Pipe Bib Needed a Bigger Bib

It has been getting cold the past few nights. I have had a problem in the past where the water in an outside spigot froze and broke the pipe bib and I had flooding. 

I have never had that problem on the front of the house but I have in the back where the pipe isn't angled down enough for the water to  drain. I thought I had better make sure the hoses were detached and put the insulation cup on to make sure they didn't freeze. The back yard spigot went ok, (I will post on that later) and then when I went to the front, I found water trickling out of the spigot. 

There was quite the stream. I have no idea how long it had been going but you can see from the photos that the ground to the right and down in the window well are all wet as well as the cement below the spigot. 

In order to change out a washer or to change out the pipe bib, you need to shut the water off to the entire house. My main in is my basement.  I shut it off and then grabbed the tools needed. Also, I turn on several faucets full open and leave them open so that if there is water in the line, it drains out. 
 
I used a pipe wrench and and adjustable wrench (or two pipe wrenches if you have them) to remove the nozel from the bib. Use one to hold the spigot in place and one to unwind the handle. 

If you can take the handle off, there is a screw in the center of the handle you can remove as in the upper picture. Some come of and some don't. Once you have taken the nozzle off, you unscrew the handle which releases the thinner inner pipe and then you can pull it out. 
 
As you see here, the washer that was supposed to be on the end of the rod is missing. I am not sure where it went but obviously some time in the past month or so, it took a vacation. 

I have a container of washers I bought a few years ago with a variety of sizes. It comes with extra screws but none of the screws were long enough to fit this bib. I had to dig through my screw bin and find something as none of the stores were open at that hour. I had already been twice for the other sprinkler fix. 
 
Once you screw in the washer, you slide the pipe back into the bib and screw it in like you would turning on and off the water. 

Then, once that is done, you use teflon plumbers tape and put some around the screw part. Make sure you wrap it so when you screw on the pipe, it is in the right direction. I have wrapped it wrong before and it just comes off and bunches up when it is wrapped around to the left rather than clockwise from the top. 
 
Then use your pipe wrench and adjustable wrench to screw the handle back onto the bib. 

Once they are both screwed on snugly, before turning the main water on again, screw the handle in and out and make sure it moves smoothly in and out. Sometimes, I have screwed the washer in too tightly and it keeps the inner pipe from moving well and you can't turn on the water so test that out before turning the water main on.
 
Make sure the handle is in the off position and that the faucets in the house that you opened up are turned off before turning the main on again. 

Once the main is turned on, go out and make sure that the water turns off completely and that you can use the water. Make sure that once it is off, it isn't dripping. 

Then, if it is winter, make sure you put on a styrofoam protective cover. I have had my pipe break several times and I have friends that have had it happened several times as well. Insulation in the wall and outside have kept it from happening to me again. It is something I make sure I do when the weather is cold as a precaution.    

When I was at the hardware store, a woman came in and was waiting while I talked to the worker about the parts I needed to fix the sprinkler. She looked at me and asked, "Why would you want to do anything with plumbing?" I laughed and told her "I didn't, but, even when I was married, I was the one who took care of it." I put in a disposal, dishwasher, pipe bibs on our house and a rental, new drains, faucets, sprinklers, shower heads, solenoids etc. That was all while I was married. Since then, I did the main line to the house, put in reducers, pipe bibs several times and lots and lots of sprinklers. Like I said, water and I just don't mix well! :-)