How to Fix a Leaky Outdoor Faucet - DON'T Replace It - Cheap & Easy

having just a single outdoor faucet that leaks can cost you as much as a thousand dollars a year on your water bill but in this video i'm going to show you how to repair that faucet yourself without replacing it calling a plumber and the job is so easy you'll be amazed how quickly you can get it done and i am going to cover step by step how i repaired my own leaky faucet but you might not have this exact model so i'm also going to cover the other four most popular models of outdoor faucets on the market the first tip is the easiest the cheapest and the best buy one of these special caps and you can screw it right on the end of your faucet if you've got a leak this cap can instantly fix the problem now the video is going to show you how to actually do the repair but if you're not ready to do it or you're just not capable this is a simple fix that can completely stop the flow of water and these caps are so strong you can actually open up the valve completely and no water will come out first thing you'll need to do is to stop the flow of water to the valve itself now if you have an individual shutoff like this that's fine or use your house main shut off to stop the flow completely then you'll want to go to the valve itself open it up and allow any water in the line to drain out this valve is inside my garage but it's exactly the same as a typical outdoor faucet the leak is on my cold line and to start i need to remove the handle itself this valve is almost 20 years old and the handle is held on with a nut so i'm using a small socket now yours might just need a flat head or phillips head screw removed to pull the handle off another tip is to spray the outside of the valve with some wd-40 most of these valves are going to be outside they're older or corroded this is going to make it a lot easier to open the valve itself up and if you notice i'm not spraying the wd-40 on the handle itself i want it to go in the back portion of the valve because that's what i need to take apart the back portion of this valve is pretty thin and my adjustable wrench wouldn't fit without hitting that front nut so i went ahead and grabbed the thinner wrench that'll allow me to slip in the back without turning the front nut but before i turn anything you want to go and grab a second wrench a pair of channel locks or vice grips because if you just turn this you're likely to turn your valve right off the wall possibly even damaging it so get a firm grip on the body itself using your larger wrench and now you can take your smaller one and remove the front portion of the valve separately once it's broken loose just unthread it from the body until it's completely removed and make sure to grab any washers that might be stuck to the body itself like this white plastic one almost every leaky outdoor faucet is because of a small rubber washer inside this stem and as we look at the end of it you can see that black rubber portion and that's exactly what we're after once i wipe the valve stem up i can see exactly why my faucet was leaking this rubber washer here at the end has a crack going along it that's allowing water to get through this is very common and it's just going to happen due to age but fortunately replacing this can cost as little as 10 cents and you'll see how simple it is now to start we've got to remove that phillips head screw and these can be in there for a long time so once again i recommend spraying a little bit of wd-40 on it first and you want to use a good screwdriver and have a firm grip on that screw so that it doesn't strip once you get the screw removed now we can remove the rubber washer itself you may also notice that one side of the washer is completely flat and the other side has kind of a ridge around the edges but in fact all of these washers are completely flat on both sides when they're new so now you just need to go to the store and get a replacement now you can just get one but it's actually cheaper to go ahead and buy a bulk pack like this and this way you'll get pretty much every size you'll ever need for any kind of faucet now i just need to match up my old washer with one of the new ones and put it into the valve itself now the screw in mind was in good condition so i just reused it but if you need to replace it you can get one of these at the hardware store as well or some online kits also include the screws too now when you're screwing this in you don't want to screw it as tight as it'll absolutely go i like to put it in fairly firm until i see the washer just start to kind of buckle up on the edges that i know it's tight enough now we just need to replace that outer ceiling washer and we're ready to put it back into the valve i almost never replaced any of these other washers because they're usually in really good condition and before you put the stem back in i recommend cleaning the inside of the valve that seat can have some dirt or debris in there from a lot of years of use you can use the toothbrush along with some wd-40 or even just soap and water if you don't want to use a chemical now just reinsert that stem back into the body and tighten it in by hand you're going to tighten it as far as it'll go and then go ahead and grab your wrench and snug it up and i say snug because you don't want this thing super tight in fact you shouldn't really need to use those two wrenches again just snug it up as much as you can using your wrench in one hand now just reinstall your handle and tighten it up before you turn the water back on you want to try to operate the valve back and forth and as you can see mine turns but it's wobbling around quite a bit that's because i've got to tighten that outer nut up now that nut on the outside controls the tightness of the handle itself so if your valve handle was like mine tighten that nut up until the valve handle is firm and smoothly moves if it won't move at all you need to loosen that up just a little bit until everything feels normal and now you're ready to go ahead and turn your water back on i left the bucket underneath my valve and the valve in the open position as i turn the water on and as we can see the replacement washer has completely stopped the leak and that's exactly what we want now that you know the basics you pretty much know how to replace those washers on any kind of faucet this is a very different looking one that's a frost-free model that you'll see on many modern homes but the repair is pretty much the same start by removing the handle and now you've got access to the nut underneath go ahead and take your wrench and loosen that piece up and now you can remove the complete assembly inside now this valve looks very different but if we look at the end of this stock you can see it's got a rubber washer just like the other model that i replaced now you have a couple of options with this one you can actually buy a complete rod assembly replacement which is really easy to do because you just reinsert the entire assembly into the housing itself but many people will just choose to replace that washer at the end of the faucet itself and the repair can be done exactly as i did on my own model and many older homes use model faucets like these now these are super easy to work on in fact you can just remove the lower nut and you don't even have to remove the handle itself and you can see the rubber washer is right there and really easy to remove and this model is a bit unique because you don't even need to use a screwdriver to remove the washer itself here's one of the most common styles in the us today again you don't have to remove the handle just take a single wrench and remove that top nut and now you can get to the inner assembly and replace the washer itself now this model also needs a phillips head screwdriver to get the screw off so you can replace the washer the reason that rubber washer is so ingenious is because it is actually designed to be replaced and that's the plumbing secret that most people won't tell you about so if you just replace this simple part you're going to fix the leak in almost all of your faucet situations but if it doesn't work there are some other steps you can take there's a thing called a valve cutter or reseeding tool that you can actually put into the faucet itself and it kind of cleans up the base where that rubber washer sits but in my experience you generally don't need to do this and if you need to do this much work in your faucet you're probably going to want to go to the next step and just completely replace it i like just swapping out the rubber washer because it just takes a few minutes it's simple to do and most of the time it's going to solve your leak once and for all hopefully this video gave you some information that might allow you to do the job yourself and if you liked it please give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel for more videos coming up

Channel: Silver Cymbal

Views: 2,875,660

Keywords: fix an outdoor faucet, leaky faucet, leaking hose, leaking spigot, how to fix a leaking hose, leaking faucet, leaking hose bib, leaking garden faucet, replacing a faucet, replacing an outdoor faucet, outdoor hose, outdoor spigot, leaking sillcock, leaking bib

Id: 3netQmGiRKo

Length: 7min 34sec (454 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021