Exercise their water valves. Crawl under the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink, reach around behind the toilet, find the hot and cold valves behind the washing machine. Especially if you live in a hard water area as I do, in Southern California. I have it on my calendar to do it twice a year. If I don’t, the valves will eventually become calcified and ossified and worthless. I say this based on hard experience.
I’m no good with kids, but basically turn the things on and off a few times, to make sure they don’t get stuck from mineral build up or something.
If you need to change your faucet, you need to be able to turn the water off and this is what these valves do.
Huh. We have really hard water here (17° dH = 3 mmol/l = 303 ppm) and I never heard of any recommending that or having issues with that. Maybe German valves are just built to work in such hard water, as that’s really common?
Huh, wonder if it’s something about hot water? I wish I had a hot water valve, but what I have is a geyser and a durchlauferhitzer and the electricity costs that come with them :/
We have the same problem in Australia. I remember a plumber looking at a shut-off valve and saying that no-one had turned it off in 20 years so it’s going to be hard to turn, and will start to leak after we do turn it off.
Newer types have way better longevity so you don’t really need to exercise them.
I bought a house last year and had to fix my washing machine immediately. When I went to turn off the water the valves themselves started to leak. I had to turn off the water to the whole house to replace the valves. What would have been a simple, quick, fix ended up as.an entire day’s project.
Exercise their water valves. Crawl under the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink, reach around behind the toilet, find the hot and cold valves behind the washing machine. Especially if you live in a hard water area as I do, in Southern California. I have it on my calendar to do it twice a year. If I don’t, the valves will eventually become calcified and ossified and worthless. I say this based on hard experience.
Do you mind ELI5 what exercising valves means? Is it just opening and closing?
Yes
I’m no good with kids, but basically turn the things on and off a few times, to make sure they don’t get stuck from mineral build up or something. If you need to change your faucet, you need to be able to turn the water off and this is what these valves do.
Huh. We have really hard water here (17° dH = 3 mmol/l = 303 ppm) and I never heard of any recommending that or having issues with that. Maybe German valves are just built to work in such hard water, as that’s really common?
the two warm-water-valves in my mietwohnung are stuck.
they recently wanted to replace the zähler, but couldn’t, because they couldn’t stop the water.
now they’re going to send some special guy. well, at least that’s what they said a few months ago 🤔
Huh, wonder if it’s something about hot water? I wish I had a hot water valve, but what I have is a geyser and a durchlauferhitzer and the electricity costs that come with them :/
We have the same problem in Australia. I remember a plumber looking at a shut-off valve and saying that no-one had turned it off in 20 years so it’s going to be hard to turn, and will start to leak after we do turn it off.
Newer types have way better longevity so you don’t really need to exercise them.
I bought a house last year and had to fix my washing machine immediately. When I went to turn off the water the valves themselves started to leak. I had to turn off the water to the whole house to replace the valves. What would have been a simple, quick, fix ended up as.an entire day’s project.