ideas for in-ground water shut off valve

[sleepybozo]

If you're using PEX, you can get a decent quality 3/4" brass ball valve with Shark-Bite fittings on both ends. Just slide it on the pipe ends. And it's easily removable if necessary. A tool with extended reach to turn the valve would be simple to make.

 

[oosik]

I made a valve pit out of 24" diameter John-Mansville heavy duty plastic pipe. The pit is 30" deep where my four plastic ball valves sit on a bed of 3/4" gravel. The water line comes from the house - buried 4' - to the valve pit. The lid for the pit is one of those commercial fiberglass valve pit lids - by John-Mansville. No insulation in the pit and we see temps to -20F. I leave the water line - house to pit - ON all winter and shut off the four branches in the pit. Never had a moments problem - been there for 15+ years.

 

[Raspy]

If you're using PEX, you can get a decent quality 3/4" brass ball valve with Shark-Bite fittings on both ends. Just slide it on the pipe ends. And it's easily removable if necessary. A tool with extended reach to turn the valve would be simple to make.

Be careful with this. Easy isn't always better. 6' brass nipples on each side of the valve will handle the torque better than PEX. And stressing PEX in a Sharkbite fitting is begging for a leak.

 

[s219]

Here's what I ended up doing -- got two ball valves with PEX fittings and T handles and made up a little valve station. One valve will shutoff water coming in (from left) and the other can be cracked open to serve as a vent when I want to drain the pipe running down to the pier (going out to the right). I liked this a little better than spending $60-80 on a curb stop valve, since I figured I could drain the line a lot quicker with a full 3/4" vent opening compared to a pinhole vent. I used a short piece of PEX and some window screen to cover the vent to keep insects out (I hope).





I put this inside a round irrigation valve box ($11 from Home Depot). I will drill a couple holes in the lid and weld up some rods that hook onto the valve T handles and poke up through the lid a couple feet with external T handles, so I can easily turn the valves from the outside. Hopefully that will do the trick.