How to Install a House Hydrant | Ask This Old House

well that must be what you call me about right it is so this spigot has been dripping uh for a while so i put a bucket underneath it catch the water or i don't use it at all because it's wasting water it's a pretty common problem and a pretty common solution actually putting the bucket there let's see what you got inside okay all right karen we are down in your basement you can see your favorite bucket sitting outside here here is your garden faucet right here now do you turn this off in the winter yeah i do you know you don't really have to it's actually a frost-proof silcock also called a garden faucet you didn't know that and the reason is you've got your control hand on the outside you turn the water off and on but the washer the part that holds the water back is way back in here where it can't freeze and i would imagine i could change that washer and you'd be back in business but what i'd like to do is to show you some choices okay now a standard outside garden faucet looks like this sits on the outside of the house if you look at it in cutaway you've got full city water pressure right here and a washer right there so in cold climates if it got too cold that water could freeze and then it would split and so you have to be sure you shut it off inside but what you've got is something like this this is called a frost proof silcock it has a control handle outside but there's a long shaft right here and the washer is way back inside here here's full city water pressure so now as you open it up the washer will lift and water pressure will push that washer out of the way and you turn it back off again it's way back in here and then the water drips back out so you never you can use this even in the winter to wash your cars good to know what i'd like to talk to you about though is this it's the same frost proof that you have but this is what you'd see on the outside of the building so where's the handle well it doesn't have a handle per se it does have this and this connects to the garden hose and now when you screw it into the on the outside watch what happens with it at rest you can see there's an o-ring right here that sits against the body of the faucet now and i insert that piece see it lift yeah and now the water comes right out through use it as long as you want and then when you're done you take it out shuts it off completely yeah that's it you like that that's pretty slick well it even comes with this when it's when you're on the outside of the house that's all you'd see so there's nothing to bump into when you're walking by is that the one i can put into your beautiful house yes that would be awesome good let's get started okay all right we will start by turning off the water to the outside faucet now i want to get the water out of this pipe i could open up the faucet outside but i can also just open this little drain cap so now i'm just going to clean and cut right here okay and then we can remove the old faucet how old is that probably 20 years old nice and clean so now i can cut it with this nice small cutter there's our here's the break in the vacuum why'd it come out now so the water wouldn't come out until i broke the vacuum all right for your memory drawer oh thank you okay one more now that's cocked right in there it looks like there we go so this new piece is actually gonna sit right about here so what i'm going to do is just release a little bit of that shingle and there's enough shingle underneath yep great okay that should be good let's get this in i just got to get through the inside of the building okay let's pop a little bead of silicone around that now we can just secure it with some screws all right what do you think that looks great let's do the inside stuff now all right so here's that shank of the faucet that we put in from outside and it's nice and solid but now we've got to reassemble it so this is the critical part this is the o-ring that's going to hold that water back and this is the part that when you turn from outside it's going to push this up and down so that sticks in just like this and look at this you see how this o-ring seats perfectly at the end of that thread now the next piece is also important you can see this it has a spring right here that's going to push also that o-ring even tighter and also city water pressure goes against it now we'll thread this piece on to the end right here but i do have to still make a solder connection and i want to be sure if i apply this torch that i don't deface or deform this o-ring so we'll solder this connection away do all right miss karen it's time for the test here's here's your end right there all right we'll get a lift okay push and turn yeah there you go all right that's locked in all right you give it a try having fun hey enough of that oh this is great all right all right the water drains out so it won't freeze thank you for your help it was my pleasure

Channel: This Old House

Views: 1,004,182

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, hydrant, water hydrant, house hydrant, plumbing, plumber, outdoor spigot, garden nose, spigot, water, landscaping, irrigation, yard, gardening, house, diy, do it yourself, home repair, tom silva, norm abram, richard trethewey, roger cook, kevin o'connor

Id: Qkc5tua-mz4

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2016