With the first freeze of the year last night, I crawled under the house to shut
off the water to the back deck and blow out the line with some compressed air.
Imagine my disgust when I discovered the plumber had installed the quarter turn
valve with the access port to the inside of the house rather than outboard of
the other seat/stem type valve. In other words, introducing compressed air to
the valve would blow the water inside the house up until that point rather than
the water from that point outside.

So what to do? I cut the line with a tubing cutter and was going to solder in
another ported quarter turn valve... only this time to the outside of the water
line shutoff. When I tried to fit the valve on the now open piping, no amount
of stuffing and grunting would get the job done. A visit to the local borg
revealed plenty of 1/2" fittings, only they would fit the thinner M type piping.
I assume I've got L tubing which is just a little thicker.

Where do I get valves that would fit? Or should I find some sort of reducer
(seems like more work than I want to do)? And why don't the borgs sell valves
that fit the tubing they sell? They've got both kinds of tubing but just the
smaller diameter valves. The immediate problem is solved: I blew out the line
under the deck after I cut it under the house. But I won't have more water out
there until I repair this.

Gents?



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com