Author name: Amelia Manzoor

As the weather warms up and you are spending more time outdoors, now is a great time to check your Essential Outside Plumbing and make sure everything is in working order. Here are a few quick checks you can perform: Prevent Freeze Breaks: Protect Your Outside Faucets This Winter: Although many outside faucets are “frost-proof” by design, they can still have a freeze break if a water hose is left attached during the wintertime. When you turn the handle to close a frost-proof faucet, it shuts off the water back inside the wall behind the brick or siding. This is done so that all of the water that is outside the home’s thermal envelope can drain out of the faucet and won’t freeze.   However, if a garden hose is left attached during the wintertime, it doesn’t allow all of the water to drain out. The water that is still inside the faucet can burst the pipe when it freezes. Because the water is shut off before this point, it won’t start leaking right away. You won’t notice this problem until you turn the faucet on for the first time in the Spring. When you do, you will notice the hose faucet leaks.   It is only then that water fills the tube and sprays into the wall behind the brick or siding where you can’t see it right away. Pay close attention the first time you turn on each of your exterior faucets after a freeze. Turn them on for a few seconds, then turn them off. If that looks fine, hook up a hose with a spray head on the end. Leave the head turned off so that the hose builds up water pressure. Look carefully at the wall below the faucet where the brick meets the concrete foundation. This is called the brick ledge. Go inside and look at the bottom of the wall directly behind the faucet. If you see water in places it shouldn’t be– you might have a frost-proof faucet with a burst pipe in the wall that will need to be replaced.   So, what if your outside faucet is just dripping constantly even if you have it shut off all the way? If you can catch the leak soon after it starts, there is a possibility that you can repair the faucet by replacing a washer inside the faucet. However, if it has been leaking for more than a couple of weeks, replacement is probably necessary. This is because the slow water leak can quickly create a groove inside the brass faucet “seat” that is not repairable. If this happens, you’ll need to replace the entire faucet.   Know Where Your Water Box Is So what exactly is a water box and why is this important? Most houses are equipped with a shut-off valve close to the house that can shut off the main water supply coming into the house. These are typically located in a plastic valve box in a flowerbed (possibly under some bushes or shrubbery). The lid is usually either a black or green rectangle a little larger than a sheet of paper or a green circle about 10″ in diameter.   It is important to know where yours is located if you ever need to shut the water off to your house quickly to prevent water damage in the event of an emergency leak. Taking a few minutes to find yours and ensure it is in working order might save you some heartache later on.   If you can’t seem to locate your valve box near the house, one hint is to locate the round black-lid meter box near the street and follow a straight line toward the house. You might need to dig around a bit under the mulch to uncover it. Another way to find it is to look for your main sewer cleanouts. If your house was built sometime within the past 30 years, then these usually look like two white pipes close to each other with caps on them sticking up out of the ground. The water box for the home is very often a couple of feet to the right or the left of these sewer cleanouts.   Once you’ve located the water box, remove the lid and take a look inside. If you see water in the box (and it hasn’t rained recently), you might leak. If you just see dirt, the valve inside has likely been buried by dirt intruding into the box over time. It usually isn’t a good idea to try to use these valves when they are in this condition. If you see a pipe but not a handle, then the handle has probably rusted off entirely! If you find yours in this condition, it’s probably time for a new one.   If you can see the valve(s), then you will probably either see a lever-style handle or a round-style handle. The lever-style handle is called a ball valve, and these are usually pretty reliable valves. The round-style handle valves are most likely ‘gate valves,’ which shut the water off by lowering a “gate” as you turn the handle. These guys are notorious for sticking (either in the open or closed position). Handle with care, as you don’t want to turn it off only to discover you can’t get it to turn back on! We recommend replacing this type of valve with a quarter-turn ball valve with a lever handle.   Quick Tip :  If you do need to operate an old gate valve, do so with care and by turning two turns down/one turn up … two turns down/one turn up … until you get it turned off. This can help break up any calcification but is not guaranteed to work. Chrome Air Conditioning Services  Check For Yard Leaks Check to see if you have any wet or soggy spots in the yard. You may have a spot of grass that is noticeably more green than