Plumbing- Recently visited a friend who had this situation, she lives in Oklahoma where is gets cold and freezes in the Winter. She had some people come to the house to work on her yard and planting beds. They used her hose and ran the water and after about 30 minutes she noticed water seeping out from under the baseboard onto her kitchen floor In the vicinity of the outside faucet. She turned the water off in the house and the leak stopped. Whike I was there she turned the water on in the house and no leak, but after turning the hose back on just turning the knob to pressurize the outside hose, about 30 minutes later, water started leaking into the kitchen again the same way.
This was totally baffling to me. Why would turning on the hose cause a leak in the house? My house (built in the late 1980s) has a copper pipe that goes to a faucet. The pipe behind the faucet is always pressurized when the water is turned on in the house.
The plumber called provided the answer. In some/all? new houses they use in some cases more modular plumbing, and this house was equipped with what the plumber called the outside faucet, something like a “faucet or watering bib“, a length of copper pipe, that screwed (with threads) into the water line (also copper) and included a valve about 8-10” from the faucet that when the water is turned off at the hose, this valve automatic closes, and the faucet is designed to allow that 8” of pipe to drain the water out, so it would not freeze In the winter and burst the pipe.
Her pipe burst, because she had a separate on off turn valve connected between the faucet and the hose that somehow prevented this section of the hose to drain. And she had used an insulated faucet cover during the Winter, but that was not enough. Of note the lime burst lose to the interior valve I mentioned, the way it is confirmed this pipe runs along the outside wall of the house of by the front entrance, and when the plumber cut into the wall in the kitchen to see what was what, there was plenty of blown in insulation where the pipe burst, so I’m guessing that it is vital for this drain bib to be working, even though the Winters in Oklahoma are not terribly cold, they are below freezing.
I like the idea of this auto drain valve and because this is threaded in, it’s not too hard to replace.When we lived in Minnesota, outside faucets had inside cutoff valves and prior to winter I would close these valves and open the outside valve so the water would drain. This is making me think about my water faucets in Houston, but as a rule here it rarely freezes, but installing something like this would be nice to have, or just go with the inside turn off valve. The problem is one of my faucets comes out by the laundry room which would be a pain to access, the other is in the garage, not so hard to work on.
This was totally baffling to me. Why would turning on the hose cause a leak in the house? My house (built in the late 1980s) has a copper pipe that goes to a faucet. The pipe behind the faucet is always pressurized when the water is turned on in the house.
The plumber called provided the answer. In some/all? new houses they use in some cases more modular plumbing, and this house was equipped with what the plumber called the outside faucet, something like a “faucet or watering bib“, a length of copper pipe, that screwed (with threads) into the water line (also copper) and included a valve about 8-10” from the faucet that when the water is turned off at the hose, this valve automatic closes, and the faucet is designed to allow that 8” of pipe to drain the water out, so it would not freeze In the winter and burst the pipe.
Her pipe burst, because she had a separate on off turn valve connected between the faucet and the hose that somehow prevented this section of the hose to drain. And she had used an insulated faucet cover during the Winter, but that was not enough. Of note the lime burst lose to the interior valve I mentioned, the way it is confirmed this pipe runs along the outside wall of the house of by the front entrance, and when the plumber cut into the wall in the kitchen to see what was what, there was plenty of blown in insulation where the pipe burst, so I’m guessing that it is vital for this drain bib to be working, even though the Winters in Oklahoma are not terribly cold, they are below freezing.
I like the idea of this auto drain valve and because this is threaded in, it’s not too hard to replace.When we lived in Minnesota, outside faucets had inside cutoff valves and prior to winter I would close these valves and open the outside valve so the water would drain. This is making me think about my water faucets in Houston, but as a rule here it rarely freezes, but installing something like this would be nice to have, or just go with the inside turn off valve. The problem is one of my faucets comes out by the laundry room which would be a pain to access, the other is in the garage, not so hard to work on.
