What's the best valve for "shut-off"

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stars1234

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Hi people.

this is my 1st time here and 1st post. Hope I will learn lots and give back in things that I know.

My house is 50+ years old. All the pipe is 1/2 inch, galvinized.
The work on building it was shoddy to say the best. Even back then, I don't know how this place passed inspection--except I was told the mayor lived here and had no trouble with the builing inspector.

Anyway, the plumbing is a total mess. To give you an idea: a few years ago, I noticed the toliet was leaking at the bottom, so I thought no biggy--just take it up and put down a new seal.
As it turned out, when I took the toilet up, the cast-iron flange was wrong, rusted, broken, and worse, the toliet was sitting on the waste pipe--not on the floor, but on the pipe. --I had wondered why that end of the bathroom seemed to be not as firm as the rest. It was because someone, to make things easy to get to had cut out many and partly through the floor joists in that area.

I wound up having to rebuild the flooring, try to fix the cast iron, put down an entirely new bathroom floor from installing new joists, up. what a simple job turned into a nightmare.

the whole house is like this.

When I moved in, there were no shut-off valves on any of the fixtures.

I put some on, but not knowing what I was doing, may not have chosen the best ones for the job. What I put on was straight shut offs, of the washer and seat type.

It's time to replace my shut offs to the washing machine. Is there a better choice, such as a ball valve or something other than the rubber washer & seat type?
The water is very hard. The shut offs stick, the rubber disentegrates, the brass seats get nicks and even corrode (although brass isn't supposed to do that).

Do I stay with the straight valves, which are named "shut off," and be content although I when I close them, they don't stop the water from flowing, at least dripping, heavily. I usually have to replace seats once a year and the stem washer a couple of times a year, then through the whole thing away after three years.

What are your recommendations? ball valve, gate valve--or stay with what i have?

Thanks,
Bob
 

Jadnashua

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Ball valves...

It may be that the rust from the galvanized pipes is acting like sand paper to the seals.

Eventually, you are going to need to replace all of the supply piping - your flow and reliability of valves should improve when you do.
 

Gary Swart

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Ball valves are far and away the best valve, but you might want to look at the shut off valves made for washers. These have a single lever that cut both hot and cold off. I believe they are ball valves, too.
 

Cass

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As previously recommended...Ball Valves. The only way to stop.
 

Kordts

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They make ball valves for everything now. Angle and straight stops, washing machine valves and hosebibbs, etc. There are 1/4 turn frostfree sillcocks even.
 
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