Here is my exterior hose bibb:
Also from the inside:
The valve stem is so old it crumbled when I tried to replace the washer, so I need to replace the whole thing. Notice the pipe was originally installed by drilling through the cinder block foundation instead of the wall. The siding hangs out over the foundation, so the bibb can't be flush against the cinder blocks. Also notice the unevenness of the cinder blocks outside.
Inside, the hose bib is attached to a sharkbite tee fitting (that part is my fault). You can see it in the foreground of the photo. Although there's no leak, the whole thing swivels around its axis, which is a little disconcerting.
I live in the mid-atlantic region of the US, so freezing pipes can be an issue. I was thinking about
- replacing the hose bib with an exterior freezeproof sillcock valve,
- inside, attaching a board to the cinder block with tapcons, covering the big hole, and a hose bibb anchor to that
- outside, fashioning some kind of spacer to secure the flange away from the cinder blocks.
Number 3 is the step I'm still wondering about. Using the anchor inside would mean that I won't have to attach the spacer extra securely to the cinder block outside. But how do I go about fashioning anything that will fit that kind of surface? And how weatherproof should I make the spacer, considering it's fitting underneath aluminum siding? Any advice here would be appreciated.
Best Answer
So what I did took a couple of weekends and the acquisition of new tools and skills, but I figured it out to my satisfaction.
I did Steps 1 and 2 from my checklist above. For the spacer, I build a 3x5" box out of 3/8" plywood and scribed the edges to match the uneven cinder block. I used a rotary rasp bit on my drill to “carve” the box edges to my scribe lines. It took a couple of tries to get it to fit decently, but in the end it pushed out the flat box face away from the cinder block and just under the siding.
I painted it with the same outdoor masonry paint that we used to paint the cinderblocks, and applied caulk along the edge. Inside, I filled the gap between the block and the pipe with expanding spray foam.
Jack's answer is still a good one. I just preferred not to punch a new hole in the wall.