A LEAKING OUTDOOR FAUCET MAY REQUIRE REPLACEMENT

If you own a Boston-area home that has one or more outdoor faucets, you should take care each winter to shut the water to each faucet off and drain the outdoor fixture. Failing to do so could cause water inside the faucet to freeze. When the water freezes, it can expand and break the faucet, causing leaks outdoors, or worse, indoors.

You’ll know right away that you have a problem with a leaking faucet. If no water comes out of the spigot when you turn the faucet on, or you experience very low water pressure from the faucet, turn it off immediately and check the pipes indoors for leaks. Whether the water loss is indoors or outdoors, you’ll need to replace the faucet before you can use it again.

In Boston, you’ll want to replace your old setup with a “frost-free” faucet. The valve seat, the working part of the faucet (and the part that’s susceptible to damage from freezing) will reside inside the house, where the danger of a frozen pipe is sharply reduced. You may need to reposition the shut-off valve to make sure the valve seat stays warm enough all winter. Follow the manufacturer’s directions on the faucet to determine how far back your shut off valve should be.

Replacement of your leaky hose faucet isn’t always straight forward, so if you do not own the tools needed for a job of this nature, or if you don’t have any experience with soldering or brazing, and you think this job may be too much, contact Boston Standard Plumbing at (617) 362-0377 . We can replace your broken outdoor faucet with a new frost-free one. In addition, our frost-free hose faucets are anti-siphon, which means that you are safe when using fertilizer and other contaminants with your hose, because the anti-siphon feature will stop “backflow” from occurring.

With Boston Standard, we’ll give great preventative maintenance ideas to help you keep your hose faucet from freezing.

Categories:
DIY Blog, DIY Plumbing, Hose Spigot

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