Unraveling Ball Valve Markings: A Comprehensive Explanation

In this blog post, you’ll read:Ball valves are essential devices in controlling the flow of gas and liquids, offering benefits such as confirming testing standards, identifying suitable applications, and assuring quality. Key organizations like UL, CSA, FM, UPC/cUPC, ANSI, and IAPMO play vital roles in testing and certifying The article also highlights the importance of standard values such as WOG/CWP and WSP for understanding a ball valve's pressure ratings and suitability for specific applications, including gas. Finally, it advises sourcing ball valves from reputable manufacturers to avoid complications and ensure compatibility with plumbing systems.
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Understanding every plumbing device or equipment is very crucial when carrying out plumbing applications. The ball valve is one of the devices that one must understand. Identifying and understanding what plumbing equipment can do will determine what the result of a plumbing application will be. The best way to understand the usefulness of a ball valve is by reading its markings. These markings say a lot about a ball valve. This article will discuss the different markings and the best way to understand ball valve markings as it can be difficult for newbies because they do not consider the best ball valve manufacturer.

What is a Ball valve?

To understand the ball valve markings, it is important to understand what a ball valve is. A ball valve is an essential plumbing device that controls the flow of gas and liquid in plumbing applications. This type of valve controls compressed air, gas flow, and other liquids by using a rotary ball. The ball valve is built in a way that allows close, partial opening, and full opening of the through hole. Get your ball valve and other plumbing materials like, brass valve, angle valve, cast iron valve,   and check valve from Plumberstar. Plumberstar is the best ball valve manufacturer.

3pc ball valves works
3pc ball valves works

Benefits of ball valve markings

Ball valve markings have a lot of benefits for users and different plumbing applications. Some of its benefits may include:

Confirm testing: the markings on a ball valve indicate that the device has been tested by the necessary authorities. However, this may be a little bit confusing as there are a lot of authorities that get ball valves tested.

Suitable applications: with markings on ball valves, plumbers and other professionals can identify the best equipment for every plumbing application. First-timers should learn how to read these markings especially if they get the equipment from the best ball valve manufacturer.

Quality assurance: another benefit of ball valve markings is that it assures quality. Users can rest assured that they are using quality ball valves.

CF8 plumbing system
CF8 plumbing system

Test and quality assurance

Some quality assurance authorities must get the ball valve tested before having their logos on the valve. The testing process can take a long time however these logos will prove the authenticity and quality of the valve. Some of these test and quality assurance bodies are;

UL: the “underwriters laboratories” is one important body that tests a ball valve. Every ball valve must pass the various test stages before the logo can be on the valves. For the UL testing process, the ball valve must be subjected to a pressure test. The pressure rating written on the ball valve by the manufacturer is subjected to pressure three times. The ball valve must pass the three tests before the UL logo can be written on the valve.

UL certification
UL certification

CSA: the Canadian Standards Association is a Canadian body that puts ball valves to standard tests. A valve can either carry a “C” or “U” logo to identify where the testing was carried out. A ball valve may carry both logos indicating that the CSA testing was carried out in Canada and the United States.

FM: Factory Mutual Global plays an important role in making sure that ball valves are of standard quality before saturating the market. FM is an insurance company situated in the United States. The FM has a high standard that allows every ball valve with its logo authentic. The high standards make it easy for Valve buyers.

UPC/cCPC: The UNIFORM PLUMBING CODE or the CANADIAN UNIFORM PLUMBING CODE is a Canadian association that puts ball valves into vigorous tests to suit their specified standards. The test prevents substandard ball valves in the market. Aside from ball valves, UPC tests other plumbing products.

ANSI: the American National Standard Institute is an important body that tests ball valves under different standards. They have different logos for different ball valves e.g. ANSIZ21.15.

IAPMO: The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials is in charge of putting various plumbing materials to the test. For a ball valve to carry the IAPMO logo, it must pass all the IAPMO tests.

Standard requirements for ball valve testing

Before any brand can submit its ball valve for testing to the necessary authorities, there are some characteristics that the valve must possess. The different associations will test the ball valves based on the values submitted for testing. A few of these standard values may include;

WOG/CWP: the WOG and CWP are a bit different because of the elements involved. For WOG, each alphabet represents a compound; W stands for water, O for oil, and G for gas. All three compounds are essential for ball valve testing. Oil represents a denser liquid than water with lubricant features. Gas is considered to have no definite shape or volume compared to water.

CWP on the other hand is cold working pressure. For the pressure rating, the ball valve must be subjected to a temperature of 100°F or less. The WOG and CWP represent pressure ratings. The pressure ratings are usually on the valve alongside a WOG or CWP logo. To better understand this, a 900 with CWP indicates that the ball valve is rated to 900PSICWP. Consider the best ball valve manufacturer to find the WOG and CWP reading easily.

CWP rating chat
CWP rating chat

                                                                        CWP rating chat

WSP: the working steam pressure represents the pressure that a ball valve can endure during production. The WSP is mostly useful in industries where bronze ball valve is preferred because of its durability.

 Gas rating

There are specific ball valves used in gas applications. These types of ball valves always come with markings specifying their uses. Some of the popular gas ratings that can be found on ball valves suitable for gas applications are 1/2 PSIG (1/2G) for gas-fired applications, 5G and BRS125G for gas piping applications, CAN/CGA-3.16 for indoor and outdoor piping systems, 125G or higher for gas piping systems.

Indoor and outdoor piping systems
Indoor and outdoor piping systems

Other possible markings on ball valves

Apart from the markings discussed above there are other general markings that are on ball valves some of which may include ball size, an LF logo for Lead-Free, manufacturer identification number or code, and country code.

Generally, the best way to prevent unnecessary problems with finding the best ball valve for a plumbing application is to buy from the best ball valve manufacturer. After discussing how to identify these markings every user needs to know some of the logos and markings as this will help.

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