Leaky Shut Off Valve Repair

okay folks in this video we're going to talk about what to do when you go to turn that gate valve globe valve point of use valve and it starts leaking uncontrollably from the stem and you start freaking out now the first thing to know is yes it's your fault you put your hands on it at least that's what my customers tell me everything was fine until you touched it i'm going to talk about a gate valve i'm going to talk about a globe valve i'm going to talk about a point of use valve the differences and what you can do to fix that drip coming out of that little packing nut it's not really a big deal but if you don't know what you're doing it could turn into a little bit of a catastrophe so stick around so what do you do when you go to turn the valve and it starts dripping out of the packing nut here well initially you do what i do and what everybody else does is to go out and get yourself uh an open wrench or a small pipe wrench and initially what i would do is i would come here to the packing nut and i will try to tighten it now in mild cases you can go you know maybe an eighth of a turn you could go a quarter of a turn in some instances you may have to go you know a half a turn and if by going a quarter turn it stops great if you have to go uh a half a turn great you know generally once that stops what i do is i i will turn this i will turn it full on and full off and if i see that the drip is stopped that's pretty much it but if you tighten it eighth of a turn quarter of a turn half turn and the thing isn't getting any better then it's gonna be time to take this packing nut off and we're going to have to replace the packing in there now some valves depending upon the manufacturer they have graphite packing in there at least most of them do cheaper valves imported valves they have a little rubber washer in there which dries out quicker than the graphite and you have some choices when it comes to choosing what you're going to use to pack the valve i'm old school i carry graphite packing with me this is graphite packing it's readily available at the home centers and actually i purchased this this morning for this demonstration and i got this at lowe's so there it is but i purchased it commercially for my plumbing supply get it on big rolls and if you're the type of person who would rather use teflon well they make rope teflon now they make the rope teflon and the graphite in two thicknesses this is the lesser of the two i just find i can get it in there better but you you're welcome to use the thicker version and this is the uh teflon version again i got this from lowe's this morning so typically what you would do is i know there are a lot of videos on youtube telling people you know to go shut the main water supply off now you can if you want uh i generally to pack a valve i don't do that what i will do is is i will shut the valve off but i will make sure it's fully off see if if you leave the valve fully open and you back off this packing nut it's it's going to drip i mean it it'll it'll drip pretty well but if you turn the valve off and the valve has integrity meaning uh you know it's not gonna pass any water then i wouldn't worry about it so i at least i wouldn't go and shut the main water off you may have to do that but initially i don't do that so with that said then i'm going to come in here with my adjustable or you know pipe wrench whatever you happen to have with you we'll get that on there you want to bite that square because you really don't you don't want to egg shape that nut and we'll back that nut off and you may have to you may have to hold on to this to make sure it's shut and make sure it doesn't uh start to open you know some of these are really sticky and as you start to loosen the packing nut the stem will actually start to turn so you hold on to it as such and you back this nut off now this is coming off this is a new valve bear in mind when you're under a sink and you're in tight quarters you know things are not going to go as smooth as they're going up here on the bench so just you want to bear that in mind so there is the uh the part where the stem goes into the valve and uh here inside you can see that's graphite i can tell by looking at it i can see that shine on there and essentially what you would have to do initially what you can do rather than take all of that out you could start by taking again the graphite the teflon whatever turns you on and you could do one round snip it off with the scissors and proceed to put this nut back on and see if you can get that packing you know you push on it and you tighten that you go all the way down until it's tight enough so to speak then you go through the motions of opening and closing the valve and you see you know if that has stopped the water and as you open and close the valve you can actually what i what i do is while i'm opening and closing the valve let me just make sure this is closed as i'm opening and closing the valve i am turning and turning and turning to make sure that this is snug and i can feel the more you turn the harder or the tighter the stem is going to get and if by putting one round of graphite in there or one gram round of teflon in there does the trick hey you know what guys you're done that's it open up the valve the fully open position and you're finished now if you find on the other hand that it's not happening you may have to go in there and again you want to make sure this is shut and this valve opened all the way um let that shut we take this off and you go in there with an awl a knife a pick something sharp and you get all that stuff out of there and then the the sequence would be you would start maybe two rounds two and a half three rounds at a time and you would start and then you would whack that nut up all the way then back it off then again you proceed to fill up the cavity if you will it's going to be very hard to do all one shot so i would do it in increments i would do maybe two or three rounds whack that nut up again while while holding on to the valve because you don't want it to open back the nut off another two or three or another one or two whatever it's gonna be until you get that built up to the point where there's a substantial amount of packing in