What's the best way to protect outdoor faucets in the winter?
It doesn't freeze here too often, but when it's going to we'll go outside and set our faucets to drip to prevent freezing. I just have to remember to do this, and I worry that I'll forget. Do those faucet covers work? Any other options?
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here in canada where it freezes 17 months out of the year, 99.9% of the houses have shutoff valve inside the house that supplies the outside tap. id recommend turning on the outside tap, then turn off the valve inside.
Valve first. Then open tap. Then drain the line past the valve by unscrewing the bleeder cap.
this is what i was taught by my dad. seems logical too.
but do the shutoff valve first.
Northern USA is the same way.
When I lived in TX, the water supply came into the house above ground. It was really strange concept for me a Minnesotan. The winter I was there, the supply lines froze. You had to defrost them with boiling water, or hair dryers.
For me coming from the Westcoast with lots of rain at sea level the lack of drain fields around the houses in the Prairies was a similar moment for me when I was looking at homes for a move many years ago. Their drain spouts just run out into the yard above the ground. It was a what the heck is going on here?
Their basements are also fully enclosed under ground. On the coast we require a secondary drain field just for the down spouts and the basements are only halfway in the ground so it was very strange to me.
The house I'm renting has a valve for the outside tap, except someone decided to plumb all the water for the second bathroom downstream from it.