Gate valve with push-fit socket for PVC: when it saves flanges, stub flanges and time in irrigation networks

A flanged gate valve in a PVC network needs, on each side, a solvent-welded stub flange, a loose flange, a gasket and eight bolts. That is four parts and an hour's work per valve, multiplied by every sector valve on a farm. Years ago we started manufacturing an alternative for irrigation that does away with all of that: the gate valve with push-fit socket for PVC.

How the socket works

Instead of flanges, the valve body ends in two sockets with elastomeric gaskets, the same as those on a push-fit fitting. The chamfered PVC pipe enters the socket and the gasket seals by compression, as in any elastomeric-ring joint. The DN 50 push-fit gate valve for Ø63 PVC pipe is fitted in minutes and without special tools: clean the pipe, lubricate the gasket and push.

The interior is the same as in our resilient-seated gate valves: wedge vulcanised in EPDM, full straight bore, ductile iron body with 250 µm epoxy coating and stainless steel stem, with handwheel or square cap.

What it saves

• Parts: no flanges, no stub flanges, no bolts.
• Time: no solvent welding and no curing time before pressurising.
• Space: the valve is shorter than the flanged assembly and fits in a narrow trench.
• Errors: fewer joints, fewer leak points.

We manufacture it from Ø63 to Ø315, and it fits with the whole range of push-fit fittings for PVC: tees, bends, reducers and push-fit flange adaptors to change over to flanged where necessary.

When the flanged valve is still the better choice

The socket does not restrain the pipe: in a buried and compacted network that is not a problem, but at the end of a line, at a change of direction or in a valve chamber it has to be anchored. If the valve goes in a control head, with equipment that gets dismantled, or in a water supply network at more than 10 bar, the ALMA model flanged gate valve with a dismantling joint is still the right choice. And if you need a push-fit connection but with restraint, the solution is an anti-pull flange adaptor on a flanged valve.

For PE, a different part

On polyethylene pipe the PVC socket is no use: PE has a different outside diameter and deforms. For PE laterals we manufacture bronze ball valves with push-fit socket for PE and brass push-fit fittings up to Ø63, and above that, anti-pull couplings with flange.

It is the valve that irrigation communities ask us for most often when modernising sectors, and the one that accounts for part of the efficiency we describe in The most efficient irrigation systems. If you are sectorising a farm, send us the plan and we will size the valves for each sector.