there and you're satisfied that it's going to work once you get it to that sweet spot you'll be able to tighten that up open up the valve and you're going to be done now if the valve doesn't hold water you're probably going to have to shut the main water supply off i mean i've been in situations where i couldn't get the water to stop while i was packing it but again you know i do this for a living so i'll get a bucket i'll shove it under there i'll go through the the steps anything to avoid shutting the water off because when you shut the water off you know and then you have to go to all the fixtures bleed all the air out of the system you have to drain down the system if it's a multi-family house it becomes an issue so i try not to shut the main water off if if i don't have to and that's pretty much you know the simple version of how to get the water to stop a you gonna you gotta tighten it initially and b if you know if a doesn't work you go to plan b and you're going to have to pack the nut that's pretty much it guys it's not no brain surgery here we're talking about stopping the water uh you know from coming out of the stem and again that's pretty much the story what i want to do is i want to i want to take this out of here and show you what the what the inside of this valve looks like for reference now when you when you take a gauge valve apart you're going to have to get it somewhere between the fully open and the fully closed position in the neutral position to back it off because as you start to screw the stem out the gate you know will actually go up or down and sometimes you'll get it stuck so what we'll do is we'll see if we can open our wrench here and we'll start to i have this in the neutral position now let me see what happens here sometimes it'll start you see now it's stopped it doesn't turn anymore it doesn't turn anymore now what i'll do is i'll start to turn this see i'm turning it in and look see it's starting to come off now it's stopped again so i'll turn it in so actually the gate is going down and it's backing off i'll turn it i'll turn it and it's backing off and eventually it'll come out it stopped again okay so i'm gonna go again and here we go so and here we go here is that gate and bear this in mind i mean when you do put this back in again i recommend putting some pipe joint compound on here or i will even take some teflon off my roll my teflon tape i don't put it on the threads i kind of roll it in between my hands and i will put that one or two rounds right up against the flat and that'll seal this is like a ground joint it's supposed to seal without anything on it on the other hand you're going to find valves have washers here they have fiber washers they have rubber washers it's going to depend on the valve who the manufacturer is but a valve like this this is a pretty decently made valve and that's what i would call a ground joint if you will but i still would put my pipe joint compound my mega lock i put a round or two of teflon tape not this i mean you could that's going to smush out and that's what i do you want to make sure you put some kind of a sealing agent on this bonnet before you shove it back but anyway here's the gate in this gate see i'm turning the valve here the gate comes out now i will tell you um from experience that on water mains in particular these gates sit in there on a water main it typically is in the open position for years and years and years and years and years and then the plumber comes in such as myself and i go to shut the water off because i'm working upstairs on something i shut it off i do my repair and then i go to open it and lo and behold what happens well i'm going to tell you what happens this gate remains in the closed position and this here somewhere somewhere along here this stem is generally pitted and rotted and it snaps off so now i attempt to turn the water back on for the customer and the stem snaps and now the gate is in the closed position now what do you do well now you're up uh s's creek so to speak unless you have enough of um water main sticking out of the wall meaning whether it's copper or or lead i mean if you have 24 inches 36 inches of lead that's sticking out of the wall ahead you know ahead of the valve what i did in the good old days is i froze that line i then took apart the valve and in some cases i yanked the gate out put the the bonnet back but where i can when i can i change the valve so i will freeze the pipe here i'm talking about back i'm going back 24 inches or so and in my day i used to do it with dry ice today they make freezing uh machines they have components whereby you could freeze the valve or freeze the water line excuse me and then go do what you got to do uh i've often changed valves on the fly if it was a lead water main i've actually just took the valve off if it was an unfinished basement and i had a sewer right in front of me and i could knock the covers off i just real quickly uh took the valve off unscrewed the valve and as i'm unscrewing the valve the water is just like pouring all over the place i'm taking a bath and and there you can see the gate is stuck in there so that's pretty much it on gate valves that's how they work and uh let's see if i can get this back together for you with that said i'm gonna jump into uh we'll jump into a globe valve now globe valves you're not going to find on water mains or at least you shouldn't find on water mains because that's not a place to put a valve that uses a washer they're usually point of use valves you'll find them under sinks etc so with that being said so there's your you get now as far as the uh the packing goes and the leaking from the stem this is going to apply to a globe valve so i'm not going to go through the steps again to pack it i just want to bring the globe valve up show you the differences because the globe valve is not full flow a globe valve by nature is restrictive and then we'll jump uh into a ball valve and then i'll i'll go over real quickly a point of use valve or a speedway valve or a speedy valve if you will stick around all right guys a globe valve as far as the packing story goes so again if you're the first one to come and turn this it's probably going to start dripping out of the packing nut here