We are replacing an old, leaky water heater in the corner of our garage, and the existing natural-gas outlet valve that's coming out of the wall is too far in the corner. We would like to extend the gas outlet valve farther down the wall from the corner about 1 foot or so. Can we take the existing valve off (that's just outside of the drywall) and put on a black elbow and run a black nipple pipe about 1 foot or so [U]along the outside[/U] of the drywall, and then attach another elbow and the valve and strap it to the studs? Or do we have to drill holes in the king studs and run the pipe in the [U]interior/inside[/U] of the wall? Once again, this is inside the garage..not the house. Also, the water heater instructions say that the gas line should have a sediment trap right before the valve, but it doesn't have a trap currently. How necessary is the sediment trap? I hope this was easily understandable. Thanks.

Out quite a distance from the main building(s) on our property is a seldom-used hose bib hook up sticking up out of the ground, which is basically a left-over fixture which used to supply (hosed) water to some outside worksheds which have long since been removed. It's a galvanized steel pipe sticking straight up 4 feet or so out of the ground, with a ball-valve shutoff at the top and above that two spigots (hose bibs), one right on top of the other. Out of concern for freezing during the wintertime, we decided to leave a spigot open with a hose connected and the water trickling out fairly good. Sure enough though the temperatures dropped far enough and long enough to freeze the trickling water, despite what we thought was a strong trickle enough to prevent it. As recent outside temps rised recently, we noticed the side of the spigot had cracked/burst because of the freeze, so just shut the ball valve closed until we repair. We'd like to keep the hose bib fixture, as though it's seldom used it does come in handy at it's location from time to time (although we can live without using it during freezing wintertime). Also we don't want to turn off the main supply as by doing so it will shut off other necessary plumbing in another building. We considered the idea of simply insulating the pipe and wrapping the hose bibs in insulation during the winter, but we aren't sure if insulation by itself will prevent freezing when temps drop to there lowest around here which is maybe 8 degrees. And of course we don't like to have to keep a hose running all winter in an effort to try to prevent the freeze-up. One option might be heat tape/cable wrapped on the pipe (and insulated) as we do have an electrical outlet in another building 50 feet or so away, but then we'd either have to be running an extension cord out along the ground, or digging and installing an underground electrical supply line just for the heating cable, neither of which seem like a very good idea either. Fortunately the crack/burst occured above, rather than below the shutoff valve. Not sure why, but I suppose its because that metal on the spigot was weaker than the pipe? Any comments/advice appreciated.