Ball valve flow direction arrow

[oilboy123]

Yes I've had things leak in the past from a bad solder job. Lots of heat with a turbo torch helps. I had some stuff plumbed about 7 years back. They were using copper crimp. I think ease of use, plus less liabilty for lighting a house on fire. I would love one of the pro crimpers.

I'm sure they are not cheap.

 

[Lubener]

I would think flow direction doesn't matter, but I would contact Homewerks.

I would follow the flow arrow indication so you can drain the line if needed by removing the cap when the valve is closed. The cap is downstream from the ball valve.

 

[facility1]

some ball valves have a arrow for a reason, inside the valve tunnel is a taper on a full port valve is why, as it contributes to better shearing action of the valve when closing or throttling flow.

 

[johnmyster]

Well I got beat by this and ended up paying the low skill idiot stupid tax.

I've been there. Made additional trips to store to get more valves/couplings/pipe because I couldn't get a valve to sweat.

Sweating in cheap china-brass valves can be a real pain. Far more difficult than sweating copper fittings. Add to the challenge, you can't get the valve too hot before you melt out the nylon sleeve. It's almost like the cheap brass is self lubricating and has oil/crud in the material. Ironically a really hot pinpoint torch helps so you can get the joint hot before overheating the adjoining pipe/valve.

It's always good to keep a few sharkbite caps around if you need to cap off a branch/project like this and get the house back online.

I kept a few "better" brass valves around until my recent pex repipe. That said, I sweated all my copper to pex transitions (no pro press) including the incoming 3/4" main line but I purposely avoided brass fittings, using ONLY copper transition fittings instead. Partly due to ease of sweating, but also because "lead free" brass isn't really "lead free", or arsenic free, or bismuth free...

My local supply house will rent the pro-press tool for $75 a day (some plumbers don't have them) and they carry all the fittings. Far less sensitive to cleaning/fluxing, no heat, no scorching nearby wood, faster, no need to get the line completely dry. There are many upsides to going that route that overcome the additional cost of the fittings. As much as I see it used, I assume the rubber o-rings are resilient enough to not fail before the copper.

 

[Pablo]

I would follow the flow arrow indication so you can drain the line if needed by removing the cap when the valve is closed. The cap is downstream from the ball valve.

Of course, but flow volume doesn't matter

 

[Sequoiasoon]

ProPress is nice. I borrowed one from work a couple times.

I keep a collection SharkBite fittings and valves just in case. I saw one and said DANG why didn't I think of that. Crazy leaking pipe no shutoff, main was stuck/frozen. Plumber took a Sharkbite ball valve, cut the pipe clean and put the valve on open so water was flowing and he could get it to seal, THEN shut the valve. Now he had time without flooding to get all fixed.

 

[JHZR2]

I've been there. Made additional trips to store to get more valves/couplings/pipe because I couldn't get a valve to sweat.

Sweating in cheap china-brass valves can be a real pain. Far more difficult than sweating copper fittings. Add to the challenge, you can't get the valve too hot before you melt out the nylon sleeve. It's almost like the cheap brass is self lubricating and has oil/crud in the material. Ironically a really hot pinpoint torch helps so you can get the joint hot before overheating the adjoining pipe/valve.

It's always good to keep a few sharkbite caps around if you need to cap off a branch/project like this and get the house back online.

I kept a few "better" brass valves around until my recent pex repipe. That said, I sweated all my copper to pex transitions (no pro press) including the incoming 3/4" main line but I purposely avoided brass fittings, using ONLY copper transition fittings instead. Partly due to ease of sweating, but also because "lead free" brass isn't really "lead free", or arsenic free, or bismuth free...

My local supply house will rent the pro-press tool for $75 a day (some plumbers don't have them) and they carry all the fittings. Far less sensitive to cleaning/fluxing, no heat, no scorching nearby wood, faster, no need to get the line completely dry. There are many upsides to going that route that overcome the additional cost of the fittings. As much as I see it used, I assume the rubber o-rings are resilient enough to not fail before the copper.

Thanks for that message!

Crazy and really deflating when something straightforward turns into failures. I live close to everything, but any trip out still wastes 20-40 minutes to get more stuff.

I actually learned a lot after all this, beyond the “how to solder” videos, which let me be quite successful to get good looking joints on penny bright copper.

Turns out that the potable water valves aren’t really brass at all, they’re vastly different alloys with different characteristics and much poorer heat transfer. Apparently best practices for these now include tinned solder, and lower melt temperature sterling solder. I suspect those have some other downsides, but they appear to help… plus a hotter flame. I guess a pencil tip propane isn’t hot enough for these alloys. Even with the new practices.

But that also comes back to the potential to damage a valve. Don’t want to overheat it, so that means more heat synced. Then there’s the matter of access in a floor joist pocket with dry old growth wood……..

Pro press for $75 sounds great. My plumber said the tool was around $4000. I saw two versions, one that was $2500-ish and the other that I guess maybe has more crimping heads. It was so easy that he let my 4yo push the button once.

I do have reservations on the sealing element especially on pipes that may see some twisting on them, like ones that have a threaded end for a hose bib screw in or whatnot.

 

[JHZR2]

I would follow the flow arrow indication so you can drain the line if needed by removing the cap when the valve is closed. The cap is downstream from the ball valve.

My application was backwards. I shut off my home main, and the valve upstream of the whole house filter. The little valve just lets a little bleed out of pressure (or air after fill). That avoids reliance on push button bleed ports and other things.