A standard outdoor tap holds water in the section inside your wall. That is the part that splits.
Why it happens here
The Lower Mainland does not freeze often, which is exactly why outdoor taps get forgotten. We get a handful of nights below freezing most winters — occasionally a sustained cold snap — and a single hard night is enough.
A conventional hose bibb has its shut-off at the tap itself, so water sits in the pipe from the valve back through the wall. When that water freezes it expands and splits the pipe or the valve body. Because the split is inside the wall, nothing happens while it stays frozen.
Why you find out in spring
The failure is silent until you turn the tap on in April to wash the car. Then water sprays inside the wall cavity rather than out of the spout, and the first sign is a stain on the ceiling below or a damp patch on the wall.
By then it is a plumbing repair plus drywall, insulation and paint — and sometimes flooring.
The two fixes
Winterise what you have. Disconnect every hose, drain the line, and if there is an interior shut-off for the outdoor tap, close it and open the tap outside to let the section drain. Hoses left connected are the single most common cause — they hold water against the valve and stop it draining.
Fit a non-freeze wall hydrant. A frost-free hose bibb puts the actual shut-off eight to twelve inches inside the heated envelope and drains the exposed section automatically every time you close it. It needs a slight downward pitch to drain properly, which is the part people get wrong fitting them themselves. For an exterior tap that gets real use, it is the permanent answer.
What it costs you to wait
Fitting a frost-free hydrant is a short job in October. Repairing a split line in March is the same plumbing work plus opening and making good a wall. The parts cost barely differs; everything else does.
Booking it
We work across Langley, Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, the North Shore, the Tri-Cities and the Fraser Valley. Licensed and insured, with a written workmanship warranty set out in our Service Guarantee.
This is one of eight jobs we cover in the autumn plumbing guide for the Lower Mainland.
Related guides
- Boiler and Hydronic Heating Service: Book It Before the Heating Season
- Leak Detection and Automatic Shut-Off: For the House That Sits Empty at Christmas
- Pipe Insulation and Heat Trace: Where Pipes Actually Freeze
- Luxury Bathroom Rough-In Checklist: What Must Be Right Before the Tile Goes On
