Article Contributed on: 10/17/2006 4:21:55 PM
What is a hose bibb?
It's the faucet located on the outside of your home. We use our hose bibb often watering flowers and the lawn, cleaning off the porch, washing the car or filling up the pet's water.
Did you know of all residential plumbing installations, the hose bibb is the most dangerous fixture in terms of contaminating your water supply?
"Yeah sure," you may say, thinking I'm full of the stuff I work with.
Do you spray fertilizer or pesticides on your yard or garden? These chemical sprayers are often attached to garden hoses, which may not have hose bibb vacuum breakers for protection (picture 2). A back-siphonage condition could cause chemicals from the attached sprayer to be pulled into the plumbing of your home.
Do you have a short length of hose attached to the hose bibb with the open end sitting in the mud or in the dog's water bowl? Same situation my friend, poopy in the loopy.
Back-siphonage can be created when the water supply piping is cut (water main break) or during periods of high-velocity water flow due to nearby firefighting.
It's this simple, if your home lacks the required backflow prevention devices (vacuum breakers), contaminants can be back-siphoned into your domestic water system.
A hose bibb vacuum breaker is a simple spring-loaded device designed to combat the reversal of normal water flow to your home caused by a negative pressure (vacuum) in the water supply system. View the pictures above to ascertain whether your hose bibb has a vacuum breaker. If not, then head over to your favorite hardware store and purchase one for your bibb.
My favorite hose bibb is the Woodford Model 17 because of its durability, integral vacuum breaker, easiness to maintain and readily available parts. Woodford also has an informative link on their site explaining what makes their frost-free valves, "frost -free."
Check it out: If it doesn't appear as a link then copy and paste it to your nav bar.
www.woodfordmfg.com/Woodford/HowAFaucet/HowaFaucetWorks.html
Now go carve some pumpkins, make some pies and bake the seeds (my favorite). This year I tried sprinkling the seeds with sugar and cinnamon instead of salt -- fantastic!!
I'm thinking of starting a new blog about barbecuing and cooking (I'm a rib-cookin' fool, even if it's snowing). Yes, I always wash my hands first.
Later- Dr. Plumb