Outdoor water.

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bud16415

Fixer Upper
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I redid my house last year all in PEX and I ran everything to two manifolds I built Hot & Cold. I then ran all my runs in pairs in a homerun setup. The two outside spigots were the only two I just ran a cold line to and I have the two hot’s for those runs capped at the manifold just after the valve. I got to thinking the other day when giving the dog a bath in the house how nice warm water might be outside for that and other things on occasion.

I know people have sometimes run a hot spigot to a garage and things like that but I was thinking of putting a tee just after the manifold on the cold line and teeing in the unused hot. I would normally keep the hot closed but if I did want hot I could open it and close the cold or turn them both on to get a mixed temp.

I know this will work but not sure what code might say about doing this and kind of wondered if anyone has seen this before. I was going to cut it in the other day but saw I was out of tee’s.
 
Check valves sure wouldn’t hurt but coming off a common water supply the pressure in the hot water tank should be equal to the cold water pressure. I don’t have a check valve where the water tees to go into the water heater. For there to be back flow the hot water would have to expand do to heating and build a pressure. If that was going to happen it would be doing it where the cold fills the tank now.
 
Pressure dosn't equalize instantly in the system. Changing from cold to hot would not be a problem but I was thinking of mixed and forgot. But a toilet flush does change the pressure if you think about older shower valves. Perhaps you will tell us how it works.:banana:
 
For sure I will update once I try it out and the beauty of PEX is it’s so easy to change if I do need a check valve or two simple to do. One thing I found out is with doing the homerun even with things that don’t have anti scald prevention valves like the new baths do the long runs back to the supply stop this fluctuation in temp. Based around that the thing to do would be make long runs of the hot and tee them just before the basement wall. I think for now I will try the simplest first. It might be a pain the first time adjusting the temp in the basement for water outside. Just from what I know from the kitchen sink though is turning both halfway on gives a nice warm hand wash. That would be perfect for the neighborhood spring dog wash in the old bathtub I took out. Anything is better than a 100 pound dog shaking off in the bath I just finished.
 
What you need is a mixer from a washing machine with the control outside so you could set it for hot, cold or warm.:confused:
 
That would work good except my walls are 18” of stone and I don’t want to add another hole. The spigots I use are the ones that the shutoff is at the end of a very long tube going in the wall to the warm area to prevent freezing. During the winter it’s not hard to shut the water off and drain it but like this morning it got down to 20 overnight but today it was up to 60 and you could be using water. That’s when it’s nice to have the anti freeze valves.
 
You can get frost free mixing valves for outside but you would be drilling another hole.
I think all you need is the valve on the hot so you always get mixed water or cold, no burns, that would be safer, especialy for other people that might turn it on. Lialibity.
 

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