A T-shaped pipe whose base extends through a sidewall of a steam trap housing terminates internally of the housing in open ended upper and lower vertical arms. The lower arm is closed off by an axially movable valve disc mounted to a valve actuator rod extending axially through the arms and coupled at its upper end to a pressure balancing plate sealably connected at its periphery by a non-ferrous metal bellows to the upper end of the T-pipe arm.Forged Steel Valves A float ball fixed to a float arm is pivotably coupled at the opposite end of the arm to the valve actuator rod and to the T-pipe with the pressure on balancing plate balancing the pressures acting on the movable valve disc. Steam traps conventionally employ a float responsive to the accumulation of liquid condensate for periodically opening a condensate outlet valve to discharge accumulated liquid condensate. Because of the relatively high pressure differential between the interior of the steam trap housing and the condensate outlet,Bellow Seal Valve the opening and closing of the outlet valve must be accomplished against relatively large pressure. This requires a large float and a long float arm to create power sufficient to open the valve against a particularly large internal pressure within the steam trap housing. It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved, GATE VALVESsimplified and compact steam trap in which the movable condensate outlet valve is provided with pressure balancing means to insure that the pressure differential between the condensate outlet passage and the interior of the steam trap housing is balanced under valve closed conditions such that the float size may be reduced, the size of the float may be kept to a minimum without detrimentally affecting the ability of the valve to open upon accumulation of a predetermined volume of liquid condensate. In the steam trap which comprises an imperforate housing including means forming an upper steam inlet passage and a lower condensate outlet passage, and wherein the outlet passage includes a fixed annular valve seat and a valve disc is mounted for axial movement towards and away from the outlet passage valve seat by way of a valve rod which rod is fixed at one end to the valve disc and extends within the outlet passage and a float arm is pivotably connected at one end to the valve rod carries a float at the other end within the steam trap housing and is pivotable about a fixed axis intermediate of its end, the improvement comprises a pressure balancing plate fixed to the valve rod and movable therewith and means for sealably exposing one side of the plate to the outlet passage and the other side to the housing interior to balance the pressures acting on valve disc and permit its operation by a minimal sized float pivoted on a relatively short float arm. Preferably, the outlet passage means comprises a T-shaped pipe including a horizontal outlet base portion extending through a sidewall of the housing and vertical right angle arms opening into the housing interior, above and below the base portion. The end of the lower arm defines the annular valve seat, the float arm is sealably pivotably mounted within one of said arms and is pivotably connected to the valve rod which extends vertically through both arms, coupled at its lower end to the valve disc and coupled at its upper end to said pressure balancing plate. A tubular metal bellows concentrically surrounds the upper end of the valve rod and is sealably connected at its lower end to the upper end of the vertical upper arm of the T-shaped pipe and at its upper end to the periphery to the pressure balancing plate.

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