Sillcock and Hose Bib Shut Off Problem

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SAS

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The problem starts when I turn on the hose bib. Water is coming out of the hose, but also out from the brick front of the house several feet from the hose bib. Fortunately, the water stops when I turn off the valve. So I figure that I have a leak inside the house only when the hose bib is on. This would make sense if the sillcock was one of those frost free valves with a long rod leading up to the valve seat, and if the body between the valve seat and the exterior wall had a leak. Unfortunately, I have no access at all to the wall area where the valve is located from inside the house. My one hope is that the valve is threaded into a female adapter. The piping is all CPVC. I can see the pipe for a short distance from the basement, but it then goes into the wall cavity above the basement ceiling.

Part 2 of the problem is the shut off valve in the basement. It does not fully shut off the water. So I cannot attempt to twist the sillcock free, because if it is not threaded, or does not come free, I might inadvertently break a pipe that I cannot reach to repair. I would like to replace the shut off valve, but I'm not sure how to do that. I have attached some photos of both the hose bib and the shut off valve. The shut off valve looks as if it is threaded on both sides with male threads and connected to the CPVC with what look like female garden hose adapters. I would just cut out the existing valve and replace it with a different valve, but once I cut out the valve, I will only have about 3/4 inch of pipe to work with. Is that enough for either a CPVC coupling or valve? I would buy another of the same valve, but I haven't found anything just like it.

Any help on either problem would be appreciated.

Hose Bib.jpg
Shut off valve 1.jpg
Shut off valve 2.jpg
Shut off valve 3.jpg
 
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John Gayewski

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Shut off the copper and redo it from there. Then replace the hose bib. It probably had water that wasn't drained and broke.
 

SAS

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Shut off the copper and redo it from there. Then replace the hose bib. It probably had water that wasn't drained and broke.
I have managed to get the shut off valve to work by turning it very tightly. I had some misgivings doing that, since one time I tried to shut off the main at my son's house while he had a leak, and I managed to break the valve stem. The real problem is how to change the frost free hose bib when I have no inside access to it. In the attached picture, the CPVC pipe runs horizontally and then has a 90 degree turn upward. As it goes through the floor it look as if it transitions to a brass fitting of some sort. My hope is that the frost free sillcock is screwed into that brass fitting and I can unscrew it by grabbing the external part with a wrench and turning. My concern is that I might break the plastic pipe, but short of cutting open an interior wall, I'm not sure what my other options are.

Hose bib 2.jpg
 

John Gayewski

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I have managed to get the shut off valve to work by turning it very tightly. I had some misgivings doing that, since one time I tried to shut off the main at my son's house while he had a leak, and I managed to break the valve stem. The real problem is how to change the frost free hose bib when I have no inside access to it. In the attached picture, the cpvc pipe runs horizontally and then has a 90 degree turn upward. As it goes through the floor it look as if it transitions to a brass fitting of some sort. My hope is that the frost free sillcock is screwed into that brass fitting and I can unscrew it by grabbing the external part with a wrench and turning. My concern is that I might break the plastic pipe, but short of cutting open an interior wall, I'm not sure what my other options are.
Even if you break it it's fixable. About everything is fixable. So what if you need to cut a hole in the house (which probably won't happen) all the more to entertain us with. Be gentle yet firm. Fast yet slow. Just do it. Lol
 

Terry

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I have never been able to replace an outside hosebib by just turning on the outside of the home, except many once when it was backed with a drop ear.
Never when just done to copper or CPVC. I always cut the wall inside and replace it from there.

legend_hosebib.jpg


index.php


hosebib-replace-03.jpg
 

SAS

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I'm going to give it a try from the outside - but not until I get back from an overseas trip. I figure that even though the odds of success are very low, so is the risk. If the pipe breaks, the damage should be limited to just the pipe between the shut off and the sillcock, and then I'll figure out what to do next. I have another sillcock in the back of the house, so I'll have a workaround if it's out of commission for a while.
 

Kreemoweet

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Threaded plumbing joints are made up with TWO wrenches, one on each side of the joint.
Sometimes there is no other option than to open up walls, interior or exterior, to access
and repair a damaged plumbing joint. That's the price one must pay for insisting that
pipes be invisible to occupants of a building.
 

