Replacing An Outdoor Water Faucet

I had to replace my outdoor water hose bibb or spigot, the thing that the water hose attaches to. It may have had something to do with the fact that I neglected to remove my water hose last winter. The snow and the freezing weather came on me suddenly and I found that it was too late to remove it because it was frozen in place.

This spring, I noticed that after shutting the water off to the hose, a dribble of water continued to come out the end. That wasn't a problem, as I'd just leave the hose alongside whatever plant or tree I thought could use a dribble of water during the night. I was also getting some leaks around the hose connection even when the hose was securely in place.

Over time, the dribble eventually became a flow, and my water bill wouldn't allow for that, so I had to replace it. Fortunately, that's not much of a problem. First, I went to the hardware store and bought a new one. It was pleasant to note that neither customers nor staff at the hardware store was paying the least bit of attention to Maine's mask requirement. That was a positive thing. I bought the new hose bibb, went home, shut our water off so that I could do the replacement.

After removing the old one, I noticed that I had bought the wrong hose bibb. Apparently, I had experienced gender confusion, buying one with a male connection and a female connection when what I needed was one with two male connections. So I had to go back, but the hardware store is only a couple of blocks away.

So it's done. No leaks, no dribbles, and everything is in working order.

 

What kind of plumbing?

I grew up with homes that were copper, and the house I owned for 30+ years was also copper. I've sweated my share of joints. The place I moved into 10 years ago was refurbished by an investor and it's all PEX. I installed a water softener with 45+ fittings, and even though I never crimped a fitting before in my entire life, not a single one leaked. I love the stuff.

I've also replaced an outside faucet with one that has the long stem so the water is shut off well under the house.

 

I believe there is a water shut off just for the outside hose, just inside the foundation, but I have a crawlspace, not a basement, and that part of the crawlspace requires sliding either on my stomach or on my back, and it's not pleasant. I've owned the house for twenty years now and I've found that as long as I remove the hose before the winter freeze, and cover the hose connection, it handles the winters okay. Right now, we have a mixture of copper and PEX, as we had a freeze a few years back while I was living up north one winter, and the circulator failed on my boiler so, while some of the breaks were simply repaired, the new piping was done in PEX.

Our water pipes are a mess. Although we don't currently have any leaks, this building began as a boarding house, then it was converted into a three-unit apartment building, and we converted it into a single-family home, so we have leftover pipes from two kitchens that are no longer here, and a couple of bathrooms that are no longer here. Some of it still has water running through it, while others are dead lines. If I were to come into some money that I didn't know what to do with, I'd like to have a plumber strip everything out and replace it all with something that makes sense, and which can be easily winterized, in the event that we should ever decide to stay elsewhere during the winter.

 

I, too have a crawlspace. I also had one in the home I spent 3 decades in. I would have loved to get a house with a basement...I loathe going under there.

 

I don't know what the square-footage is, although it's probably on our deed. We must have that around somewhere. Although we have made offices out of two of them, a walk-in closet of another one, and a library out of another two of them, we had six bedrooms and three kitchens when we bought the place.

Currently, we have one bedroom, a living/dining room, one kitchen, two bathrooms, two offices, a walk-in closet, a laundry room, and another room that we refer to as the recreation room, although it's currently packed full of stuff that Michelle sells on eBay. Plus, I added an attic.

We closed the library off from the rest of the house because it has sixteen windows and costs a fortune to heat in the winter. I bought a wood heating stove that I hope to install in the library before next winter because I can cut enough wood on our land up north to get us through the winter, although I'd probably have to buy wood next winter because anything I cut this summer will be too green to burn.

When we reinsulated the house a few years ago, we insulated the attic off from the second floor so that we are no longer losing heat up there in the winter. It's still accessible and if I wanted to use it during the winter, all it would take is a space heater or two.

We used to go through three tanks of oil a winter, and now one tank lasts us most of the year.

I agree. It does.

 

@Ken Anderson

Did you insulated your walls?

I think my place had a leaky roof at one time and washed all the insulation out of the walls. I did a bath tear-out and there were archeological remnants of tufts of pink and foil backing left, but nothing of substance. I can't keep it cool on hot days and have to use the wood stove in the winter...the heat pump won't do it on its own.

I'm trying to think of how to insulate the walls.

 

Do you know what those things are that are hanging down in my pic?

 

Yes. The house was built in 1910. Parts of our house had been insulated with newspapers from the 1930s, which had, of course, disintegrated. I didn't do it myself, though. A Maine energy-saving non-profit got a grant to insulate older homes in Maine, and they paid for it. They drilled small holes into the walls and blew the insulation in, using some kind of an instrument to determine where the heat losses were. They insulated all of our walls, insulated the attic from the rest of the house, and encapsulated the crawlspace. It didn't cost us a cent. Another grant from the same organization bought us a heat pump a couple of years earlier, which also cuts down on our oil usage while slighting raising our electricity costs.

 

Good for you!

I'm trying to avoid the hole drilling/repair process. And I don't want to try to free up access to all the exterior walls.

I've thought or having the siding redone and getting insulation installed from the outside. I did not think to check to see if there are grants available.

 

Snake sheds