natural-gasplumbingshutoff
We are adding a ceiling in our basement (64 year old house) and can not locate a obvious shutoff valve. They recently removed the meter from within the house and put one outside, and it has a shutout valve beside the meter. I also have noticed shutoff valves farther down the pipe inside (30 feet) in front of the furnace and water heater. I am just curious if this elbow (pictured) and the nubby on the side is a shutoff valve and if i should create an access port for it.
You need to find the main shut off valve in the road, side walk or somewhere on or near your property. They are usually placed in mini manholes with easy access:
But if you're unlucky you will need to get some building plans and try to find where on the plans the supply pipe runs and find the valve at the connection point to the main supply. In most cases it will be near the connection point of the main supply:
but if its not, or if you struggle to close it call your council to help you. You don't want to break that!
It is easy to snap these valves- if its rusted badly apply (known as WD-40, LN-40, HT-40) spray oil based rust release (spray leave an hour try again.. repeat a few times), TAP the valve with a hammer (!TAP!, do not whack it, to help release the valve. Also, usually opening the valve slightly helps to release it then try to close it.
I would not use a PVC valve. Those components need to be heavy-duty, as they're buried and remain in place for decades. Failure means expensive water waste, time and messy effort.
Your water line is probably polyethylene (Pex), and not PVC. Pex is much more flexible and durable than PVC. This calls for clamped connections to brass/bronze hardware.
To give you some idea what I mean by heavy duty, here's what happened to one of my properties last year. My neighbor's brass shutoff valve sprung a pinhole leak. The water jet fanned out and cut through the metal over time. It created a thin slice through the coupler that appeared as though it was made with a hacksaw.
Once the leak grew strong enough it dug through the soil for several inches and ground all the way through my property's valve, with the aid of sand from the soil, creating a large divot in the brass.
I wouldn't mess with PVC unless you want to do the job again in a few years.
Best Answer
No, that's not a valve. It looks like a drain, as might be useful if the fitting had been installed in a fire sprinkler or steam line, or functionally just an odd-ball tee fitting.