Valve Audits, Charting & Exercise Programs

A valve audit is a building-wide survey that locates every isolation valve, tags it with a permanent number, and records what each one shuts off in a valve chart and a marked set of riser drawings. A valve exercise program then operates those valves through their full travel on a schedule, normally once a year, so they do not seize in place. Together they decide whether an emergency shutdown takes fifteen minutes and one stack, or two hours and the whole building.

In most Toronto condominiums it is not inside your unit at all. Suite isolation is usually on the branch where it leaves the riser, which means behind an access panel in a hallway, a closet or a bathroom soffit, and in some buildings there is no suite-level valve and the smallest isolation is the whole stack. Ask property management where yours is and whether there is an access panel, and find out before you need it. A valve chart is precisely the document that answers this question in fifteen seconds.

Stop, and do not force it. A valve that has not moved in fifteen years has corroded around the stem, and the two things that happen when you lean on it are a sheared stem and a cracked body, either of which turns a stuck valve into an active leak on a live line. Report it and have it replaced on a planned day. If you are dealing with an active leak right now, call us and call the concierge so the stack can be isolated upstream.

If you have a working suite shut-off, yes, and it is one of the cheapest pieces of insurance available to a condo owner. Most catastrophic in-suite floods start at a flexible supply line, a toilet fill valve or a washing machine hose, and every one of those is harmless if there is no pressure behind it. The caveat is the previous question: try the valve while you are home and have time to deal with it, not on the morning of a flight.

Only if a valve on the list is inside your unit or behind an access panel in it, in which case you will get written notice of the date and window. Most of the programme happens in mechanical rooms, service closets and hallways. Where we do need to come in, we are typically in and out in minutes per valve, with floor protection down while we are there.

For most of the programme it is not. Exercising a valve means opening and closing it, which on a properly installed system is done without interrupting service. Water only goes off when a valve is discovered to be seized or leaking and has to be isolated or replaced, and that is the entire point of doing the exercise on a scheduled Tuesday rather than finding out during a flood. When a shutdown is needed you get notice, and it is kept to the smallest part of the building that works.

They are the valve chart made physical. Each tag carries a permanent number that matches a line in the chart and a marked point on the riser drawings, so somebody who has never been in the building can stand in front of a valve and know exactly what it isolates. Please leave them alone: an untagged valve in a building of five hundred identical pipes is functionally lost, and re-surveying it costs far more than the tag did.

That is decided by your declaration and the two insurers rather than by us, and the answer turns on whether the failed component was a common element or part of your unit. Practically, the things that protect an owner are a working suite shut-off, supply lines and a water heater that are not past their life, and reporting a weeping valve when you first notice it instead of after it lets go. Documented maintenance is the difference between a claim and an argument.

Valve charting means physically locating every valve in the building, tagging it with a permanent number, and producing a chart and marked drawing set showing what each valve isolates. It matters most during an emergency. When a pipe lets go at two in the morning, the difference between a fifteen minute shutdown affecting one stack and a two hour shutdown affecting the whole building is whether the person on site knows which valve to close. Charting is also the groundwork for a valve exercise programme, because you cannot maintain valves you have never identified.

We attend on an agreed schedule, normally annually, and operate every isolation valve in the building through its full travel so it does not seize in place. We record the condition of each valve against the building's valve chart, repack or repair what is stiff or leaking, and give you a written report listing which valves have failed and need replacement. Valves that are never exercised tend to seize, and a seized valve turns a small leak into a building-wide shutdown.

For a typical Toronto high-rise, expect a few days on site rather than a few hours. The mechanical rooms go quickly. The time goes into the awkward valves: riser closets behind access panels, valves above ceilings, and confirming what actually goes dead when a valve closes rather than copying what an old drawing claims. Buildings with several towers or a large townhouse component take proportionally longer. We schedule it so the building stays fully occupied and operating throughout.

For some valves, yes. In most condominiums the suite isolation valves and a number of riser access panels are inside units, and a chart that stops at the suite door is exactly the chart that fails you in an emergency. Where suite access is needed, residents get written notice with a date and time window, we work to that window, and floor protection goes down in every unit we enter. Where a suite cannot be accessed, we note the gap rather than guessing at what is behind the wall.

It is one of the reasons to do this on a planned visit rather than during a flood. We exercise carefully and in a controlled way, so if a valve is going to fail, it fails while a plumber is standing in front of it with the means to isolate upstream, instead of failing at the worst possible moment. Anything that fails is documented against its tag number and quoted for replacement. Finding three dead valves on a scheduled Tuesday is a good outcome, not a bad one.

Because nothing moves them. A gate valve left untouched for twenty years builds up mineral deposits on the stem and gate, and the packing hardens around the stem. Then when somebody finally needs it, the handwheel either will not move or the stem shears off. Forcing a seized valve is how a small leak becomes a large one. Operating a valve once a year keeps the stem free and the packing serviceable, and it is by far the cheapest plumbing maintenance a building can buy.

It changes the first decision. Without a chart, on-site staff facing water coming through a ceiling either work through valves by trial and error or close the building main, which takes water from every resident and does not stop what is already draining out of the risers. With a chart, they close the smallest valve that isolates the failure, water stays on everywhere else, and our crew arrives to a contained problem. Insurers ask how long isolation took, and that answer is decided before the leak happens.

We are not aware of any rule that names a valve chart as a specific requirement. What does apply is the corporation's duty to maintain and repair the common elements, and in practice that duty is very hard to discharge for a plumbing system nobody has mapped. Insurers, reserve fund studies and engineers increasingly expect to see valve identification and an exercise record, and boards that have been through a major loss rarely need convincing twice.

Annually is the standard we recommend and the interval most of our contracts run on. It is frequent enough to keep stems free and packing serviceable, and it fits a building's normal maintenance calendar. Critical valves, such as the building mains, zone isolation and anything protecting a booster or heating system, are worth confirming more often. Valves that have already been identified as stiff go on a watch list and get checked at every visit rather than once a year.