I used a knife valve for my skimmer line to shut off the skimmer during feeding and maintenance. Today I pushed the lever down and the casing broke apart near the top. I was able to push the knife section down into the pipe so it blocked the pipe and no water leaked. Since this is on the intake side of the pump there is little pressure, but I did have to turn the skimmer pipe upward so water would not flow into the broken valve.
After dinner I headed to the home repair chain and of course they did not have a knife valve to replace it. I did find a nice ball valve which had a union on one side. It also had a large handle for opening and closing and was easier to turn than other ball valves. Since the ends were a slip fit I purchased two female threaded connectors and male connectors to go where the knife valve and prior unions fit. Surprisingly the old assembly(Knife+spacer+male+union) is about the same width as the male+female+ball+female assembly.
I unscrewed the old union and cut off the knife valve. then glued a male threaded connector onto the cut pipe. Then just threaded the male connectors to the female connectors on the new ball valve so that it can all be disassembled later when I redo that section of pipe. I have learned that unions and threaded connections save a lot of headaches when pipes need to be redone or repaired.
Total cost of the repair was about $25 for the 2″ ball valve, 1 male connector, 2 female connectors, and some new pvc glue. It took about half an hour since I only had to make 1 cut and the rest glued up easily.
I’ll wait until morning to turn the circuit back on.
