Help advice needed to replace main house valve

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AndyHFL

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Hello all,

I needed to shut off the water in the water in the house today to replace a leaky Accor valve ( leaking from crimped hose), and notice the main valve does not fully shuts of the water. After applying more force to it, it was able to shut off the water 100%, but it did not want to open again. Long story short, I need to replace it as it was installed in 2006 by the builder.

I need recommendation for another shut off valve, and any suggestion on how to install it as you can see in the attached pictures the PVC pipes are very short , and have a lot of paint or stucco on them.

Thank you again.

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Terry

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As a plumber I'm terrified to touch those. I normally don't touch those and shut the water meter off instead.
There are already couplings on the wall side, which is where I would normally cut and install a new brass valve with two 90's onto the pipe sticking out from the wall. Someone has already placed couplings there though. It's going to be a harder job, working between the 90's. A union would help out there perhaps

Has anyone ever removed 1" PVC from a coupling before? Or is that CPVC? With all that paint it's hard to tell.
 

AndyHFL

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Thanks Terry.

The rest of the house has CPVC, so maybe it is CPVC. When I went to the street meter to shut off the main, the valve was buried in a foot of dirt and hard to locate, spent about 20 min to empty most of the dirt, and was careful not to cut the meter's wires ( used by the city to read the meter from the car). I was thinking to install a 2" PVC pipe on the city valve so I can get to it quickly 1 year from now in an emergency. Any professional way of achieving this so I can leave the house shut off alone?
 

Jeff H Young

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Maybe its even sch 40 or 80 ips cpvc because regular pvc isnt allowed in house.
dont you have a meter box with a curb stop or angle stop on city side coming into meter I usualy close that with my "T" wrench. sometimes there is what we call a customer valve with a nice ball valve handle , but I* never have to dig it up.
A lot of florida houses have shut off like that close tight to the house and houses are often block .
If you have valve underground put a box in
 

AndyHFL

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Maybe its even sch 40 or 80 ips cpvc because regular pvc isnt allowed in house.
dont you have a meter box with a curb stop or angle stop on city side coming into meter I usualy close that with my "T" wrench. sometimes there is what we call a customer valve with a nice ball valve handle , but I* never have to dig it up.
A lot of florida houses have shut off like that close tight to the house and houses are often block .
If you have valve underground put a box in
There is a box around it, and has a cover but not bottom, and but it keeps getting filled up with dirt/soil as I cleaned it up two years ago, and today was full and hard to find the valve with all the dirt in there. Maybe my idea of putting a PVC pipe over the meter valve so I can drop my T wrench thru the PVC pipe to get to the valve would actually work if the pipe does not fill up!
 

John Gayewski

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There is a box around it, and has a cover but not bottom, and but it keeps getting filled up with dirt/soil as I cleaned it up two years ago, and today was full and hard to find the valve with all the dirt in there. Maybe my idea of putting a PVC pipe over the meter valve so I can drop my T wrench thru the PVC pipe to get to the valve would actually work if the pipe does not fill up!
I think I would try a ram bit. Then rebuild with threaded nipples (cut in half) glued into the two sockets, two threaded 90's with a union and a valve between them (a non PVC valve). Needs to be schedule 80 grey pvc if it's pvc.
 

AndyHFL

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John,

Are you saying to cut at the locations indicated in the attached image, ram bit in the straight couplings? Would you please include a simple sketch?

Thanks in advance.
 

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John Gayewski

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John,

Are you saying to cut at the locations indicated in the attached image, ram bit in the straight couplings? Would you please include a simple sketch?

Thanks in advance.
Yeah that's what I'd try. Let it be known that your in a bad situation. If it doesn't work (it should work) you are going to have to get into the wall.

I'd drive the ram bit plenty deep. But not too many in and out motions or you'll oversize the hole. This is hard to judge because the ram bit is awesome but not perfect. I think I would use some rain or shine glue and give it plenty of dry time.

Just buy grey sched.80 nipples, cut the threads off of one side and glue them. Then use threaded sched 80 fittings with a union. You could try buying two threaded brass 90's and brass nipples and a brass union to do it in brass if threaded sched 80 nipples aren't available.
 
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