How to Repair a Dripping Outdoor Faucet

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Video Transcript

Garden fork

Garden Faucet

Washer Repair

www.gardenfork.tv

Male: So this valve is leaking. It is turned all the way off, and cannot make it turn anymore. And the water is still dripping out. So this means, there is a rubber stopper, or rubber washer, or rubber seal in here that we have to replace. If you try and tighten this down anymore, all you are going to do is break it. So, do not do that.

So first thing you have got to do is turn the water off inside, so we find the valve that controls this valve. Here is the valve that controls the faucet outside, turn that off.

Charlie: We are guarding the faucet. There are like two statues on either side of the---like at the public library, instead of lions, we have got two dogs.

Male: All right! So the camera is running!

Charlie: The camera is running.

Male: Put your hand through there.

Charlie: Okay.

Male: And you just point it at me. If you want to get in closerâ€¦

Charlie: And, what do I punch to make run?

Male: It is running now.

Charlie: Oh, it is running! So I do not have to do anything.

Male: So you can look right here.

Charlie: So, and that is what I am saying.

Male: Yes!

Charlie: Okay. Very good, it is not too hard. So, how long does this operation take?

Male: In the perfect world about five minutes--

Charlie: But this is not necessarily a perfect world.

Male: This is Eric's world.

Charlie: Eric's world! I see.

Male: So first of all, you have to take the---I do not know what you call that--- the knob of the valve. There is usually a screw on here. There is no screw on this one so I do not know.

Charlie: It could be a handle, I guess.

Male: What do you call that?

Charlie: I am at the loss, it is a very familiar thing.

Male: We call it the turning thing.

Charlie: The turning thing, that makes sense.

Male: So what you want to do now is you have to take the valve assembly out of its housing.

Charlie: The valve assembly, okay.

Male: You can use a crossed wrench, pipe wrench.

Charlie: We are still turned off downstairs.

Male: I turned off the valve downstairs.

Charlie: Yes, that is a good idea. Okay.

Male: It does not want to come off.

Charlie: I am getting close here.

Male: So I have got the pliers on the bottom of it. This can be kind of tricky to grab onto it because there is just not a lot of surface area there to get your wrench on but you get that off, and you pull that out. And that is the seal that it needs to be replaced.

So before you fix this leak, you got to hardware store, and you buy a box of assorted flat washers to fix the valve, or what you can do, is you can go to the hardware store with the valve that you have taken apart, and you can match this washer. They have got these little drawers, full of washers. Henry likes to go to the hardware store so we are going to hardware store.

Charlie: Yes.

Male: Come on, let us go! That fits right there. It is just going to work here. You do not want to eat that. All right, let us go.

So we are going to take the old washer, this little screw here, we are just going to take it out, this pops right out. And we are going to put the new washer we just got at the hardware store in there. And we are going to do this while holding the camera, all right? One hand. That comes out, take your new washer, put the screw in there, and put that in there, there we go.

Before you put this back in the valve housing, you want to make sure that this is all the way in the open position. In other words, it is not screwed to the off position but it is all the way to the on position. Because that way, when you screw this in, you would not mash the seal of the washer into the valve seat. So this, with our new washer, goes right like that. Just tighten it down. This can be a little tricky. Close it down, and we are going to turn the water on. We check it. It turns off, no drips, there you go!

Charlie: So it works!

Male: Yes! Mind the shot, Charlie.

Charlie: The water was in the show. You are not necessarily in the shot..

Male: I have to bend over like this.

Charlie: I can go up but I then I cannot get you and t