Speaking of stuff getting caught up in your gate vavle how often do you have to clean it.

Stuff doesnt get caught in the gate valve....stuff will get caught in the strainer fitting on your primary drain...I just have my emergency drain open at the top. I usually clean my strainer fitting, if not every week, then every other week. Some people just screw a strainer directly into the primary drain bulkhead, I have mine in a fitting half way up the overflow so I can reach it better.

never had a herbie set up but being in a piping trade i can tell you gate valves were designed for fine adjustments ball valves were designed for wide open or closed and do not work well for adjustments

X2

do it right
 

do it right the first time and just get a gate valve. the inconvenience of having to cut out your ball valve and buying couplings to install the gate valve later is just not worth it IMO

if your looking for something accurate but the price of gate valves make you sh*t a brick, take a look at knife valves.

they are not as expensive, and people have used them on herbies before (like GreenSpottedPuffer)

I've used knife valves before too - their shaft rusted and wasn't able to adjust anymore. worse off than the ball valves. IME

a picture of my hurbie set up with ball valve .. i made sure to use true union for everything for easy cleaning, moving if needed, and it also makes changing your plubing easy.

ive never had a problem with it... so it can be done and does work fine

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...DSC_0006-2.jpg

Ya but, thats the ferrari of ball valves....only slightly cheaper than a gate valve....but if you were gonna do a herbie with a ball valve, that would be the one to buy.

:mrgreen: haha ya i used to work for canplas... it was free along with my sch 80 bulk heads now that i look at my parts book its priced at $30 so never mind get a check valve.