so the initial initial step would be to go in there get your opening wrench your pipe wrench whatever the case may be eighth of a turn quarter turn half turn if not you're going to have to back off the packing nut and go through the steps of packing it repacking it either with your teflon or with your graphite again i'm a graphite type of guy myself but whatever floats your boat works i just want to take this valve apart now to show you a globe valve uses a washer this is typical it has a seat inside of it and essentially remember what i was telling you about a washer if you can look down in there there's a nylon washer this is a deep this is a deep uh bonnet here so on this end here on the on the right side here you're gonna see there's a washer down there so that seals that seals between here and the inside of the valve some of them have some of them not the cheaper valves use these washers some of them are fiber washers this one's nylon anyway there's your washer so the difference between a glove valve and a gauge valve essentially i mean a globe valve is full port you're gonna get full flow and a gate valve can be put on in in either direction you know up down left right whatever the case may be because it's full flow you don't have to worry about the direction of the water unlike my my globe valve over here and if you take a look at this globe valve or any globe valve this globe valve has an arrow on it and that arrow is showing you the direction of the flow and that's the way it has to be put in i mean could you put it in backwards yeah you shouldn't i mean it's bad enough that it restricts the flow initially so why put it in backwards but anyway if you take a look let me get this out of the way take a look inside this valve and you can see the water enters below it enters on the bottom so the water goes in the bottom of the valve comes up through that integral seat where the washer sits on top of and then exits at the top so you got a little flow restriction going on comes in goes through the seat comes up goes out so it's kind of a zigzag thing going on so globe valves generally you're gonna use them or you'll see them at point of use meaning at the sinks under the sinks under the kitchen typically you find them under kitchen sink cabinets maybe you'll find them on water supplies to boilers um you really shouldn't find them on risers to fixtures although i've seen them and that's pretty much it they use a washer and if that washer gets hard and gets worn or that seat gets compromised the valve will pass water generally if the seats are in good condition you can replace that washer with a new rubber washer and that should solve your problem if the valve is passing water uh putting the valve back together it's kind of similar to like a gate valve i will not i will leave it open actually i will open this all the way leave it in the all the way open position and then you could tighten this all the way down so that that nylon washer hits up against the valve then you'll come in and make your final your final tightening you'll whack that up until you're happy with it and then after you got that done you again you leave this in the neutral position or in the fully open position go back and forth and while you're doing that tighten up this tighten up this uh packing nut to make sure that there is some resistance on the stem you don't want this to be like really really loose you want a little resistance in there uh on the other hand you don't want it so tight that you can't turn it but i i am on the side of a little more stiffness as opposed to looseness so i will whack these up to where i'm getting a little resistance here and then you know whatever the case may be i mean you leave them generally they're in the fully open position so that is a globe valve and the next valve i'll talk about is a ball valve which is the way to go in my opinion in today's in today's world all right what we have here is the almighty ball valve at least that's what i use today i very rarely use gate valves i certainly don't use glove valves and pretty much there's a stainless steel ball inside of here and on each end on either end there is a series of nylon seats that that ball rides up against and it's a full port valve i'll show you the inside of it in a second so this would be fully on this would be fully off and believe it or not these also at least this particular company uh has a packing nut on it now it's rare that you would turn a ball valve and get a leak out of the packing nut but it can happen and when it does happen you have this little packing nut here and you could again initially first step would be as with the gate valve and the glove valve is to come in here with your adjustable again or pipe wrench and try to snug it up to get the water to stop dripping if it doesn't stop dripping you can actually back this out all the way and i will take this up here and show you that there is some room in here for you to put some either graphite or teflon and if you can see inside here there is a nylon washer in there so there's a little bit of a back of washer in there but initially i would try the tightening trick if not you come in and very sparingly get your um your teflon packing or your um graphite again i'm a graphite type of guy you want to put this on in a clockwise fashion uh whenever you're packing a packing nut or a valve you want to put it on a clockwise fashion so that when you tighten this nut up it actually will will squeeze into the cavity if you uh if you put it in backwards it's liable to squish out so there is that stainless steel ball i was talking about inside the valve and again these can be put on in either direction you don't have to worry about the direction of the water flow um and pretty much once we get this handle on here and i will go a quarter of a turn up and now the valve is in the fully open position you can see it's fully open so ball valves in my opinion are the way to go wherever you're going to put them point of use at the base of risers branch lines um i think these are a preferred method and that's what i do in today's world so let's uh just uh take a look at one more valve which is the speedway valves which you'll typically find underneath their bathroom sinks toilets