[chazman1616]

Hi. Before going into the issue, here is a picture of my setup on the house I recently moved into. It's pretty weird because in order to have water supplied to the sprinklers you need to have the ball valve open which allows water to flow to the misters (helps us cool down in that Arizona heat). I don't use the sprinkler system, but it would be nice to be able to without turning on the misters.

Hopefully that makes sense. So the issue I'm having is the "overflow hole" I guess you'd call it at the end of the misters' pipe is constantly leaking water. I've blocked this hole and water starts to leak out of the individual mister heads, so I've determined that the blue Everbilt ball valve shown below is leaking.

How much of a pain would this be to replace? I've done work with PVC pipe before, but never dealt with this type of ball valve. Would my best bet be installing a separate PVC ball valve for the misters' line? This would be easy, would allow me to stop the leak, and should allow me to turn on the sprinkler without turning on the misters.

I'd like to here some thoughts on my best course of action. I really appreciate it!

 

[chandler48]

You can replace the ball valve, but don't replace it with a PVC valve at any cost !! They notoriously do not operate smoothly after a while sitting open or closed. I am only assuming you are located in California or Florida since all your pipes are exposed to the weather.

Not having a union involved with the pvc pipe, you will have to do some cutting and refitting once your ball valve is installed. Use a good quality brass ball valve in place of the one you have, now.

 

[Texican57]

You might be better off with a gate valve rather than a ball valve.
Sand or debris can damage the seals on the ball valve.
A gate valve can also be damaged by sand, but in my experience not as easily.
I too, had water leaking through a ball valve to my yard watering system.
A plumber at work suggested changing from ball valves to gate valves.

 

[chazman1616]

You can replace the ball valve, but don't replace it with a PVC valve at any cost !! They notoriously do not operate smoothly after a while sitting open or closed. I am only assuming you are located in California or Florida since all your pipes are exposed to the weather.

Not having a union involved with the pvc pipe, you will have to do some cutting and refitting once your ball valve is installed. Use a good quality brass ball valve in place of the one you have, now.

Thanks for the reply! And yeah, I'm in Arizona so we don't have to worry about pipes freezing or anything like that. So you're thinking good ball valve in place of the one I have and then another brass ball valve for the mister system (so I can use the sprinkler system without the misters on)?

 

[SW Dweller]

I have never seen a ball valve leak, in 30 years, I am not a plumber.

Since your considering replacement, do that and then before you mount the new valve take the old one apart. You will need a pipe wrench and a vice. Or look a the ball inside the valve, if there are no scratches then maybe the valve was defective from the git go.

Did you put a water filter on the misters? That makes a big different in the longevity of them.

 

[chazman1616]

I have never seen a ball valve leak, in 30 years, I am not a plumber.

Since your considering replacement, do that and then before you mount the new valve take the old one apart. You will need a pipe wrench and a vice. Or look a the ball inside the valve, if there are no scratches then maybe the valve was defective from the git go.

Did you put a water filter on the misters? That makes a big different in the longevity of them.

Yeah looking online people really say they don't leak, so something weird must be up. And no we don't have a water filter, as the misters are pretty simple and cheap. It's essentially just a pipe with drilled threaded holes for the mister nozzles to screw in to.