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I live in an older house in a colder climate (Boston).

Spring is almost here and we're planning on doing some gardening. We have an external spigot, although it's been defunct since we moved in ~2yrs ago (a rental).

My first thought was to try and find the internal valve and see if it had maybe been turned off one winter. After a little investigating I found out that there's no pipe connected to the spigot - it simply cuts off after going about an inch inside the house (picture attached).

The area where it enters the house is close to the ceiling in the basement bathroom, almost directly above the toilet. I'm wondering if it's possible and how much of a task it would be to run a pipe from the spigot to perhaps the line where the toilet is getting water.

Thanks!

External Spigot Cutoff Pipe Access Point Toilet

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  • Purely at a guess, I'm suspecting that someone had a frozen pipes burst at some point and just cut it out rather than deal with repairing it. One possible conclusion is that you may want to either replace this with a freeze-resistant tap or put another valve upstream of it so (either way) you can drain the water out of the section most at risk. (My house has the inner valve solution; at the end of fall I close the inner valve, open the two to drain as much water as possible out of it, then close it again to talk an air pocket in case the inner valve has a slow leak. So far, so good...)
    – keshlam
    Mar 11, 2016 at 12:22

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Toilets are typically supplied using 1/2" pipe, while it's common to use 3/4" to supply a spigot. You can certainly tee off the toilet supply and feed a spigot, though you might not quite get the flow you're expecting. Should be fine for watering flowers, vegetables, etc. Though may come up short if you're trying to water the lawn with a sprinkler. You'll also probably notice a pressure drop off, if somebody flushes the toilet.

If you end up supplying a spigot (however you do it), I'd recommend installing a new anti-siphon frost proof sillcock. The one that's there looks like it's seen better days.

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