Frozen pipe to exterior faucet in double stud insulated walls
vew10
| Posted in General Questions on
I have had two experiences of bust pipe near exterior wall of my outdoor faucets. I have double stud construction and dense pack insulation. The plumber surmises that because my house is so well insulated that the warmth from inside the house is not getting into the walls to provide extra insulation to these pipes. Have other experienced this problem?
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Replies
This isn’t too surprising. Always keep plumbing out of exterior walls for this reason.
I’d use a freeze proof spigot assembly here, which has the actual valve seat located at the end of a tube with a shaft connecting it to the exterior handle. With a valve like this, the water stays further inside which limits the possibility of freezing. If you have a basement, a drainable ball valve (these have a small threaded cap over a little hole on the “out” side of the valve) allows you to shutoff the water and drain the water out of the piece that actually runs up into the wall. Combining both of these things (drainable ball valve and freeze proof spigot) gives you maximum protection, but remember you have to actually drain things in the winter with the drainable valve for it to be able to help you at all.
Bill
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I have no basement. I didn't drain my pipes before the winters until last year. But the damage cold over time had already weakened the pipe connected to the spigot. Hard lesson learned to be sure.
How thick are your walls?
Was the frozen valve like the one in this photo where the handle is outdoors but the water is turned off at the valve seat 24 inches inside the house where it should be well above freezing and tipped downward so it drain?
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Prier-Products-1-2-in-x-24-in-Brass-MPT-x-SWT-Heavy-Duty-Quarter-Turn-Frost-Free-Anti-Siphon-Outdoor-Faucet-Hydrant-P-164D24/204740308
I have to ask the silly question of course you disconnected everything from the faucet last fall so the water would drain out of the faucet.
Walta
>”I have to ask the silly question of course you disconnected everything from the faucet last fall so the water would drain out of the faucet.”
I’m so glad you mentioned this Walta! So many people leave something connected so that the water can’t drain, and then the “freeze proof” valve assembly still fails.
An alternative that I use for my own drip irrigation system that I leave connected is to blow out all outdoor water lines from an air port INDOORS when winterizing. This way the water in the supply lines to the outdoor valves and the water in the outdoor valves themselves is all blown out. This can even be done with a relatively small air compressor if you install a small expansion tank (such as the kind now required with water heaters connected to supplies with backflow preventers installed) that you can charge up with the small compressor to do big blasts of air. That’s how I do blow out my own relatively small system in the winter. At a cabin I maintain, I pressurize the empty water heater (with the power off!!!) with air and use that as a tank to blow out the rest of the system.
Bill