I wasn’t aware of frost-free bibbs. Shortly after we moved into our house we had a minor leak when the pipe to our outside tap froze (one of the first of many introductions to home ownership). I installed a shutoff valve just inside the wall, and the last thing I do before freezeup is to remove the outside tap, replacing it in the spring.
Or the half hour going through every box on the shelves to find the misfiled part that’s the configuration you need. A Home Depot employee actually came along and helped me search, so good for them.
I just replaced our kitchen faucet, the one that never worked right since we had the kitchen redone ten years ago. I can’t count the number of times Delta sent me cartridges and diverters and o-rings trying to correct various problems. At last it developed a major leak and after replacing an o-ring the flow was down to a trickle. Finally Delta sent me a whole new faucet free of charge to replace the ten-year-old one that I had no receipt for, just on the basis of my word over the phone that I was the original purchaser. I figure in all, Delta sent me about $350 in new parts over the years. Yay, Delta!! They have my business forever.
Then I had to replace the contractor’s shitty shutoff valves under the sink—the reason for my Home Depot visit.
To do this, I had my wife close the upstream shutoff in the basement, and when she opened it again it started leaking quite badly. Fortunately I had a scrap gate valve in the junk box that I could cannibalize for the stem, so I didn’t have to desolder the existing one.
Now everything works, and we can’t pass the kitchen faucet without contemplating the marvel that is hot and cold running water.
