When Is It Time to Replace Your Control Valves? (A Field Guide For Production Engineers)

Your job is on the line when it comes to maintaining product quality and production uptime. Without great results, you could be looking at the exit sign. And there’s one key part that could make or break it all.

Regulating steam, maintaining water flow, managing ingredient measurements, handling compressed air delivery, keeping production lines running at the appropriate speeds — you name it, and a control valve is there to make sure those things happen correctly.

After all, a trusty control valve could mean the difference between getting that next raise or seeing your last paycheck. When one fails and leaves your production line at a halt, you could be costing your company over $260,000 per hour of downtime.

The trick to avoiding that? Making sure you replace your control valves before they replace you.
This valve maintenance guide will walk you through the tell-tale signs that your control valve has crossed from maintainable to replaceable.

Let’s get to work.

Spotting the Signals: Performance Degradation

Looking for yellow caution tape when it comes to whether you need a valve replacement? It probably isn’t that obvious. Control valve degradation doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a gradual process, which makes recognizing when this part needs to be replaced more difficult than it sounds.

However, some key indicators can present themselves when your control valve is on the fritz. A few of these include:

Significant hissing, whistling, or knocking noises
Sporadic or intense vibration
Lack of staying within set tolerances
Leaking hydraulic fluid
Cracks or corrosion
Excessive overheating
Stiction
Sudden decreases in pressure

Sure, some of these warning signs don’t call for an immediate replacement. You may even be able to do a quick maintenance patch to tide you over. But in the end, you’ll only be able to do that so many times until your control valve is on its way to the graveyard.

Combine two or more of the indicators listed above with a need to fix these more than once, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for valve replacement.

The Life Expectancy Money Pit

All good things come to an end. And eventually, so will your control valves. Depending on your working conditions, a control valve could last anywhere from 10-25 years. But that doesn’t mean it should.

Think back to those degradation indicators. They can only be tweaked so many times before you find yourself staring at a maintenance money pit.

Let’s do some quick back-of-the-napkin math:

Say you need to do 40 control valve repairs a year at $3,000 a piece. That’s $120,000 a year in repair costs alone. Now tack on the price your company pays for downtime (up to $260,000 per every hour!) and you’ve got yourself a looming boss over your shoulder.

Time is money, and depending on what needs to be fixed or how long your production line will be down, you may be further ahead by replacing your control valve.

Think of it this way:

The newer your control valve is, the less failure rate it will likely experience. But as time goes on, the failure rate exponentially increases due to factors like degradation, corrosive chemicals, temperature swings, and extreme usage.

A good industry rule of thumb is that if the repair is going to cost you less than 50% of the replacement cost, you’ll be further ahead ordering a replacement valve.

The Obsolescence Opportunity Cost

Technology upgrades. Safety updates. Product changes. Process enhancements.

Each one of these scenarios can send your current control valve into obsolescence. While this may not be an immediate concern, sticking with your outdated valve could leave you with a hefty opportunity cost down the line.

What’s the cost? If you're using an obsolete control valve, lead times to get the repair parts you need could increase, prices could spike, or worse yet, you’ll have to source after-market parts, jeopardizing your production quality.

The honest truth is that the valve you're using could be working completely fine. But the true test is this:

Confirm your control valve is no longer carried with the manufacturer
Then look up the parts needed to repair the valve
If you’re already seeing increased lead times or price markups, that’s your cue to replace your valve

Otherwise, you’ll be looking at a sourcing nightmare when the time does come to fix your control valve. In the end, it will be easier to replace what you have with the next best thing.

The Questions You Should Be Asking

Degradation, maintenance money pits, and obsolescence opportunity costs are all reasons for control valve replacements. But truly understanding whether you’re ready for a replacement comes down to asking yourself these questions:

Is the issue you’ve been seeing recurring?
Are there signs of valve damage (leakage, corrosion, cracks, sticking components, etc.)?
Is the valve over 10 years old?
Are repair parts obsolete?
Will the repair cost more than half of what a replacement would?

Answered “yes” to one or more of those questions? Then a control valve replacement is probably your best option. After all, you’re responsible for maintaining product quality and production uptime, and having a working control valve is imperative to that success.

Finding the Right Solution

If you find yourself caught between another repair ticket and a replacement solution, it’s worth a conversation.

ACI Controls is here to help. With over 75 years of experience helping manufacturers find the parts for the job, we’ll help you get exactly what you need to keep your plant running smoothly.

Reach out for a valve assessment and the answers you need to make the right call.