Shutoff valves are key for fixtures that get worked on quite frequently, such as sinks and toilets. Without one, a homeowner would have to turn off the water to his entire home every time he wanted to make an adjustment to a kitchen or bathroom fixture. Kitchen sinks generally get worked on more than any other fixture in the home, so having a shutoff valve installed on the sink is especially important. If you don't have a shutoff valve on your sink, then it means you have got to go to the street to get that water turned off. But if you have that
shut off valve
on, then you can work on that particular sink and everyone else can still have water in the meantime.
In Birmingham, having drain work done on a fixture without a shutoff valve is going to take more time and money, since the plumbers working on the job will have to take the extra time to shut off the water to the entire home—including the water heater—before they can begin. Depending on the condition of the home's piping and the place where the shutoff valve is being installed, homeowners can expect that a basic shutoff valve installation should only take a few hours—and it certainly won't take an entire day to complete.
Ideally, there should be
Ball valve manufacturers
on everything that has water coming from it. If not, then a basic toilet drip or leaky sink is inevitably going to be much more difficult for a plumber to repair, since he'll have to turn off the water to the entire home just to make a simple fix.