Anti-siphon outdoor faucet

[hayley3]

Hi,
Everytime I attach the hose to my outdoor faucet, water shoots up thru the top, where the black cap is. I managed to get the cap off and there is a hole with some black rubber showing. (I guess it's a gasket) As long as I don't attach the hose, the water comes out thru the faucet, but I really need to use the hose.
Does anyone know what my problem is and if it is fixable without a plumber?
Thanks!

[jimbo]

The vacuum breaker is leaking, and can be fixed. You need to take the parts with you to a good supply house to get new parts.

[hayley3]

Thank you so much!
This is a new faucet, do you have any idea why this would go bad?

[jadnashua]

It could be you left a hose on it and it froze. For this type to work properly, you must remove the hose to ensure no water is trapped when you are done in the winter. If you don't you can trap water, which freezes, and breaks things, sometimes requiring replacement of the whole thing.

[ToolsRMe]

It could be you left a hose on it and it froze.

Like jadnashua, I am not a pro.

I am, though, paranoid about hose bibs. I've had a half-dozen bibs break on me in the last 20 years. It's not a pretty sight when it happens in a crawl space and you don't know about it for a month-or-so; as it has happened to me.

Whenever I install a new hose bib or repair an old one, I always put in two ball valves. One ball valve shuts off the water to the hose bib. The other ball valve -- which is further downstream of the of the first shutoff -- comes off of a tee that allows me to drain the line at the beginning of the winter.

It's a pain; but a lot less of a pain than smelling wet mud and watching the house foundation shift.

[hayley3]

Okay, I confess, I left the hose on it. At my old house I could leave the hose on it and it didn't hurt anything. Hmmmm. Sometimes newer is not better. :(

I have a mushy front yard too, so now I'm wondering if it's leaking somewhere else. I did have water under my doublewide, but was told the blocks were not sealed enough. Another hmmmmm. :eek:

[ToolsRMe]

I have a mushy front yard too, so now I'm wondering if it's leaking somewhere else. I did have water under my doublewide, but was told the blocks were not sealed enough. Another hmmmmm. :eek:

I had a mushy yard and it was the combination of a leaky sprinkler shut-off valve (honest!) combined with broken underground lines. It cost me 6,000 gallons of water one month. I was lucky, it could have been more.

I urge you to track that leak ASAP. The easiest way I know of to do that is to turn off all the water in your house but not to turn off the main shut-off. Then pull the cover on the water meter pit (Be careful! You break it you buy it! and it's expensive) and look inside the meter. If you see anything moving ... even slowly ... then you've got a leak. The place to look is on a gear-like thingee that rotates. If it moves then that's bad.

Report back here with the results and I'll help you more.

I am not a professional.

[casman]

Like jadnashua, I am not a pro.

I am, though, paranoid about hose bibs. I've had a half-dozen bibs break on me in the last 20 years. It's not a pretty sight when it happens in a crawl space and you don't know about it for a month-or-so; as it has happened to me.

Whenever I install a new hose bib or repair an old one, I always put in two ball valves. One ball valve shuts off the water to the hose bib. The other ball valve -- which is further downstream of the of the first shutoff -- comes off of a tee that allows me to drain the line at the beginning of the winter.

It's a pain; but a lot less of a pain than smelling wet mud and watching the house foundation shift.


I'm not a pro either, but can't you just use 1 ball valve, with built in drain thingee?

[hayley3]

No leaks. The guy said the front yard is still mushy because it was backfilled. I sure hope he's right. And the water in the crawlspace was fixed. So, we'll just have to wait and see. Of course, I still have to repair the faucet.
Thanks!

[ToolsRMe]

I'm not a pro either, but can't you just use 1 ball valve, with built in drain thingee?

I've never seen one of those! Anyone got a picture and/or a name?