sezione di valvola a sfera :1) corpo :2) tenute o sede :3) otturatore (la sfera vera e propria) :4) leva di azionamento :5) stelo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Installing a ball valve can be a fairly difficult process, and it is something that can easily be done wrong, resulting in wasted time and money making fixes. Worst of all, installing a ball valve  improperly is essentially installing a safety hazard for you and everyone around. Follow these easy steps to make sure you install your ball valves properly and safely:

Double check to make sure everything is turned off! Sounds like a no-brainer, but it you don't want a big mess to clean up.

Holding the ball valve against the pipe, make marks on the pipe with a marker so you know  where the pipe needs to be cut. Make sure you don't cut off too much, as part of the pipe should sit inside the ball valve. It's always easier to cut too little instead of too much!

Put towels underneath the pipe before cutting the pipe. With your pipe cutters, slip them over the pipe, tighten and rotate them around until the pipe is cut.

Follow proper instructions for installing the particular type of ball valve you have. Once installed, make sure you test it at a low pressure.

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This post was written by Offgrid and originally appeared here