In North America, including The United States and Canada, cities deliver natural gas to each home thru underground piping.  Municipalities or utility companies are responsible for this service and have relied heavily in the past on the use of iron plug valves to control gas flow in and out of the gas meter.  Plug valves are an outdated design for this application and have many disadvantages including corrosion, the need for regular maintenance and service, and overall reliability.  This has always been a concern given the dangerous nature of possible gas leaks.  

Even though municipalities are very slow to change, engineers are realizing the benefits of brass ball valves as being more reliable, safer, more corrosion resistant and maintenance free and are beginning to update specifications.  The process of changing from iron plug valves to brass ball valves will continue to be a slow but on-going process.  There are a lot of pieces involved including the municipalities, specification engineering, the distribution network to the utilities, and so on, all of which tend to exhibit some resistance to change.

At the end of the day, brass ball valves are just a safer solution for this application, and the conversion, though slow, is surely happening “one municipality at a time”.  RuB is well positioned to be successful in this market with our s.80 line of brass ball valves for gas metering applications.  The application includes a riser with a lockwing brass ball valve going into a regulator and a gas meter and then another lockwing brass ball valve on the customer side of the meter.  

RuB also offers an upgrade to this configuration with our s.80 Surepass line of bypass brass ball valves.  The Surepass incorporates a bypass port that allows the service technician to connect a bypass hose from the riser valve to the customer side valve to service the meter without interrupting service to the home or having to schedule a service call with the homeowner.  It also represents a higher level of safety, reducing the risk of the pilot light going off during service which may result in a dangerous situation with gas leaking inside the home.   
“Slowly but surely” is how I would describe this transition. A transition for which RuB is well positioned to be a significant player.