jay-n-123 wrote:
My 20 year old townhouse has a total of 17 Brasscraft shutoff valves. These
are the multi-turn style (NOT ball) and are the ones with metal stems (NOT
plastic). I believe they were all soldered on.

When I first moved here 2.5 years ago, most of these valves were siezed but
I was able to use a pair of pliers to get them unsiezed so they could then
be turned by hand.

Every two months I've been turning them as slightly as possible to prevent
them from being siezed again, and then turning them back slightly to the
original position. I'm not giving them a full workout as I want to avoid
deteriorating existing packing. Question is to continue with this strategy
or just leave them be?

Someone, who is not a plumber, but an experienced homeowner, suggested that
I should simply leave them alone and not touch them unless I really need to
shut something off, since turning them at all may be deteriorating the
packing and cause a leak and then the valve might need replacing. He said,
unless you are prepared to be spending a lot of money getting the valves
replaced, then just leave the shutoff valves alone.

Should I continue to turn them slightly every two months and hope that none
of develop a leak a result of my turning them, or just leave them alone?

Thanks,

J.



I'd keep exercising them, and can't they be repacked if they do start to
leak? Generally a valve will not leak when fully open, only when
partially open. I have a spigot on the outside of my house that leaks
like a seive while opening, but when it's full open there's enough
packing left that there's not a drip. (yeah, I know, but I have other
things to fix before I get to that.)

nate

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