[ottawanian]

I just moved into a new home, and my outdoor faucets have vacuum breakers on them, so I am assuming they are also frost proof hose bibs. It seems that when I was trying to close the bleeder to make the freggen vacuum breaker stop leaking I busted the bleeder valve (again, all assumptions)

One other wierd part is I am not too sure if these actually are hose bibs, because they do not go to a straight pipe into the house, it goes to a bend and then to the shut off valve.

As for the faucet outside, Am I stuck with a waterfountain until I chop the thing off and replace it, or can I just plug up the hole I made some how and work on replacing the vacuum breaker?

Here's some purdy pics to go along with it.

http://www.mypicx.com/06072011/Hose_Bib/

 

[BigD9]

Can you replace the entire assembly starting at the shutoff valve? I'm assuming you mean a shutoff valve just for this hose bib, correct? You can always disassemble the hose bib to see if it is a freeze proof or not. Where are you located? Freeze area?

 

[AllanJ]

If you can plug the broken bleeder valve, then you have time to figure out how to fix it for good.

Frostproof hose bibbs have a long stem attached to the handle and the washer and seat is several inches inside the house. Turning this off will also kill the flow to the broken bleeder valve outsdie.

 

[ottawanian]

Thanks for the replies.

First off, I took off the knob to see if I can see if it is a freeze proof or not, it looks like it isn't, but it's hard for me to tell. All I see when I take off the knob is where I can screw it on, can't figure out how to take it apart any further.

As for replacing the assembly, I could do that, but where they put in the access panel to the shut off valve is a little tight, as it is tucked in with an air duct and other pipes, so if I have to go in there to heat it up to desolder, it's will be a pain and might set my house up in flames

AllanJ, you suggest plugging the hold, any ideas what I should use? I have the part where it broke off still, which is just a small sized hex nut that I could technically solder back into the hole. because I hook the hose up to a nozzel, it builds to much pressure so any other temp fix I have tried just blows out.

One more question, since I am very novice at this, I have read about sweating the silcock off, is this something where I just take the faucet off and keep the rest of the pipe assembly so I dont have to try to remove it from where the shut off valve is? assuming it is not a frost free one (which my neighboor says it isn't)

Also, does anything think its possible for me to heat up and unscrew the vacuum breaker? it's one of the ones that kinda looks like a shower head.