You'd be amazed how many people don't understand the simple requirement to remove the hose before freezing weather.
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
Need to buy the case lot, and some asbestos siding. Three times a day, you go light the cover on fire, and that warms the faucet.
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
I'd not about it. We know what meant.
As to the frozen pipe, yes, very possible. Hope when it thaws, it doesn't turn out to be a leaker.
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
Why wouldn't it? Pipe is still full of water, it expands, it busts. Just like putting a closed bottle of water in a freezer.
Covering the faucet itself would have been
You should be. What matters is if the pipe is full of water. When water freezes, it expands, where is it going to go? I've seen houses winterized that were unoccupied, where the low point drain was opened, etc., yet pipes burst in low spots, because they still had water in them that couldn't run out.
There are millions of sillcocks installed with an inside shutoff valve that has a small drain cap. To winterize, you shut it off, then open the sillcock and open the little drain cap on the valve, allowing the water to run out.
+1
I've seen similar.
LOL. I deserved that.
Really? If he didn't have any problems in previous years, I doubt he will have any this year just because he forgot to add his foam cover. Leaving the foam off could be the final straw, but I doubt it. Just my opinion.
We set up a molding plant that used water in their hydraulic system. The machinery was old and water hydraulics had been more common in the early
20th century. Part of the system we installed was a cooling tower since quite a bit of heat was generated. They shut down the operation over the Christmas holidays and we told them "Do NOT shut off the circulating pumps." Of course they did. Some of the exterior plumbing split and the cooling tower was a 5 ton ice cube. They saved some electricity though.Thanks for all the comments. To clarify: I removed the hose from the faucet but did not shut off the water until after several days of zero weather (C hicago area). The garage wall is cinder block; the living room wall, natura lly, is drywall. In 25 years, I had no problem but always either drained th e line or put on a foam cover.
As suggested, my plan is to open the valve in the basement and listen for t he hissing of running water. If it doesn't stop I have a problem. If it doe s stop I may try heating a section of pipe in the basement with a hair drye r If the heat travels downstream it will likely indicate a leak. Supposed t o get up to 40F tomorrow.
The question is, How much heat is the space inside the foam cover losing through the cover versus how much is it gaining from the warm pipe inside the house conducting heat to the outside to the warm the spigot and the water inside the pipe.
These covers are stiff foam for the most part, maybe 3/4" thick, with soft foam where they contact the wall, so as to fit closely over rough spots, like where there is a groove of mortar on a brick wall. They are probably fairly good insultators.
The amount of heat conducted from the inside of the house to the outside will vary based on whether the pipe is copper or iron or plastic, and is probably small per unit of time, The water will also conduct heat. However much it is, it will happen continuously, 24/7, so the heat will accumulate, except for what is lost to outside the cover.
I think a lot of people whose garden faucets freeze were close to their not freezing at all, and the foam covers can make the difference.
But it can always be colder than normal, especially for just a few days in a row, and I wouldn't suggest relying on one either.
So what conclusion did you reach about freeze-proof faucets? Was it only so-called, or was it really a Freeze-Proof Faucet? If so, how could it freeze and how could the water behind it freeze? Maybe I don't understand your story.
That's another thing my neighbor hasn't done, in the back.
I don't do it, but I don't *understand* it either.
If the hose is on the ground and isn't closed off by a trigger sprayer or something at the far end, and the tap is 2 feet high, won't at least the nearest 2 feet of hose drain In fact, won't must of the hose drain just by lying there?
Agreed. Why woudl turning off the water make any difference, if there is still water in the pipe. The purpose of turning off the water is so that one can drain the pipe, so it won't freeze.
But turning off the water inside and opening the faucet outside is very often not sufficient to drain the pipe, in those cases where the pipe runs uphill before it gets to the outside faucet. In those cases the water has to be drained from the pipe by opening a bleeder valve, which one hopes is present on the inside valve, to drain the part of the pipe from the inside valve to outside valve.
It's a 3-step process in many many cases.
Exactly. If you can't see this in your own basement, you can go to home depot and look at one that is for sale.
Before they had these, I presume they used a T-connector and another full-size valve to do the draining. Not called bleeding until the valve was smaller and the flow rate was lower.