and sometimes under your kitchen sinks all right finally we got the speedy valve speedway valve whatever you guys call them out there in the field and same type of situation they're sitting underneath the bathroom sink the kitchen sink the toilet bowl and generally what happens is the first guy that comes and turns these the water starts to leak out of the packing nut here now some valves are manufactured better than others this has actually is made out of plastic if you will uh you know on the one hand people say oh it's plastic it's a pizza garbage on the other hand uh the water conditions pretty much don't affect it so if you have a brass uh component in here that's all brass and metal if you have like really lousy water it could be an issue but again if you go to shut this and it starts to drip out of the packing nut again plan a is to go in there with your adjustable wrench and these things will typically make up quite a bit you can you can whack these up pretty hard to get them to stop but if it does not stop then uh in a case where you have to take a valve apart whether it be a gate valve a glove valve or a ball valve you're gonna have to shut off the water supply so you're gonna shut off your water supply at the meter at the front wall wherever that may be my recommendation is to open up a fixture at the the highest point in the house and then open up a sink at the lowest point in the house so you're letting air in so all the water in the system can drain down got to completely drain down so after you turn your water off go upstairs or open up the sink at the lowest point then go upstairs to the highest point open up the faucets in the bathroom in the kitchen let all the water drain out of the system when that water is completely drained out and you don't see any water leaking out of that low fixture that you opened then you can proceed to take this valve apart with that in mind again you'll get your pipe wrench or adjustable wrench and you'll back off this packing nut here and you want to again put this in the neutral position somewhere between halfway on and halfway off or if you prefer all the way in the open position and then you can back this nut off and these typically there you can see and actually on this one believe it or not i believe actually the washer is missing from there so this must have been a valve i had on the shelf upstairs and the washer popped off but they don't even use screws to hold the washer on they just it's like a you pop it on there you could actually pop the washer over this uh expanded tip and it'll keep the washer in there but anyway let's just make believe the washers on there and you're looking to pack it so there is a nylon backup washer that sits up against the body here and we'll take the handle off we'll take this hand off and the handle's even plastic how do you like that and if you can see here you see there's a rubber washer on there so this rubber washer sits up against the nylon washer and again if you if you tighten that and you whacked up that uh packing nut all the way and it still didn't stop leaking what you can do is or at least what i would do is if this rubber washer is in some kind of decent shape meaning it's still pliable in between the rubber washer and that nylon washer that keep it actually keeps the packing from going into the valve body again you can start you'll put one round on here go around clockwise and then what you can do is you know slide the washer up against here and after you snip it off then you can proceed to put this on here and start to tighten it and by building it up little by little you will eventually get this to stop now in some cases there isn't a rubber washer in here there's a fiber washer which gets all dried up and it cracks and it breaks in which case you know you can come in here and just build this up build it up with teflon or if it was me i mean i use the graphite so again you would snip this off start to tighten the packing nut until it gets snug you go through the motions of uh turning this on and off you're kind of going back and forth as you're tightening the packing nut to to feel for the stiffness and once you get it into that sweet spot so to speak where you feel it's not too loose not too tight it's just right you're pretty much done at that point you can put the valve back together again and uh tighten everything up and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna go upstairs to that uppermost fixture that you open just make sure it's shut shut the fixture downstairs and then proceed to open up the water actually what would i tell people to do is leave the fixture at the highest point open so as the water starts to fill up into the the system you're pushing the air out of the uppermost fixture this way you'll minimize the the banging you're gonna get you know or that little rush of air you'll get when you open up the fixtures after you uh just had the main water off and that's pretty much it guys that's my my speech on you know how to get a a packing nut to stop leaking and we went over we went over the gate valve we went over the globe valve we went over the ball valve and finally we went over the um point of views valve guys i hope you got a little value out of this video uh if you're enjoying what you're seeing by all means please subscribe uh you may want to keep an eye out to the right you'll see a video pop up uh one of them i chose one of them youtube shows if you stayed all the way to this point i appreciate you thank you very much and i look forward to seeing all you guys in my next video and as always stay well but more importantly happy plumbing

Channel: BobsPlumbingVideos

Views: 201,913

Rating: 4.8517995 out of 5

Keywords: leaky shut off valve, leaky shut off valve handle, leaky shut off valve in basement, leaky shut off valve sink, leaky shut off valve stem, leaky shut off valve toilet, leaky shut off valve under sink, how to stop a leaky shut off valve, shut off valve, shut off valve dripping, how to fix a leaky shut off water valve, leaky water shut off valve, leaky water shut off valve under sink, leaky valve, dripping valve, packing nut repair, plumbing tips, dripping ball valve

Id: NRERgkUQMoo

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 27 2020