SAS

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Threaded plumbing joints are made up with TWO wrenches, one on each side of the joint.
Sometimes there is no other option than to open up walls, interior or exterior, to access
and repair a damaged plumbing joint. That's the price one must pay for insisting that
pipes be invisible to occupants of a building.

I tried one time to turn one from the outside and it twisted the pipe into a spiral.
I won't be surprised if that happens when I try it, but my fallback plans are:
1) Open up the wall.
2) Install a new sillcock on an adjoining perpendicular outside wall to which I have access from the basement, and just abandon this one.
3) Call a plumber
 

SAS

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The problem starts when I turn on the hose bib. Water is coming out of the hose, but also out from the brick front of the house several feet from the hose bib. Fortunately, the water stops when I turn off the valve. So I figure that I have a leak inside the house only when the hose bib is on. This would make sense if the sillcock was one of those frost free valves with a long rod leading up to the valve seat, and if the body between the valve seat and the exterior wall had a leak. Unfortunately, I have no access at all to the wall area where the valve is located from inside the house. My one hope is that the valve is threaded into a female adapter. The piping is all CPVC. I can see the pipe for a short distance from the basement, but it then goes into the wall cavity above the basement ceiling.

Part 2 of the problem is the shut off valve in the basement. It does not fully shut off the water. So I cannot attempt to twist the sillcock free, because if it is not threaded, or does not come free, I might inadvertently break a pipe that I cannot reach to repair. I would like to replace the shut off valve, but I'm not sure how to do that. I have attached some photos of both the hose bib and the shut off valve. The shut off valve looks as if it is threaded on both sides with male threads and connected to the CPVC with what look like female garden hose adapters. I would just cut out the existing valve and replace it with a different valve, but once I cut out the valve, I will only have about 3/4 inch of pipe to work with. Is that enough for either a CPVC coupling or valve? I would buy another of the same valve, but I haven't found anything just like it.

Any help on either problem would be appreciated.

View attachment 82448View attachment 82449View attachment 82450View attachment 82452
 

SAS

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I had that happen with copper. Such a tight spiral that water couldn't even pass through it.
CPVC will shatter. That stuff is super brittle. It breaks just looking at it.
I think I've found a solution! Here is what this looks like from the outside:
Outside hose cock.jpg


I have no idea what that CPVC pipe was supposed to do, but here is what it looks like from the basement, near the water meter.

old pipe.jpg


I cut it near where it goes through the wall so I could run a snake through to make sure that this was indeed the pipe coming through the brick wall in the first photo. So my plan now is to pull out that pipe, enlarge the hole and install a new frost free sillcock through that hole. The shutoff valve does not work very well so I'll cut it out and put in a new valve. Then I can either re-use that CPVC piping and connect the loose end to the new valve or just run some pex from the valve to the new sillcock. Pex would be simpler, since I would only have to make two connections - one to the sillcock and one to the valve. But I've never used pex before and cpvc pipe and fittings are very inexpensive. Any suggestions? Also any suggestion on the shutoff valve, or just pick up any 1/2 inch valve?

(The last step, should everything go more or less as planned, will be to cut through the old sillcock just behind the front plate with a hacksaw and then cover up the hole as best I can with caulk or mortar.)
 

LLigetfa

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Doesn't change my advice in any way
I didn't disagree with your advice. My work involves servicing portable jobsite washrooms and those freeze frequently when the gensets run out of fuel or idiots turn off the heat or leave the doors open. They are plumbed with PEX and the PEX itself never fails. What does fail is the transition fittings or the fixtures themselves.
 

SAS

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I'm happy to say that my plan worked! Here's what the outside looks like now:

Hose Cock Outside.jpg


I was able to unscrew the old sillcock, but I couldn't pull it fully out of the brick, so I removed the stem, cut the pipe, pushed it back into the wall and caulked over the old opening with the help of some backer rod. I was a bit concerned about my ability to drill a 1-1/8 inch hole through the brick, but the fact that there was an existing, small diameter hole made it easier. I purchased a 12 inch long masonry bit to use with my hammer drill and found that it was not all that difficult. I used some pex to connect the new sillcock. Since the new location had open access from the basement, the plumbing was easy to do. Here's the inside view:

Hose Cock Inside 1.jpg

Hose Cock Inside 2.jpg


That broken pipe on the right side of the last picture is the feed to the old sillcock.

Thanks, everyone, for you advice and assistance.
 
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