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.

Hello all! First some background....I am replacing a tub and fixtures. After mapping out the new copper pipe for the new fixtures and sweating all the connections, I went to sweat the new copper to the old copper supply lines. The old copper was a little thicker walled so it took a while to heat up with the torch so that the solder would melt. Well everything went ok, the system has been under pressure for 3-4 days now with no leaks. The problem is I have noticed is that now my hot water in the rest of the house is not as hot anymore. This is fine for my wife who would just a soon take cold showers (she's weird like that) but for me who loves taken molten, skin melting showers it is not ok. The water still gets warm and even borderline hot, but not really hot like it used to. So is it possible that I somehow screwed up my plumbing system when I soldered all the new pipes for the new fixtures? I did use cold, wet towels on the bottom of the supply lines when I had the torch on them to try and keep the heat at bay, but noticed some steam coming out of the open end of the pipe and heard some gurgling which I interpreted as water in the lines boiling. I'm not sure, and have fairly limited experience with plumbing so maybe I just made someone faint when I typed that the water boiled and maybe I made every mistake possible but any insight as to my weird problem would be appreciated. Thanks!