Several of you keenly observed in last week's blog post, How to Save $500,000, Build a Shed!, that building a custom shed in the area below, would make the hose bib, inaccessible. Not only did the homeowners agree with you, but they had even delayed building the shed because of this "dilemma", until I assured them this issue could easily be addressed.
What's in a Name?
To be clear, every modern house has at least one hose bib, but you may call it by another name - sill cock, spigot, faucet, or hose thingy. They all mean the same thing - an exterior plumbing valve emanating from the house, that provides on-demand water to the outside of the home. In Montgomery County, with below freezing winters, I always recommend installing a frost-free hose bid to help eliminate freezing/bursting water pipes.
My advice to these homeowners was to move their frost-free hose bib to another location that was not behind the shed. OK, so that was not a difficult call, "but how?", was the homeowners' first question, and then", how much would that cost?" was their next question. The latter was dependent on the former. So we looked at their options. Since the pipe supplying water to the hose bib was on the home's first-floor, it would be accessible through the basement. Unfortunately, the basement was finished and any work would involve removing some ceiling drywall, but this still was not difficult, nor cost prohibitive. I explained that relocating a hose bib within 8' feet of the existing bib was preferable in terms of project cost (fewer ceiling access holes to repair and pipe to run, etc). It was decided to move this bib just around the corner, to the side of the house.
Relocating a Hose Bib
The first step was to turn the water off. Fortunately, this bib had its own shut-off valve, so the only water to turn off was to this pipe. If this were not the case, I'd recommend adding a shut-off valve to this supply pipe to ensure any future maintenance performed on this bib would not require turning the water off to the entire house! After the water was shut off, I cut the pipe, removed the hose bib from the house, and then sealed the bib hole leading to the outside with foam insulation (see below). Once this was done, all that was left was to run the copper pipe to the new side location, connect the bib to the pipe, and then securely affix it to the outside of the home.
With all connections made and secure, the homeowners were pleasantly surprised that the new hose bib location was more convenient and accessible than before, with less tussling with the bushes to move the hose about the backyard.
If you are interested in adding, repairing, or relocating your exterior hose bib, call or text Simply Home Maintenance today at (240) 324-8081 to discuss your options and how I can help.
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