How to deal with this shutoff valve?

[Heynow999]

I am a property manger and I have several valves like this in one building. They are shutoffs for the laundry room and there are similar valves for bathrooms. I have 4 that I would like to replace, they are all the same in that they are behind the drywall with only the handle sticking out.

I don't need them, the haven't ever been used and I had a problem with one of them leaking around the stem.

What I thought I would do is have my plumber replace the valves with solid copper pipe. The one in the picture doesn't seem too bad to remove but some of them are wedged between studs and I think it would be tough to work on.

So my question is what is the best way to deal with these valves? Is there a cap that I can use that fits where the valve stem is? My main concern is fixing it permanently with minimal chances of leaks as this is a rental unit.

The valve is original to the building so it was installed in 1960 and has never been used as far as I know. It has a brass body and has the word GALT on it

Thanks

 

[James Henry]

A competent plumber could eliminate those valves with some pipe and a couple slip couplings. I would remove the angle stop down stream before soldering so there is air flow in the pipe when soldering. You can't solder on a closed system.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Heynow999]

I guess I should have posted this picture

These are the hard ones. There are two in this picture. One is clearly visible, the other one is to the left of that one. On these the handle is in the next room. It is a bathroom. I was hoping to have then replaced from this side. As you can see, there is little room to work. The one on the left is jambed between two studs.

I was thinking I would just get new valve body parts and rebuild them and forget about it for anther 60 years.

As I mentioned, one of the packing nuts on these valves was leaking, I think it could let go at any time. The packing nut has a little crack in it. I think it was over tightened

Thanks for your responses

 

[John Gayewski]

You could re build them. I think your going to want to find one and rebuild or first to see what you need and how it goes. Then you can buy more parts and do the rest.

 

[Heynow999]

So what I ended up doing is I bought a new valve stem and just used the packing nut to repair the leaking one. The ones that arent leaking I secured the valves better with wood and copper strapping and fixed the drywall. When I drywalled I didnt get any on the valve so in the future I can rebuild the valve without haveing to mess with the drywall