If you are from somewhere that doesn’t freeze often you probably don’t know it’s a good idea to cover up external water faucets when it gets that cold outside. They even make special insulating covers for them.
Where I am it’s standard practice (although apparently not code) to install an interior valve. We turn off the exterior hose bibs before the first deep freeze, drain the line, and leave water off until spring.
Do you need to though if they are “frost-free” hose bibbs? Does it depend on whether the other side of the wall from the hose bibb is (heated) living space or not?
Those are great questions I don’t really know the answer to. In my own personal experience, a bedroom on the other side of an unprotected external faucet in a poorly insulated old house was enough warmth when there was a week of record setting cold that caused people I knew to experience a burst faucet.
If you are from somewhere that doesn’t freeze often you probably don’t know it’s a good idea to cover up external water faucets when it gets that cold outside. They even make special insulating covers for them.
Where I am it’s standard practice (although apparently not code) to install an interior valve. We turn off the exterior hose bibs before the first deep freeze, drain the line, and leave water off until spring.
Do you need to though if they are “frost-free” hose bibbs? Does it depend on whether the other side of the wall from the hose bibb is (heated) living space or not?
Those are great questions I don’t really know the answer to. In my own personal experience, a bedroom on the other side of an unprotected external faucet in a poorly insulated old house was enough warmth when there was a week of record setting cold that caused people I knew to experience a burst faucet.
Wow, crazy!