Hello,

I'm new here and hope this message is in the correct forum (I wasn't sure if this was a garden question or a home question.) I use a hose to water my flowers in the front yard. The faucet is unfortunately located behind high, sharp hedges and is hard to get to. I bought a shut-off valve so I could leave the faucet on all the time - and I use a sprayer as well. Ideally, when I want to water, I just flip the valve, squeeze the sprayer and water. But, the faucet keeps leaking each time I do this (it leaks at the wall.) It doesn't leak as long as the valve is shut off, but every time I flip the valve and want to water, it squirts everywhere. The first time this happened, I called a plumber and he replaced the faucet and said it would be fine. But now it's happening again and I keep getting charged a service call, etc.

My questions are: Is this kind of setup that I'm doing a common thing? Or, is it unrealistic to have a faucet that's turned on all the time, with a shut-off valve? Is it a normal "side effect" to have water squirt everywhere from the wall?

Thank you in advance for your help!