New House Blog: Episode LCVIIII - Meet The Parents' House

We at the New House Blog are pleased to bring you this extra special Episode of the New House Blog, in which we feature our first ever guest star.  Give a warm New House Blog welcome to the Parents' House!  This is the first appearance of the Parents' House on this, or any, blog, and we are happy to share with you our recent visit to the Parents' House.  I should clarify here that by "we" I mean "I."  Becky was not with me at the Parents' House for the repair work I recently completed.  More on that repair work in a bit - but first some background information about our guest star.

The Parents' House is a manufactured home, customized and bought new by my parents in 1997.  I lived there with my parents for a while, and it has been a focus point and family gathering place for many birthdays, Thanksgivings and Christmases.  As with any house, the Parents' House needs occasional maintenance and/or repair work.  In this case, the hose spigot in the backyard had developed a leak, and the local handyman said that it was a really weird spigot that he could not fix.  Upon hearing this I was intrigued and asked if I might take a look at this spigot and see if I could do anything to stop the leaking.

Spigot Replacement

The spigot did indeed turn out to be unusual.  The first step was to pull it out from the wall to see how it connected to the house plumbing.

This is the spigot after I pulled it out from the wall a bit.  In my experience, admittedly limited in this regard, you can't normally pull a spigot out of the wall in this manner.

Here is a look at the backside of the spigot.  In this view it appears to be welded, or brazed, on to a regular 3/4" copper pipe.  I Didn't see an obvious way to detach the spigot, so I thought it would be a good idea to look for the other end of the connection 'neath the house.









'Neath The House

Fortunately for me, there are convenient easy-access doors leading to the sub-basement of the Parents' House.  I chose the most convenient easy-access door and plunged in head-first (after donning my protective hat, dust filter, and long-sleeve shirt).  Here goes.

 Peering through the easy-access door.

 Doesn't look too bad, so far.

No spiders sighted, yet.

 Looking out of a vent.  Can you spot the square, purplish flower pot?

 Still no spiders.

Heading back to the easy-access door.  Unfortunately for me, all of the relevant plumbing is hidden in-wall, so I did not find the other end of the spigot's connection.

The sub-basement looked very clean and dry, and I saw no signs of life, save an ancient dried-up spider exoskeleton that had obviously been dead and dried-up for years.  Also, no plant life of any kind was observed under the house.

Plan B

Since I couldn't access the in-wall end of the spigot's plumbing connection it was time to move on to plan B - cutting through the copper pipe, fitting it with a nonthreaded-to-threaded coupler, then fitting a standard threaded hose spigot (also called a hose bibb).  A quick run was made to Home Depot and plan B was enacted.

The end of the copper pipe, post hacksaw.  After cutting through the pipe I discovered a surprise inside the pipe.  Those of you who are familiar with this type of hose bibb already know what I found - a metal rod with threading on one end.  That's all I'll say about that for now, but it will make sense when I explain in more detail later.

After extracting the metal rod I attached a Sharkbite 3/4" female connector to the copper pipe and then installed a standard 3/4" hose bibb into the Sharkbite connector.  Sharkbite is also the brand of PEX we used in our shower valve replacement projects, seen in this Episode and this Episode.

This is the completed repair.  The wall was caulked with genuine silicone caulk, and a Nelson Flex Connect Shut-off Hose Adapter was added to simplify operation.














The More Detailed Explanation

The hose bibb on the Parents' House was a Nibco Fig. #90 frost-proof silcock.  Apparently it is designed to be impervious to frost or freezing, neither of which is a huge concern out here in the Silicon Valley.  Ironically, it may have been frost that killed this particular Nibco 90.  As my dad tells it, the leak started the day after a particularly cold night - before that it had never leaked.

But what exactly is a Nibco Fig. #90 frost-proof silcock?  Basically it consists of a copper pipe with threading on one end and a spigot on the other end.  The spigot end also contains an integrated anti-backflow device.  Inside the copper pipe is a copper rod that attaches to the knob on one end and has threads and rubber washers on the other end.  This other end, with the washers, controls the actual water flow.  Below is a picture of the Parents' House's Nibco 90 post-hacksaw.

The following picture, from http://www.familyhandyman.com/, will help you to understand how this type of spigot works.

See this link for more detailed information.








We would like to thank the Parents' House for appearing in this Episode of the New House Blog.  If your house would like to be a guest star on the New House Blog please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the owner of this blog,  Said envelope should contain a crisp new $20 bill and a brief explanation of the repair or project to be detailed in the New House Blog.

Bonus Produce Update

We have harvested our first purple bell peppers of the season, and our first potatoes of the season.

These peppers went into a stir-fry.

Interestingly, purple bells turn green when cooked, but not the same green as green bells.

The potatoes did not go into the stir-fry.













If you don't feel comfortable sending cash through the mail, we will also accept gift cards and cashier's
   bIsh