Introduction to Automatic Control Valves

Ames Company has been in manufacturing for over 90 years, and manufacturing automatic control valves for 20 years. Contrary to your exposure with galvanized check valves, the automatic control valve is the second major product line they produce behind backflow prevention devices. Check valves are a 40 year old product, and have not had significant changes made to them. On the contrary, control valves have been upgraded to what the industry expects to see when buying these valves. A majority of valve specifications call for a globe pattern valve top and bottom guided, with rubber seat retained on 3.5 sides. Ten years ago, Ames made a line switch to this spec, and has tried to exceed other manufacturers on any valve. Wager Company has taken the 2-4 week lead time on finished products to producing valves to under one week in most cases. This compares with an average lead time on one function valves in this industry of about six weeks.

Ames has an extremely versatile line of control valves to choose from. They are the only manufacturer that can offer a stainless body control valve in the cast iron pipe price range (3 inches and up). Most other companies double the cost for a change in material other than iron. These offerings give your customers a big advantage with long term serviceability of control valves. If needed, Ames also has an iron valve available if price is the main issue.

With these patterns available, Ames is also the only manufacturer to offer interchangeable parts with one of the more popular companies: Cla-Val. Since Cla-Val is a very common unit, Ames made the unit so that getting parts and accessories locally would not have to be a major issue. Wager Company has even taken this a few steps further. In addition to access to interchangeable body parts, we also can access control valve manufacturer's parts, as well as kits to complete pilots that are interchangeable with the Cla-Val pilots.

Where Ames is different from their industrial partners is in their response to questions and warranty issues. In Florida, this is mainly due to Wager Company's involvement with automatic control valves for 20 years. This cumulative knowledge provides us with the the answers you are looking for without needing to call the factory every time. Service is a major company philosophy at Wager. For Ames products, we typically support primary start-up of valves at no charge, and our response to warranty issues is in an hour instead of weeks or months. Wager Company has five factory trained control valve technicians in Florida, Georgia and Alabama who are available for questions or design work. Wager has also expanded this service to do warranty and general work on any manufacturer's control valves.

Wager has been in this industry long enough to know what has happened to the level of response and service with most of the manufacturers on this and other products. Automatic control valves can not be treated like a piece of pipe where you bury it and forget it. These valves usually require a lot of attention after the sale, and that's the difference between us and other companies. We will be there after the P.O. has been issued.