I've got a couple of leaky valves on my washing machine, and I'm scratching my head about how they connect to the wall pipe. The valve body looks like a giant nut, and it seems like they probably screw onto the pipe, but I don't see any threads on the pipe itself. It looks soldered at the connection, but the valve also has male threads—just no bolt attached. What's the simplest way to fix this leak? Can I repair or replace the valve without getting into soldering? I'm considering cutting the valve off and finding one that has a compression fitting, but I'm not sure if there's enough pipe left for that. Another option I thought about was cutting the pipe in the wall to use a SharkBite connection to PEX, then attaching a valve to the PEX. Here's a picture of the valve: [https://imgur.com/a/VHofygM](https://imgur.com/a/VHofygM)
3 Answers
Can you pinpoint the exact area where it's leaking in the pic? That might help narrow down the fix.
What model of washing machine do you have? That might affect the kind of valves you can use.
You might have enough copper pipe to cut and use a compression valve, but I'd recommend using a torch to break the solder joint and remove the old valves first. This way, you get a bit more pipe to work with. A full port ball valve is your best bet for maximum flow. Consider using a compression to ½NPT female adapter to easily thread in the ball valve.