# Boffi valves



## Jchar5147 (Aug 16, 2011)

Any of you guys have trouble with boffi valves? On 2 different jobs I've installed 7 shower valves and 5 wall mount faucets from boffi. There stainless steal bodies and made in italy. All that I installed ended up leaking from the connections to the valves. I use brass nipples and mash them. When the water comes on theyll have a leak then stop leaking. They sent a rep out and he walked in like he was going to handle it with no problem. Took apart the valves and retaped and doped the nipples. He put it back in and turned the water on and it leaked like crazy. " I can't do anything else". That's the response I got. The only way I could get it to seal was with the pink Teflon and key tite for gas. Not to mention when the rep put the valve back in it was crooked as hell.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

I feel your pain. It's terrible to have some inferior products cause you grief and time. Sometimes this fancy high-priced stuff isn't worth it.

I had a Grohe shw valve that leaked on the top port where I had a copper male adapter connected. 
I had to remove, re-tape and re-dope. The copper male adapter only wanted to go on like a half a turn before it got real tight. It didn't feel right when I originally installed and then sure enough when testing, it leaked.
I don't like Grohe for that and other reasons.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

I installed this (HansGrohe, I think) the other week and it actually is a decent valve to mount. I tap-conned it to the block wall in like under 5 minutes.

But I bet when I go to trim it out in a few weeks, I'll bet that I'll be standing there for 20 minutes scratching my head trying to figure out how the hell it goes together.


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## Jchar5147 (Aug 16, 2011)

Tommy plumber said:


> I installed this (HansGrohe, I think) the other week and it actually is a decent valve to mount. I tap-conned it to the block wall in like under 5 minutes.
> 
> But I bet when I go to trim it out in a few weeks, I'll bet that I'll be standing there for 20 minutes scratching my head trying to figure out how the hell it goes together.


No man, those valves are great. And the finish is a breeze. You'll have the trim set in about 15 minutes. The instructions are spot on.


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## Plumbworker (Oct 23, 2008)

Tommy plumber said:


> I installed this (HansGrohe, I think) the other week and it actually is a decent valve to mount. I tap-conned it to the block wall in like under 5 minutes.
> 
> But I bet when I go to trim it out in a few weeks, I'll bet that I'll be standing there for 20 minutes scratching my head trying to figure out how the hell it goes together.



thats the hansgrohe "i box" rough valve universal trim.. very nice shower valve and trust me very easy to trim as long as your rough in depth is correct of course...:laughing:


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Jchar5147 said:


> Any of you guys have trouble with boffi valves? On 2 different jobs I've installed 7 shower valves and 5 wall mount faucets from boffi. There stainless steal bodies and made in italy. All that I installed ended up leaking from the connections to the valves. I use brass nipples and mash them. When the water comes on theyll have a leak then stop leaking. They sent a rep out and he walked in like he was going to handle it with no problem. Took apart the valves and retaped and doped the nipples. He put it back in and turned the water on and it leaked like crazy. " I can't do anything else". That's the response I got. The only way I could get it to seal was with the pink Teflon and key tite for gas. Not to mention when the rep put the valve back in it was crooked as hell.


Hmm... Maybe try Loctite 565. It's what Bradford White recommends for connecting to their stainless threads on indirect water heaters. See this thread.

Some Euro stuff doesn't get properly "North Americanized" when it gets imported, and comes with running threads rather than proper tapered NPT that we use here. Used to be a big problem with all the Eurotrash I used to install. Lately they've mostly been very good. Maybe yours isn't. Driving a tapered nipple into a running female thread won't usually seal very well, or at all, as you've already found out. I don't know how the Euro guys seal things, but I'm sure they have their own standards and ways to make things work. 

Loctite 565 may or may not help. Here's what Loctite says:LOCTITE® 565 ™ is designed for the locking and sealing of
metal pipes and fittings. The product cures when confined in
the absence of air between close fitting metal surfaces and
prevents loosening and leakage from shock and vibration.
​Here's what I do whenever I have to install a customer-supplied retail valve with female threads: I disassemble the valve so nothing melts. I clean the threads and the threads of copper male adapters. I flux the threads and some copper stubs for the MADs and screw them just finger tight into the valve threads. Then solder it all up, threads and all, and it's a copper stubbed valve! :thumbup: Problem solved. I don't like any unnecessary threaded joints in walls.


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## Jchar5147 (Aug 16, 2011)

futz said:


> Hmm... Maybe try Loctite 565. It's what Bradford White recommends for connecting to their stainless threads on indirect water heaters. See this thread.
> 
> Some Euro stuff doesn't get properly "North Americanized" when it gets imported, and comes with running threads rather than proper tapered NPT that we use here. Used to be a big problem with all the Eurotrash I used to install. Lately they've mostly been very good. Maybe yours isn't. Driving a tapered nipple into a running female thread won't usually seal very well, or at all, as you've already found out. I don't know how the Euro guys seal things, but I'm sure they have their own standards and ways to make things work.
> 
> ...


Im going to check into the lock tite. I would have sweat male adapters to the valve but Its a solid stainless. I believe your right about the threading. The brass nipples I used bottomed out. They spun pretty easy then got real tight really fast. The strange thing is that the stainless plug they provide with the valve didn't seal right either. They should provide a brass adapter that converts to u.s. Thread patterns and seals to their valve with an o ring. And to update the situation, the g.c. Called and one of the joints is leaking again.


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## Widdershins (Feb 5, 2011)

Tommy plumber said:


> I feel your pain. It's terrible to have some inferior products cause you grief and time. Sometimes this fancy high-priced stuff isn't worth it.
> 
> I had a Grohe shw valve that leaked on the top port where I had a copper male adapter connected.
> I had to remove, re-tape and re-dope. The copper male adapter only wanted to go on like a half a turn before it got real tight. It didn't feel right when I originally installed and then sure enough when testing, it leaked.
> I don't like Grohe for that and other reasons.


 I had the same problem at first. I've used the Blue Monster teflon tape on subsequent installs and haven't had a problem since.


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## Jchar5147 (Aug 16, 2011)

Widdershins said:


> I had the same problem at first. I've used the Blue Monster teflon tape on subsequent installs and haven't had a problem since.


I've used the blue monster tape as well, when I set the trim I flushed the hell out of the lines. I can't remember which valve, but I got called back about a month later and the filters were loaded up with that blue tape. I flushed it again and got called back again a few weeks later. Same issue. Maybe I over taped it, but I haven't used it on a shower valve since and I haven't had a problem. I do still use it if I'm forced to connect to crappy gal threads.


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## dino_plumb (Oct 6, 2014)

Hi,
Did you ever get the Boffi valves to stop leaking? I'm using G1/2 to 1/2 NPT conversion adapters, but not sure how to actually seal the G1/2 to G1/2 joint, is this done via o-ring btwn joints or a copper crush washer inside port?
Thanks!


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

dino_plumb said:


> Hi,
> Did you ever get the Boffi valves to stop leaking? I'm using G1/2 to 1/2 NPT conversion adapters, but not sure how to actually seal the G1/2 to G1/2 joint, is this done via o-ring btwn joints or a copper crush washer inside port?
> Thanks!













I sincerely hope so, the original post is over {3} years old...:laughing:



By the way, who are you?


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