Notes for owners · Sales management
Answering a part-number enquiry for valves and fittings: the five questions that stop wrong supplies
A valve or fitting enquiry that names only a size or a part number gets a wrong supply unless the first reply asks five things: size, pressure rating, media and temperature, end connection and material.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
On this page
- Why a part number is not a specification
- The five questions, and what a wrong guess costs
- Media and temperature decide more than the body
- One reply, numbered, sent before any rate
- For example: a valve maker in Dombivli and a heater line
- When five questions are too many
- Save the five questions as a quick reply
"Need 2 inch ball valve, SS, 40 nos, best rate." That message names a size, a material and a quantity, and leaves out everything that decides whether the valve survives the line. Before you quote a valve or fitting, ask five things in one reply: size and bore, pressure rating, media and temperature, end connection, and materials. Another maker's part number answers none of them. Asked in the first reply, the five stop a wrong supply, a return and a debit note.
Why a part number is not a specification
A part number is one maker's code. The same "2 inch ball valve" comes with screwed, socket-weld, butt-weld or flanged ends, in several pressure classes, full or reduced bore, with soft or metal seats. Buyers copy the number from an old invoice, a catalogue or a consultant's bill of materials. Decoding it tells you what someone bought once. It does not tell you what this line carries today.
And the person typing the enquiry may be a purchase assistant or a contractor's site supervisor, not the engineer who designed the line. They send what they have. Your reply has to reach past them to the facts.
The five questions, and what a wrong guess costs
| Question | Ask it as | What a wrong guess leads to |
|---|---|---|
| Size and bore | "2 inch nominal: full bore or reduced?" | A valve that fits the pipe but throttles a line that needs full flow |
| Pressure rating | "Working pressure, and the class or PN of the line?" | Flanges that will not mate, or a valve rated below the line |
| Media and temperature | "What flows through it, and how hot does it get?" | A soft seat on a hot line, or a body that corrodes in the fluid |
| End connection | "Screwed (BSP or NPT), socket weld, butt weld, or flanged to which standard?" | A valve that cannot go in without cutting or changing the pipe |
| Materials | "Body, ball or disc, stem and seat?" | Seat failure, corrosion, or rejection by the buyer's inspector |
Two traps sit inside the end connection. Screwed valves come in BSP and NPT threads that look alike and do not seal against each other. And flanged lines in older Indian plants may still be drilled to BS Table D or E, not to ANSI classes or PN, so ask which.
Media and temperature decide more than the body
The costly mistake is often not the size. It is the right size with the wrong seat or packing for what flows through it. A soft seat has a temperature limit that a heater line can pass in its first hour.
Steam lines, and some gas and chemical services, come under their own approval and testing rules. These rules change. Ask for the line specification and the inspection the buyer expects. Never substitute a material without the buyer's written approval, even one you believe is better. The buyer's inspector checks the certificate against the order, not your opinion.
One reply, numbered, sent before any rate
Plain text, so it works the same on WhatsApp and email, and the buyer can answer by number:
Thank you for your enquiry for 2 inch SS ball valves, 40 nos. So that we send the right valve, please answer these five:
- Bore: full bore or reduced bore?
- Pressure: working pressure, and the class or PN of the line's flanges?
- Service: what flows through the valve, and at what temperature?
- Ends: screwed (BSP or NPT), socket weld, butt weld, or flanged (ANSI class, PN or BS table)?
- Materials: body CF8 or CF8M? Seat PTFE, reinforced PTFE or metal?
If you are replacing a valve, a photo of its nameplate or body markings answers most of this.
When the answers come back, open the quotation with a "Quoted for" line and ask the buyer to confirm it before the order is raised:
Quoted for: 2" full bore ball valve, flanged ANSI 150 RF,
CF8M body, SS 316 ball and stem, metal seated,
service: thermic fluid at (temperature) °C. Qty 40.
Please confirm this description before placing the order.
For example: a valve maker in Dombivli and a heater line
Imagine, as an invented example, a maker of ball, gate and globe valves in Dombivli MIDC, near Mumbai. An enquiry arrives through a directory from a piping contractor working on a dyeing unit in Tarapur: "2 inch ball valve SS 40 nos".
The maker quoted its commonest item, screwed-end CF8 ball valves with PTFE seats, and won the order. The contractor fitted them on the thermic fluid heater line. Within weeks the seats had given way. The valves came back with a debit note, and the contractor's site engineer dropped the maker from the vendor list. The replacement valves and the second trip to Tarapur cost the maker about ₹1.4 lakh, against an order worth less than that.
The owner turned the five questions into a saved reply that goes out before any rate, and every quotation now opens with the "Quoted for" line. A few months later another contractor asked for 1.5 inch valves "for heater line". Question 3 brought back "thermic fluid", and the quotation went out for flanged, metal-seated valves rated for the temperature. The contractor's engineer corrected the flange class on the "Quoted for" line before ordering. The reply took a day longer than a bare rate would have, and one price-only competitor got the order for the smaller lot. The valves that were supplied stayed on the line.
When five questions are too many
A repeat buyer needs one line: "Same as your order (number): 2 inch flanged, CF8M, metal seat?" A plumber at the counter, buying a brass screwed valve for a water line, needs only the size and the thread. A buyer who sends a datasheet or line specification has answered most of the five already. Read it and ask only what is missing.
And an enquiry with no site, no project and no answer to question 3 is probably a rate collector. On the website, form and enquiry funnel optimisation can turn the five into fields, with choices for ends and seats, so the enquiry arrives answered. How buyers find a component maker in the first place is on our industrial components page.
Save the five questions as a quick reply
Look at the last valve quotation you sent and ask whether it says what the valve was quoted for. If it does not, add the "Quoted for" line before the next one goes out, and keep the five questions ready for any enquiry that names only a size or a part number. If you want to talk through the reply, the form and the quotation, tell us what you need.
