Is there a best practice when it comes to placement of ball valves and pressure gauges. Will it hurt my machine to place a ball valve at the beginning of the hose at the machine? I assume you would want to place the PG at the beginning of the hose at the machine. Will it effect anything if they are inline with each other, like back to back? Running 4gpm 4400psi no heat.
It is best practice to throw the ball valve away and only put the gauge on if you want to check pressure .I’ve made it in this business since 1998 without owning one as they are not necessary.
It’s a matter of opinion. I have a ball valve at the end of my hose to switch between gun and surface cleaner. Some people ^^^ quick connect their gun to their surface cleaner so no need for a ball valve.
Yes a ball valve is heavy but I see it as a piece of safety equipment and it allows you to shut off flow when switching from a housewash to surface cleaning, and even a quick rinse of a sidewalk.
I get it though, it does get annoying.
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Wait, I thought you bought a real surface cleaner awhile back. Why do you need a ball valve to switch?
I know nothing about much, but I like the ball valve to use it as a rinse hose, the more you close it the stronger the pressure, or wide open to flood rinse.
.02
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Always best to use equipment as it was intended to be used for. Your insurance carrier will be happier and your customers will be safer. Ball valves were made to be opened or closed. They are not rated to be partially opened with pressure behind them, not do they automatically stop when dropped.
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Yeah, all true statements IBS, some of us touch the hot stove to learn our lesson. One of these days I’m sure my BV will fail from using it partially open and then flood out Someone’s property before I can shut it all down. I will be thinking of your post at that moment.
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If nothing else, I like your verbage 
A pressure gauge can be quite informative. Using various sized nozzles will result in varies pressures (not to exceed equipment ratings, of course), so a gauge can confirm that the expected pressure is actually present. Additionally, let’s say that your engine throttle has been changed (by accident, vibration, wear, whatever); if you have a gauge installed, and the system pressure is lower than expected for a given nozzle, then checking the throttle may be indicated (perhaps the pump is being driven at 80% design speed, for example).
Wait everybody doesn’t have tiny tachs installed? 
If I feel 200psi go missing a quick glace at my tach will tell me if my nozzle needs to be retired
Lol so check this out, I got a tachometer just to confirm that my engine was running at 3400 RPM, even though pressure was exactly 4000; I don’t know man, I have a really hard time trusting anything, and will test the most trivial thing just to feel confident that it is working exactly as intended. This isn’t a flex… I’m about to cry myself to sleep 
I get it man! Watch your rpm climb a smidge once you wear the nozzle. Less load on the engine will let the rpm creep up. So you’ll see the loss in pressure as higher rpm on the tach
@UmmButHowDoYouKnow besides how else are you supposed to keep up with your OCI if you don’t have a factory hour meter???
Very good piece of advice, had not considered that, thank you!!
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I have one somewhere, maybe. I’m going to sit at the desk tomorrow with a cup of coffee and ask it series of questions, to which I feel the answers would be informative. If so, I’ll agree with your statement. I can’t do so at this point because my knowledge of them only relates to pressure washing, where they offer no informative presence that common sense can’t provide better.
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Whew, that’s crazy
Maybe it’s normal in the pressure washing world, but in any other profession, operating a system at high pressure, while having no operational sensors, would be seen as exceedingly foolish. I do not want to be foolish.
It reminds me of the guy in offshore construction operations that thought “it will be fine” to attempt cranking a 10k HP engine while the valves were open, instead of manually cranking the driveshaft during an overhaul… he lost half his face for that.
The moral of the story is that if you play the odds long enough, that super rare chance can become reality. We’re talking about $30 for safety… a lesser price could hardly be paid.
Edit… too many posts in 24 hours 
So your engines are devoid of gauges? That’s cool. Also, firefighting is not engineering; you don’t know what you don’t know. I think anyone would agree that it is reckless to encourage newbies to disregard all sense of safety, and wing it with no feedback devices. To further elaborate, let’s imagine you get a piece of (durable) debris in your line, which then partially occludes the nozzle orifice, effectively acting as a smaller than intended orifice; pressure will exceed design limits, causing additional wear on the pump packing, if nothing else. Repairing that would cost more than the $30 for a gauge. This assumes that the unintended partial occlusion is a small proportion of the orifice cross sectional area, and not a significant blockage; a newbie won’t know something is wrong, and will be risking life, limb, and/or property, when simply having a gauge would have immediately informed him that something was wrong.
Those are definitely words that you have written. But they don’t really make any logical sense. A gauge does not make your system safer, it tells you, more or less, what your pressure is. It also adds friction loss, leaks and aggravation. If you want to talk safety, I am all for that and will be glad to give you advice, but a gauge isn’t it. Probably not going to hurt anything leaving in place, but why would you want the potential drawbacks? And how about following forum decorum and introducing yourself?
And what manner of witchery is this?
Every. Single. Winter.
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