Outdoor hose bib leaking? How to fix a dripping spigot

An outdoor spigot drips for the same reasons a kitchen faucet does, and it takes more abuse: sun, sprinklers, salt air, a hose yanked sideways a thousand times. Most of the drips are ten-minute fixes with a wrench and a washer. A few are a plumber’s job, and it is worth knowing which is which before you start turning things.

Start by figuring out where the water is coming from. Turn the handle fully off and watch. Then turn it on with a hose attached and a spray nozzle closed, and watch again.

Drips from the handle when the water is on: the packing nut

Just behind the handle is a hex nut, the packing nut. Under it is a washer or a ring of packing material that seals around the stem as it turns. When the packing wears, water seeps out around the stem whenever the bib is open.

1. With the water on, put a wrench on the packing nut and tighten it clockwise about a quarter turn. Do not force it.
2. Check the drip. Another eighth of a turn if it is slower but not stopped.
3. If tightening does not stop it, or the handle becomes hard to turn, the packing needs replacing. Shut the water off at the house, back the packing nut off, pull the stem, wrap two or three turns of graphite packing string around the stem under the nut, and reassemble.

This is the most common leak, and the fix is nearly always this simple.

Drips from the spout when the water is off: the washer

If the bib drips from the outlet with the handle closed, the rubber washer at the end of the stem is worn or the seat it presses against is rough.

1. Close the main shutoff or, if the bib has its own stop inside the house, that valve. Open the bib to drain it.
2. Remove the handle screw and the handle, then the packing nut, and unscrew the stem out of the body.
3. At the end of the stem is a washer held by a brass screw. Replace the washer with the same size and shape; take the old one to the hardware store.
4. Look into the body at the seat. If it is pitted or rough, a seat dresser or a replacement seat will fix it, and if you are not comfortable with that step, stop here.
5. Reassemble, turn the water on slowly, and check.

Drips or sprays from the cap on top: the vacuum breaker

The knurled cap on top of many bibs is a hose vacuum breaker. It keeps water from a hose lying in a puddle or a bucket of pool chemicals from siphoning back into your drinking water when pressure drops. It is required on hose bibs by code in most places, and it is a small part that wears.

A vacuum breaker that drips or sprays when the hose is pressurized, especially with a nozzle shut at the end, is doing its job badly and needs replacing. The cap unscrews. A new breaker screws on. Do not remove it and leave the bib without one.

Frost-free or standard

Elsewhere in the country a frost-free sillcock, with a long body that puts the valve seat inside the warm wall, is standard. Here it is not needed. Lee and Collier County do not see the kind of freeze that bursts an outdoor spigot, and nearly every home has a short standard bib. If you are replacing one, a standard bib of the same thread size and mounting is the right part.

Salt air and corroded stems

On Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Pine Island, and anywhere the salt breeze reaches, brass hose bibs corrode faster than inland. A green or white crust is the first sign. A stem that is pitted will not seal no matter how many washers you put in, and a handle that has seized to the stem shears off when forced. If the stem comes out pitted, or the body is thin and crusted at the threads, the bib is at the end of its life. Replace it rather than rebuild it.

Why a dripping bib matters on a seasonal home

A drip from a spigot on the outside of the house is annoying. The same drip on a house closed up for six months is a slow, steady feed of water against the stucco or into the wall behind the bib, and if it is on the fitting inside the wall, it wets the block and the drywall from behind for the entire season. Before you leave for the season, close the house’s main valve, and if the hose bibs have their own interior stops, close those too. A neighbor or a manager who walks the outside of the house every few weeks should look at each spigot.

When it is a plumber’s job

Everything above assumes the bib itself is the problem and it is threaded onto the pipe. The line is crossed when:

• Water comes from behind the bib, at the stucco, or inside the wall. The leak is at the fitting or the pipe, not the spigot, and the wall needs to be opened from inside or the bib removed to reach it.
• The bib is soldered to copper. Unsoldering an old joint inside a block wall without damaging the pipe or scorching the wall is not a first project.
• The bib is set through the block wall with a long shank and no access from inside. Removing it can crack the block or the stucco.
• There is no shutoff for the bib inside, the main valve does not hold, or the bib is on a well system with a pressure tank.
• The body is corroded through and the threads may not survive a wrench.

In those cases the whole sillcock is replaced, often with a new drop ear fitting and a new interior stop valve so the next one is a homeowner job.

If your spigot is dripping and you are not sure which of these it is, take a photo of the bib, the wall around it, and where the water shows, and send it to us. We will tell you whether it is a washer or a replacement.