Outside water tap

[Vic]

I am going to fit an outside water tap. Is it usual/good practice to have the tap and the spur off the water main isolatable inside the house?

[Broadback]

That is certainly what I did, both in my and my daughters house. Last year she got caught out, forgot to turn it off for Winter. Despite it being lagged she returned home one evening to find water gushing down the drive! so yes I think it sensible to have a stop c*ck in the house.

[Andy Burns]

You'll need a double check valve (to prevent backflow) while you're fitting that it makes sense to put a service valve in too, so you can drain the external pipework over winter.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes, if you don't want it to freeze, spilt and flood the house..

IN winter turn off inside and open outside tap..

[Dave Liquorice]

A double check valve is required as well if the tap is on the mains water supply. Isolation is a good idea, particulary if there is much pipework outside of any heated area. Means you can turn of the supply and open the tap in winter. The idea being that when the pipe freezes there is somewhere to take the expansion. With the tap closed there is nowhere to take up the expansion.

The water board might want to know and slap a "hose pipe" fee on your bill if you are un-metered. That's quite old though, things may have changed.

[Thomas Prufer]

There's frost proof taps... They shut off inside the house -- but they will burst anyway if a hose is left on so that the outside bit of the tap can't drain.

Thomas Prufer

[Tricky Dicky]

Every external tap with a hose attachment I have seen already has a double check valve, so only an isolator required inside. The only problem with tho se taps is that if you turn the isolator inside off opening the tap does no t drain all the water out between isolator and tap even with the external t ap lower than the isolator. To completely drain any pipe between isolator a nd external tap will require a drain c*ck.

Richard

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

As others have said then it's logical to be able to shut it off as you would most taps in the house but I fittes a "straight through the wall" external tap so the only metal outside is the tap it's self. The pipework inside the house is in the boiler room. Never his it freeze and never turned it off or drained it down in 12 years or more.

I like to thing that the small plug of ice that forms behind the tap valve is in it's self so small that should the freezing get past the depth of the outer brick skin it will be prevented from going any further as the heat of indoors will naturally warm the pipe to a point of equilibrium somewhere within the cavity.

:)

[Krankie]

Ah yes. the good old tried and tested belt, braces, and binder twine method.

[Tim Watts]

Yes - and a slope downwards, so opening the tap with the isolator off drains the pipe.

*However* if the tap is tight to the wall with the pipe running directly through the wall into the tap, IME in the south, it's unlikely to freeze.

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Do such taps not have a little grub screw on the underside to allow the tap body to be drained?

[Sam Plusnet]

I used plastic pipe for the run through the wall, since I didn't want copper pipe acting as a thermal bridge to the freezing temperatures outside.