Determining Product Quality of Valve Manufacturers

[lowedogg]

Considering how most of the well know domestic manufacturers of high quality valves have been bought out by conglomerates, how is one to know who is making the top-of-the-line products these days? I get a myriad of feedback from O&M personnel and distributors, but rarely get the opportunity to hear the opinions of other consulting engineers. I would like to hear opinions (and the reasons behind them) on who is making the best valve for the applications below:

Butterfly (shutoff) and Globe (throttling) for hydronic service

Gate (shutoff) and Globe (throttling) for steam service

Also, have you had any experience using high performance butterfly for steam shutoff? The reps seem to be pushing this, but I have my misgivings.

Please include both manual and automatic control valve maufacturers in your response.

Thanks in advance

 

[lowedogg]

Come on. Nobody knows who makes a good heavy duty valve anymore? Do Nibco and Crane own everything now...

 

[NGiLuzzu]

lowedogg,
I believe that thread408-135872 and thread408-210294 within this Forum (for example) should partially answer your questions.

Hope this helps, 'NGL

 

[lowedogg]

thanks anegri. that helps with the butterfly valve question.

I would still like to know who makes a high quality gate and globe for steam service. I am looking for something along the lines of Wm Powell. Reliability and longevity are my primary concerns. My client only gets funding for mechanical renovations every 25-30 years, but the funding is sufficient for a high-end product.

 

[insult2injury]

Every valve has advantages and disadvantages. One issue that I've seen quite frequently in recent years is scrutiny over the source of materials and fabrication. If this is not a concern for you, there are many options.

I2I

 

[bzandy]

Guys, based on my best knowledge, the valve with the lined ceramic has good perforamace in terms of Reliability and longivity. But the ceramic material is the key point to those benefits i mentioned above. thereby, ceramic technology needs to be improved yet, but i suppose that the ceramic valve is promising in the field of high-abrasive and high corrosive working condition. Some special alloy valve also have good perforamnce, but the price is still over-high in some particular field.

 

[JAlton]

In my opinion, based upon QA responsibility for a large Industrial Valve Repair Shop which repairs Gate, Globe, Check, etc. for Utilities, Pulp & Paper as well as Oil Refineries, two well made valves are Rockwell-Edwards & Velan. I see good quality and OEM support. Hope this helps. By the way we are a TYCO rep. We do not rep Rockwell-Edwards or Velan.

JAC

 

[NGiLuzzu]

NoSoup4U,
Velan manufactures many types of valves (at least Gate, Globe, Ball, Check and Tripple-Offset): are you referring to one or more types in particular, or are you speaking in general terms only?

Similarly, may I ask which valve brands from Tyco Group do you represent, in particular?
Do you find there are Tyco brands that are better or worse than the other ones, from a Repair Facility point of view?


Hope this helps, 'NGL

 

[ValveEngineer123]

In my opinion, Fisher makes high quality globe valves and pneumatic actuators. Jamesbury (soft seated, double offset) and Neles (metal seated, triple offset), combined with the Jamesbury quadra-power actuator tend to be highly reliable butterfly valves. These valves have seemed to perform well with little downtime in many different applications (however, keep in mind that I work mostly at nuclear facilities, which tend to operate at lower steam temperatures and pressures than say, a coal plant).

Velan makes good gate valves, however I have seen problems with their globe valves in the past (they also have less globe valve selection than other manufacturers).

'Tyco' is a broad term, I have seen good reliability from such tyco brands as Anderson-Greenwood, Crosby, Vanessa and Yarway, however I have also seen very poor reliability from Keystone valves.

Another consideration would be quality of vendor support for their product, however this can be difficult to quantify based on different reps in different regions of the world.

Hope this helps,
ValveEngineer