Then you can open the hose bibb faucet and allow the water that is in this line to drain. To avoid this, they often install a valve (inside a wall that has heat on at least one side) to allow you to turn off the water supply to that length of pipe that feeds your hose bibb on the cold wall. This shutoff line valve is typically installed by prudent plumbers who know that a water pipe inside a cold wall will probably freeze and burst and leak. Next, make sure that if your hose bibbs happen to have been installed in a cold wall (a wall that does not have a heated space on its other side, as may be the case for a garage wall), that you check for a water shutoff line valve. Turn off cold wall hose bibb supply line shutoff valves. These type of after-market vacuum breakers also have male threaded connections exposed to allow the female hose fitting to connect to them. They look like the tan colored cylindrical feature on a hose bibb for integral factory-made frostproof hose bibbs, although they can also be field-added, as a brass cylinder screwed on to the threaded exposed exterior end of your hose bibb. They drain excess water out of the exposed portions of the hose bibb. That’s what makes a “frostproof” hose bibb capable of resisting freezing temperatures. A factory installed vacuum breaker will probably perform better. Although, an ordinary hose bibb can have one attached, although we are concerned about the water that may still be held in those types of faucets. The tan cylinder on the top is the vacuum breaker. Now that you have your exterior hoses removed from your hose bibbs, we need to do something else: Make sure that all of your exterior hose bibbs have vacuum breakers. Mold and other toxic growth can occur inside walls and on other surfaces, making an unhealthy environment for your family, and structural wood elements can rot, when exposed to water for periods of time. Water damage can be in the form of water saturated-insulation, which can react like cotton candy to water, compacting and crushing with the weight of the water. This can result in thousands of gallons of wasted water and even perhaps severe water damage to your house’s walls and other components to the side and under the level of the hose bibb. Then the freezing water will expand by 1/10th its liquid size, quite possibly smashing the inside of the hose bibb outward, fracturing the metal, ruining the faucet and this will result in possible leaking inside the wall and for sure a huge torrent of water will come rushing out of the destroyed hose bibb as soon as the ice thaws. The reason? Because even if your hose bibb has a vacuum break device on it, a hose connected to the hose bibb can still hold water in the faucet and when the temperature drops below freezing (32*F), the water will begin to freeze. (A hose “bibb” is an exterior water faucet with a threaded end that will allow you to screw hose connections to the faucet, for the use of pressurized water around your residence.) One of the simplest and most important things is something not many people think about: Remove your exterior hoses from your hose bibbs. Freezing temperatures can damage your house if you have not prepared. It was recently about 37*F around here, and that was near the end of September. As fall arrives, watch out for colder temperatures at night. There are a few things you should do every year, as temperatures begin to drop.
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