New design to help with winterizing

[jlatshaw]

Hello,

Thank you for taking time to read my post.

Background information:
Location: Hampton Roads, VA
House was Built in 1995

The other day, I came home from work to find a lot of water on my kitchen floor. After troubleshooting for a bit, I found the source was actually coming from my outdoor faucet. I tore all of the wet dry wall and insulation away and found that I had a huge crack on the pex pipe that was going to the outdoor faucet (I have pictures attached).

I think I can manage replacing the pex pipe, it doesn't seem too hard to do that (however, if you have any recommendations or new plumbing pipes/connections that you want to recommend I am all ears). However, I am a little bit concerned with the general design of my system. I don't think, with the current system, that there is any realistic way to get all of the extra water out of the pipes for winterizing the outdoor faucets.

In the attached images, I have a pictures of the shut off valves (the red shut off valves). There is one shut off valve for each outdoor faucet. The pipes go straight into the foundation and under the foundation (the house is on a slab with no underground access). The pipe then come up out of the foundation and connects to the outdoor faucet. This kind of makes a giant "U" shape. The problem is that the shutoff and the outdoor faucet are about at the same height, so I think that extra water is laying in the pipe, even if I kill the supply.

First question: Do you know how I would be able to winterize the outdoor faucets with this current setup? I very well could be missing something.

Second question:If I replace the shut off valves with (excuse my lack of technical terms) the shut off valves that have those little nuts that you can unscrew to let air into the side of the pipe that you are trying to drain, then could I hook an air compressor and gently blow the extra water out of the pipes?
Would this likely break my pipes over time?
Does this sound like a good approach, or is their an industry standard way to do this?

All advice is welcomed.

Thank you for taking time to read this post.

Respectfully,
James

 

[CT-18]

That looks like the old Shell/Dupont plastic that was involved in a lawsuit back in the 90's. I believe the rings were defective and cut the pipe.

But back to the hose bibs, those valves look like stop and waste with a little cap on the side. You can unscrew the cab then blow from the outside hose bib back. Shut the valves first.

 

[Matt30]

That's not pex, its polybutylene. You will need to get polybutylene x PEX adapters, as you will no longer find polybutylene pipe or fittings to make your repair.

With everything exposed now it would be very easy to install a frost free hose bib. That would take the worry out of having to drain it every year.

 

[voletl]

A frost-free hose bib placed in a two-by-four wall that thing would be sticking out of the sheetrock

 

[jlatshaw]

Thank you all for your feedback.

I was reading up on the Poly B piping. It looks like it is very prone to breaking which is unfortunate.

Do you think that we should consider re-plumbing all of the poly B piping in the house? Or, do you think that there isn't much risk involved with keeping the old poly B piping? I did notice that at the bends and periodically on the lines, that there were little copper pipes mixed in with the poly B piping (I think you can see that in some of the images). I've read this kind of plumbing is more stable than straight poly B. What do you think? Was this crack more of a fluke incident or do you think it is likely that this is the first of many breaks to come?


Regarding installing a frost free bib. I really think that would be nice to have. However I don't know if I have enough room to fit it in given that my wall depth isn't that large.

Thank you again for all of your feedback. It is greatly appreciated.
-James