Shut off valves/Ball Joints faulty?

[huskerfan]

Not sure if this is the technical name for these - but I noticed that when I closed off some of my shut off valves - water is still getting through - did I make a big mistake buying them from Menards when I installed them? I've heard they're quality is not the best on some items, would this be the case here?

Is there any way to fix these, lol, without replacing them?? Really not laughing - but is probably a stupid question. My plumbing is somewhat complex with having solar panels - and it'll be a real pain to cut them out and put new ones in. We wanted to try to fix some leaks in our solar panels before putting water through them - just opened pool yesterday - so I made sure our Pentair Compool controller was set to off and closed my shut off valve so water shouldn't even go to the panels before starting up the pool, but it did anyway. Now I have leaks from the rooftop that the panels are mounted on. Just a pain! Even if the ball joints are faulty and don't close completely - shouldn't my controller being in the off position should have stopped the water from entering the panels??

We're about a month late opening due to the cold and excessive raining - so I'd like to get everything in working order soon. Almost everything went wrong yesterday that could - except my pool was still clear thankfully!

Thanks in advance -
Sincerely,
Donya

[waste]

Donya, many of these type valves need to have the union tightened all the way to fully seal - and you can't turn the ball valve with it fully tightened