sort of ot, frost free hose bib

ericlb · Sep 8, 2008

i need to know if anybody has worked on one of these free standing frost free hose bibs, [ looks like a old hand pump] i have one by the cattle pen that i found leaking this morning, it wont shut off even though the handel is all the way down, being in a hurry i just screwed on a hand held hose attachment to stop the water, tonite went i went to feed, i had water comming up from the ground by it, ive never fooled with one of these but im assuming it must have some rubber washers or a seal of some kind, the new ones ive seen in stores have about 4 foot of galanized pipe on them, is there a service kit for these? if so do i need to just unscrew the top handel part to install it or do i need to dig up the whole thing, also is there some kind of adjustment on these that i need to make? thanks ericlb

Janicholson · Sep 8, 2008

The rubber seal is just like most old stem faucets, it is just down in the ground 4' or so. There is a long stem going down to the rubber disk. The system has a built in leak to allow the hydrant to drain back into the ground befor freezing. your hose connection blocked the output, and caused the leak to be amplified (also due to the original leak, the ground was saturated, so continued (controlled) leak from the drainback hole seemed like a lot. (the drainback hole could be excessively large, or frost affected, but not common). Turn off the water to it, and take the top levers and castings apart. the stem will pull out. JimN

caseman,2 · Sep 8, 2008

I don't know what brand you have, but the one's I have, have a rubber plug on the bottom of the rod. When open it closes off the drain-back hole and opens the water line. when closed it does the reverse. If you can shut the water off coming to it, you can unscrew the top and pull the rod and plug out from the top. Hope this helps

IaGary · Sep 8, 2008

Sounds to me like maybe it could be rusted out and the pipe lifted off of the plunger housing.

I would dig it up to see for sure.

It could be the drain back hole but it should not leak there if the plunger is all the way down

The plunger is not all the way down cause the pipe lifted up is my guess.

Gary

MarkB_MI · Sep 8, 2008

You have what's called a yard hydrant. You need to see what brand you have to get the correct repair kit. Woodford is a popular brand, but there are other brands as well. Many are no-name imports; good luck getting repair parts for those.

Once you have a repair kit, you should be able to remove the top, pull out the rod and replace the rubber ball at the bottom. Worst case is you'll have to dig it up. You'll need to know the "bury depth" to get a replacement. The only way to figure that out is to dig up the old hydrant or pull out the rod. The total length of the hydrant minus about 3 feet equals the bury depth; a 4' bury depth hydrant will be 7 to 8 feet long.

ericlb · Sep 9, 2008

thanks for all the responses ill see if its made in the us, and then dig it up to see if its broke off the waterline and go from there

sort of ot, frost free hose bib

ericlb

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Janicholson

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caseman,2

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IaGary

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MarkB_MI

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ericlb

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