fix/replace main water stop cock

[AnonymousImport]

The house has two main stop cocks - one at front & one at rear. Both are internal to house.
Both also are seized solid. On has the top piece broken off - preseumable becaouse someone twisted too hard.

Now - should I just cut them both out and replace ..? Or, attempt to unscrew the body i.e. the larger assembly that screws into the valve body.

Any advice?
STee

 

[AnonymousImport]

presuming they are both lead i would turn the main water supply off cut them off and renew them..

 

[AnonymousImport]

both copper - house built in late '60's

 

[AnonymousImport]

you mean copper going to the lead

 

[AnonymousImport]

I dought if you have two water supplies to the house.
You say the stop cocks are onto copper, this should be 15mm into 1/2 inch galv steel pipe, if you can I would change the whole pipe back to the mains.
More info is needed to give you a better answer.
If you have galv 1/2" then this type of pipe breaks down inside as the rust builds up, whats your pressure like?
Changing stop cocks all depends if you have good access to the pipework as this can be awkward to get grips(stillsons)on.
I f you can just grip the pipework and carfully apply equal pressure to unscrew the old stopcock from the metal galv pipe elbow/tee.Don't forget to turn off water in street.
Put on ptfe tape on the stopcock thread so it tightens as you screw in to the pipework.
Do not forget to have the correct stopcock, this sounds stupid but you will be suprised.
reguards jrm

 

[AnonymousImport]

Steve. you can get away with just unscrewing the body and replacing them.

The only concern is whether the bodies will match - 1960's copper will be in imperial measurements 3/4" and todays will be in metric 22mm.

Turn off the supply to you house from the stop-cock located outside your house down a 'stop-tap pit', which is usually a small grid. If it's modern, it will also be a stop-cock variety and you should be able to get your arm down it, if not you may have to hire a long stop tap key from HSS or someone like that. The other major concern is do you share the same stop-tap with your neighbours, some council estates do and shutting it off shuts down next door as well.

One last top tip, when you are putting you PTFE on the threads of your new stop tap, wrap it on in the direction of the thread, so that when you screw it in, it follows the direction of the thread and provides a tighter fit.