On one side of my house, the previous owner frequently forgot to shut off the outdoor water during the winter. Given that my house is in Minnesota, it gets cold during the winter, and he had to replace plumbing twice because of busted pipes.
I'd like to avoid this nonsense (and the associated insurance costs). Ideally, I'd like to install a frost-free faucet so I have added protection in case I forget to turn it off in the winter. Unfortunately, I have about 4" from my exterior wall (siding) to the sheetrock on the other side.
The smallest frost free sillcock I was able to find is one with a 4" extension. The problem is, once I put the soldered fittings on it (a right-angle connector and a threaded connector for the sillcock) it's about 7" long. As an added bonus, the pipe to which I'm connecting is about 2" into the wall, so I lose 2".
All told, if I connect the frost-free faucet to the existing pipe, I'm looking at it sticking out of the outside of my house about 4.2". Ugh.
So, my question is sort of two part –
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I thought about blocking the exterior of the faucet. That is, I thought about taking a 4×4 (or a piece of wood that's an appropriate size) and cutting a section of it to place on top of the siding, into which the pipe will go, extending it away from the siding, but giving me enough room to attach the sillcock to the existing pipe. What I'm worried about is whether this is a waste of time. If the extension of the sillcock is sitting outside of the house, will it even buy me anything additional over having just a standard sillcock?
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Is there another way I might be able to attach this device that, in my less than infinite wisdom, I haven't thought of yet? I'm a pretty new homeowner, so it's possible that I might be able to do something else that isn't quite as ludicrous as having a 4" pipe sticking out of the side of my house. 🙂
Best Answer
The purpose of the extension on a frost free faucet is to get the valve itself in a heated space inside of your home so that it could never freeze (see the below diagram). If you only have an inch or so of insulation that's being penetrated by these plumbing pipes, it's likely that the valve would still reach the freezing point inside of your wall. So any type of build out on the outside of your home to mount the faucet is defeating the purpose of the extension. The proper way to use this type of faucet would be to build out something on the inside of your home, which I'm guessing isn't possible, or at least unattractive in your situation.
Therefore, I'd recommend getting in the habit of shutting off the water on the inside, possibly replacing the shutoff valve with a quarter turn ball valve so that it's quick, easy, and obvious when it's been done. You want to open the outside faucets when the water has been shut off so that the lines are empty when they do eventually freeze. After they've been left to drain for a day, I cover my outdoor faucets with insulating covers. This is also a good time to drain the hoses and bring them into a protected location (e.g. a garage or shed).