Garden tap

[Mr Blobby]

I would dearly love to have a freestanding tap in the garden, but is it worth the effort required to stop it freezing.  But I hate taps on the wall.

 

Frostline taps have some self draining mechanism to stop them frosting up but still require a nearby valve in the ground.  If I need to put a valve in the ground then I may as well just install a regular free standing tap and then a drain valve in a nearby box to drain it in the autumn.

 

Bernard the builder is already rolling his eyes over this, what to do?

 

 

Edited October 7 by Mr Blobby

[Russell griffiths]

Have you seen the plastic box that sits in the ground, the tap is underground as well as a roll of house pipe all enclosed in the plastic box. 

[Onoff]

Just put a trace heating tape on the pipe. Used to see loads of them on the taps on high rise roofs. Something like this:

 

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/BNPW01.html

[-rick-]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

Just put a trace heating tape on the pipe. Used to see loads of them on the taps on high rise roofs. Something like this:

 

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/BNPW01.html

 

And then insulate the pipe with the heating tape on the inside

[Onoff]

1 minute ago, -rick- said:

 

And then insulate the pipe with the heating tape on the inside

 

Yes, that's how most were done. 

[-rick-]

19 minutes ago, Onoff said:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/BNPW01.html

 

Hmm, I was thinking the self regulating PTC kind. Just looked at the link and this type is controlled by a thermostat. Might be a bit difficult with insulation then.

 

TLC seem to sell the self regulating kind on the same page, but then looks like you need to do the termination yourself which is a bit more involved than normal domestic electrics.

[stevenlee]

Bernard might forgive you for this one. Plenty of garden pipework bursts in a hard winter, and the installs that survive are the boring ones: an isolation valve with a drain off cock on the feed inside the building, pipe buried well below frost depth, and a self draining tap on the end. The trace heating ideas are fine too, but the indoor valve plus drain off is simpler, cheaper and nothing electrical to go wrong.