How do I winterize my outdoor faucet?

Winterizing an outdoor hose bib takes about five minutes and protects the pipe inside the wall from splitting. Do it before the first hard freeze: when overnight lows consistently reach the low 30s, usually sometime in October or November. Disconnect the hose, close the interior shutoff valve, and open the bib outside to drain the remaining water.

When should I shut off the hose bib?

The window is before the first sustained freeze in your area: three or more consecutive overnight lows forecast below 34°F. In most of the continental U.S., that falls somewhere between mid-October and late November, but the date shifts by climate zone and year.

One warm day in the middle of a cold stretch doesn’t reset the clock. The ground and the walls have already shed their stored heat. Once that window opens, treat it as open.

Don’t wait for the first freeze warning to find out where the shutoff valve is. A ten-minute walk-through in late September, when nothing is urgent, beats a flashlight search in a cold basement in November.

Where is the interior shutoff valve?

Most homes have a dedicated shutoff for each outdoor bib. Look in the basement or crawl space, on the wall closest to where the spigot exits the house. The supply line runs horizontally from the shutoff through the rim joist to the bib outside.

In older homes, there may not be individual shutoffs for each bib. Follow the supply line from the spigot back inside and trace it until you find a handle or gate valve on the branch. If the closest valve serves multiple bibs, closing it shuts them all off.

If the house has no interior shutoff for an outdoor bib, that’s worth fixing before winter. A plumber can add one in an hour or two, typically for $100 to $200. For a primer on your home’s shutoff locations, see Where is the main water shutoff and how do I use it?

How do I actually do it?

Start by disconnecting the garden hose from the bib and draining it. A hose left attached, even overnight, traps water at the end of the spigot and defeats the rest of the process.

Go inside and close the shutoff valve. Gate valves turn clockwise until they stop; ball valves rotate 90 degrees to closed. The pipe past the shutoff is now cut off from the supply.

Go back outside and open the bib fully. The residual water sitting between the shutoff and the spigot head will drain out. Let it run until it stops, then leave the handle in the open position. Residual moisture in an open bib can escape; trapped in a closed one, it stays put and can freeze.

What if I have a frost-free bib?

A frost-free (also called freeze-proof) bib has a stem that runs 6 to 12 inches back into the warm part of the house. The actual valve closes inside, on the warm side of the wall. When the stem drains, there’s no water left in the exposed section.

That design protects against freezes automatically, but only if no hose is attached. A hose traps water at the bib end of the stem, fills the drain path, and the frost-free design stops working. The stem freezes like a standard bib would.

For a frost-free bib, winterization is one step: disconnect the hose and store it. There’s no interior shutoff to find, no draining to supervise. The bib handles the rest on its own.

What happens if I skip it?

A pipe full of water that freezes expands with enough force to split the pipe or crack the bib body. The break doesn’t always show up right away. The pipe can split in November and you won’t know until April, when you open the bib and find water running into the wall instead of out the spigot.

The Insurance Information Institute consistently lists water damage and freezing as one of the top causes of homeowners insurance claims by dollar volume. Repair costs for a single split supply line typically run $500 to $1,500 before any drywall work or water remediation.

The bib itself costs $20 to $80 in parts. The pipe access is what drives the bill.

InterNACHI’s home inspection standards recommend checking outdoor hose bibs at every annual inspection: confirming that frost-free bibs drain correctly, that interior shutoffs operate, and that no hose is left attached heading into cold weather. A bib that doesn’t clear that check is one hard freeze from a repair call.

A note from Kempt

Kempt tracks the frost forecast for your address and sends a reminder when the outdoor hose bib needs to come off: before the first sustained freeze, not after. The reminder names the step and the shutoff location if the house has one on record. The five-minute job stays five minutes.