outdoor faucet drip

A winter or two ago I replaced a regular outdoor sillcock with a 1/4 turn valve. For this winter I have turned off the interior shutoff valve and drained the line by removing that small cap I'm gonna call a bleeder. I left the 1/4 turn valve open outdoors. I noticed that the outdoor valve is dripping weeks later. I double checked that the interior valve is off and drained and it is. Ideas? Should I leave the outdoor valve open? Capped?

Thanks for your reply.

If the faucet is dripping, the interior shutoff needs either service or replacement. Note, an exerior sillcock should be protected with a vacuum breaker by code. They do make add-on ones. If you close the external valve, the line will end up full of water, and if it freezes, the pipe will split.

The best thing to do is to replace the valve with a frost free that is connected directly into the supply line in the structure. You might want to wait until warm weather to do this, and to get by until spring, just remove the 1/4 turn valve and the pipe leading to it, and cap or plug the internal valve. That valve needs to be removed and replaced with a tee for the frost free. A frost free has the vacuum breaker as part of the assembly. After you have that installed, next year just be sure the hose is not attached going into the winter. The valve will drain all the way to the tee. If the hose is left attached, the faucet will not drain and the valve will freeze and split.

As an aside, there are frost free hose bibs that will drain, regardless of whether you remove the hose or not, but the most common ones will be damaged during a freeze cycle when a hose is left on most of the time.