Old boiler fitting finally gave out on me after 30 years

Last Tuesday I was working on a steam system at an old grain mill near St. Louis and a 4 inch gate valve just snapped right at the stem when I tried to close it. The thing had been there since the early 90s I bet, all crusted up with rust and scale. I had to drain the whole section and cut out the old flange with a torch to get a new valve in place. Took me and my helper about 6 hours total to swap it out. Has anyone else run into old valves that just crumble when you barely touch them?

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2 Comments

thomas_young1mo ago

Oh man, that's rough. I swear they just don't make valves like they used to, but sometimes that just means they're too old and crusty to move. Had a similar thing happen with a steam trap last year, soon as I touched the bypass valve the whole thing just disintegrated. Six hours sounds about right for that mess.

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theawest1mo ago

And the worst part is, you can't even get mad at it because it's been there longer than you've been alive probably. I had a gate valve on an old irrigation line that was so seized up I had to heat it with a torch for like 20 minutes before it would even budge. Then of course the stem snapped off in my hand (typical, right?) and I had to dig out the whole assembly from the pipe threads. It's always the ones you think will be the quick fix that turn into the whole day project.

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