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Posted by ken on January 15, 2004 at 08:57:38:
Curious which ones folks have found the most useful. These are not the crappy cylindrical ones that tend to get clogged and don't vent fast enough. They use a bistatic metal element that pushes a rod into a seating hole to shut the vent off when it gets warm enough.
My summary from a bit of research this week:
Gorton (gorton-valves.com): roughly $15 each; they seem to be the first ones that created the bimetal design but they don't have replaceable vent hole sizes although their parts seem to be galvanized better
Maid-O-Mist (kingsolarcom): roughly $11 each; you can replace the tip, but the rod that gets seated seems to get corroded eventually (we have these and one was stuck closed last week which is why I started looking for a replacement)
Armstrong SV12 (armstrong-int.com).: roughly $18 each; looks like Maid-O-Mist ones externally and you get all possible vent hole sizes (tips) when you buy one
All of these come in the 4,5,6,C,D sizes that are standard.