Third Garden Hose Tap (or am I nuts?)

[Anj]

Thanks in advance for any advice.

have moved recently into new house (London hard water area) and want to install a second garden bib tap to serve the front garden. No issue there can take a run of pipe within the garage to the front.

Ive noticed though the tap at the back garden is run off the water supply in the utility room. All of the house water supply comes via a BWT salt water softener unit. So basically I am watering the back garden with soft water and wasting my salt.

I can run a new line to the back from the garage to the wall in the utility room and connect the back garden tap to the hard water supply in the garage (ie before the water softener unit).

To connect to the bin tap union connection within the utility room is a bit (a lot) fiddly as the current pipe comes into a sink unit. Can be done but I’d have to remove the current wallplate flanged pipe and replace with a straight pipe and a wall plate elbow outside to be able to pull the pipe in make the connection inside and then push the pipe out.

But one thing we do from time to time is fill the hot tub (1500 litres) and think this might be better to do with soft water so what I was thinking is maybe introduce a T with two isolation valves one from the current soft water line and one from a new hard water line.

is that allowed? Is there a better way to do this? Or should I just leave the current set up and put in a second bib tap at the back so the two lines don’t mix? Or am I just crazy to be thinking about this?

The other question is if I install a second tap or make the hard water connection outside to the current tap (rather than fiddling about under the sink unit) then there would be about 5ft of copper pipe on the wall outside. Is that a freezing hazard? Even if Iag it? Should I put an iso valve inside the house and have to drain it before winter?

thanks again.

 

[Roy_66]

If you enjoy the plumbing why not, and it saves lugging cans.

I would lag any outdoor pipes, also arrange a venting mech for winter, even though in London you may well get away with it.

For outdoor bits can you just convert to garden hose via an isolating tap?

Final point, beware of airlock potential in anything you create.

E.g. I ran some John Guest plastic through my garage (just above head height) to get tap at front of house. It has tap at each end at ground level to connect garden hose at each end. Also a vent valve at the top to both drain in winter, and get rid of any airlocks. I use a simple 3 foot link garden hose to link it to my garden tap to feed it with water. To energise it make sure to open the tap furthest from the mains first, that way air does not get trapped. To de-energise, remove the link hose, and open the vent, with taps at each end open. Simples (for me).

Please do the work soon, then we should get some rain.

Cheers,

Roy

 

[rpm]

Should be one tap (kitchen?) that is not through a softener.

 

[Anj]

Should be one tap (kitchen?) that is not through a softener.

? There doesn’t appear to be anything before the softener other than the incoming mains stopcock? Is that what you mean?

But that’s connected to what seems to be a lead pipe and I don’t even want to look at it never mind touch it in case the lead pipe splits.
It’s also in the wrong place in the downstairs toilet and would involve ripping out the units in there .. too much work.

thanks for the reply though.

 

[rpm]

Pour a glass of cold tap water from the kitchen sink how does it look/ taste?

 

[Anj]

Pour a glass of cold tap water from the kitchen sink how does it look/ taste?

Taste clean enough.
Looks a little aerated.
But I can see all the pipe work in the garage - all the kitchen pipes are fed after a combination valve and the valve is fed from the BWT unit.

 

[Anj]

Just to prove Sods Law (and thanks Roy_66!)

I did all the work 2 weeks ago and it hasn’t stopped raining since. Looks great but totally unused so far!!

 

[Roy_66]

Just to prove Sods Law (and thanks Roy_66!)

I did all the work 2 weeks ago and it hasn’t stopped raining since. Looks great but totally unused so far!!

Hi Anj,

No, you can blame me. I added another garden tap about a week ago, used it once, then the heavens opened. So it did the trick. All the farmers must be mightily relieved.

Feeder hose (not yet fitted here) burried in the gravel around the house.

Cheers,

Roy.