Faulty or Frozen Sillcock

[gumly]

Hi, I replaced a frozen sillcock on my rental duplex early in the Spring and it was working fine. A few months later (yesterday) I turned it on and water comes out from the handle. I unscrewed the handle and checked the packing washer behind it and there is nothing wrong with it. What I did notice is that the water is coming out from the hollowed-out handle spindle itself. I was very surprised to see this and was wondering if this means it has been frozen again and needs replacement. We have had a couple of cold snow days since I replaced it and while I am reluctant to believe that it has frozen again, it is possible. It is a Mueller Industries (B-K) anti-siphon model. Their website has no schematics for this model and no tech support.

Is there any way to repair this without replacing the entire sillcock again? Do you have any suggestions for non-freezing sillcocks for rental properties with loser tenants!?

Thanks very much for any help.

[Gary Swart]

Is there a possibility that a hose was connected when that last freeze occured? I learned the hard way that if the hose is not removed, the sill cock will not drain and it will freeze. That's my only thought on the problem.

[gumly]

Thanks for the reply - yes the hoze was almost certainly connected so I am thinking it has probably frozen again. I always though they failed back inside the building along the shaft of the sillcock, not out thru the handle. This being the case, I was wondering if there is any replaceable failure point in the handle itself. Any help is appreciated.

[PEW]

If you are prone to leaving the hose connected, you may want to consider a Woodford. They have models that are self draining when the water is turned off. However, if you do not turn the water off.......

Paul

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