BTW, after 20 years, often using a pliers to make it tight or loosen it, I stripped the grooves on the ouside of one drain cap, but found out they sell replacements for less than $2. It's a set of 2 in the case of HDepot, to fit all brands I guess.
Called Brass/Drain Cap Replacement Part, "made" by Homewerks Worldwide and seeming sold under the part number VACCAPW2B.
It's in a box among the metal valves
.
The freeze and bust problems are caused when the hose has a nozzle on the end of it, which is common, and the water can't run out at all. If the end is open, the faucet is higher, then enough water will run out to clear the faucet so that it can't freeze and bust.
ge. The pipe to the spigot runs for about ten feet through a wall that is c ommon with the garage and my living room. I turned off that supply line in the basement; now I'm afraid to turn it back on in case the pipe has burst. I can't think of any way to know if the pipe burst without turning on the water and waiting to see if it comes through the wall into the living room. Any better ideas?
Properly installed and used, they work. I've had dozens of them, no proble ms. You can screw them up several ways:
Leave a hose on so it can't drain Install it pitched down into the house instead of flat or slightly out Leave an opening around it, so wind gets to the water part Not long enough to get to where it's warm
| >Why wouldn't it? Pipe is still full of water, it expands, | >it busts. Just like putting a closed bottle of water | >in a freezer. | | Agreed. Why woudl turning off the water make any difference, if there | is still water in the pipe. The purpose of turning off the water is so | that one can drain the pipe, so it won't freeze. |
You drain all of your pipes to the outside every year? I never have and I've never had a frozen/burst pipe. I shut off the inside valve, open the outside valve to make sure there's no pressure, then close the outside valve. Right now it's 5F here and a 6' length of pipe is going through an unheated area to an outside faucet. I'm not worried. It hasn't burst yet.
| But turning off the water inside and opening the faucet outside is very | often not sufficient to drain the pipe, in those cases where the pipe | runs uphill before it gets to the outside faucet.
Others have said that, but how common is it to have pipes "rollercoastering" in the average house? The OP is concerned with a water pipe running inside the garage wall. What are you suggesting? That he should rip open the length of the garage wall because it's *possible* that the plumbing was done by Rube Goldberg? It's a good point that such bad plumbing can cause problems, but it's not a likely situation. If you really think it is then there is really only one option for the OP: Rip open the entire wall now to check the pipe and add special drain valves. (Remember he's shut off the inside valve. If the pipe has burst and the temperature goes above freezing there's a good chance that not enough water will leak out to show up as a wall stain or a puddle. So the only way to rule out Rube Goldberg is to rip out the wall.)
That's what I've done when I've had sillcocks that were not the freeze proof kind. That's why the inside shutoff valves typically have a drain cap.
It only has to happen once, how lucky do you feel? If it's a short length of pipe to a sillcock, you probably could get lucky. If it's a whole house that you're winterizing, I've seen where only trying to drain it at the lowest point resulted in some sections of pipe still having water and busting.
I think the discussion has moved way beyond the limited scenario posed by the OP. What should have been installed there would have been a freeze proof sillcock, thereby eliminating all the drama and providing water year round.
I don't see any need to rip open anything. When he turns the water back on, monitors it, if there is a problem, then he can fix it.
Woops. That sounds far more ominous than your original description, which sounded like you had turned off the supply in the fall. It sounds like there's a good chance of a burst. Still, if it were me I'd wait until Spring. If it's burst the damage is done. Unless you want to open up the inside wall to check it, there's not much to be done.
With freeze proof garden hose faucet, the actual valve is several inches away from the turn handle.
With the hose on, the tube stays full of water, freezes, splits.
with the hose off, the tube drains empty. It may get cold, but the tube won't have the expanding water as it freezes.
See this reasonable article:
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
His point is that it's not necessarily a requirement to take the hose off. If the sillcock is a foot+ higher than the ground, there is no nozzle on the end of the hose, the water is very likely going to drain down out of the faucet anyway. I don't take my hose off, just make sure there is no nozzle.
They are 100% freeze proof if installed according to the included instructions, and used as directed (remove the hose)
A self draining freezeproof "hydrant" is the idiot-proof version - well not completely iniot proof because you still have to follow the directions - and close the valve ALL the way, so it opens the external drain. If you only close it far enough to shut off the water, and leave the hose connected, you are virtually guaranteed to split something.
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