Working as a plumber, more than once I had to install taps that cut off water in apartments and private houses. The most common option in the USSR and even in the 90s were valve-type taps. They are quite reliable, but occasionally required maintenance. In the form of "stuffing" the stuffing box seal and replacement of gaskets.
Naturally, not timely care for them led to the fact that they did not fulfill their functions. They began to leak and leak water.
But progress does not stand still. And semi-turn ball valves poured into our market. With which you can turn off the water in the apartments in one motion. Usually, while they are new, there are no problems with them.
But after a year or two, the ball valve starts to close badly, tightly. Especially if the owners like to cut off (reduce) the flow, saving water, closing the tap by half, what to do absolutely not. Naturally, more effort has to be put on the handle of such a valve. Sometimes it is impossible to close them without keys. The saddest thing is that even the handle can break off.
Advice:
In order for semi-turn ball valves to work well, they must be periodically opened, closed, at least once a quarter. Thus, not allowing the "ball" to sour.
Recently, I managed to get an ordinary crane, with an unusual handle:
Why did I buy it? I got curious about how it works and tell my readers about the new product.
The first thing I did was to rotate a large volumetric lamb. And to my surprise, the ball inside the valve closed not in half a turn, as usual, but in a whole circle.
How does the "lamb" of a ball valve work?
In order to reduce the "transmission" of force, it uses a clever gear system.
She reminded me of a screwdriver gearbox.
It turns out that such a system allows less effort on the hand to block the flow of water, but twice as slow.
By the way, you can't turn off the tap suddenly, which is also useful for those who are afraid "hydro blows"
It turns out that such a cunning solution facilitates the shutdown of water when working on the water supply network or in emergency situations. This moment is very useful for the elderly, women and children. One has only to teach them once in which direction to rotate the lamb and that's it. By the way, it also has designations.
The channel has a video about this crane, you can go and watch here. Summing up, I will say this, this know-how can find a consumer, it is made with high quality, soundly.