Cupboard for Garden Tap - grateful for any general advice

[catty & co]

In the winter just gone, we had the outdoor tap burst and didn't notice for weeks. This ran up a big water bill, and caused water-damage to the kitchen units on the other side of the wall (which fortunately were already water-damaged), but hopefully it hasn't done anything worse to the brickwork.

A plumber installed the tap originally, about 12 years ago, and it has always been overworked. The water supply is on the back wall of the house, which is an extension, but most of the actual garden is to the front of the house (with no easy route to get a pipe out to that side): so we've always had various multi-adapters with sprinkler timers and micro-irrigation running round the side of the house, and wearing out and they've kept needing to be replaced.

What I've done in the picture isn't anything remedial, I've just taken out the plants to get a better look at the wall. The little garden wall wasn't done by me - the footing looks to be minimal.

What I'm thinking of doing is to build a waist-height housing, or utility cabinet, to (1) shelter the outdoor tap and attachments from the elements (2) subject to plumbers' advice provide an insulated run for a copper pipe round to the side of the house - being as they aren't supposed to be exposed on the outside of a building (3) if there is a burst pipe again, to have an overflow channel to take water to the drain on the left side of the picture (4) house any outdoor electronics like CCTV switches.

I'd like to build it out of brick, which I haven't done before, and give it a lean-to type roof maybe with corrugated bitumen sheets, or tiles if I can understand the process. I think I should leave the floor as soil so any excess water can still drain. The next-nearest soil is a few metres away, and in the dark with a weed barrier hopefully not much will get in. To carry water to the drain I'd want something like an extra-wide plastic half-pipe with some way of catching spray. The white pipe running across the picture is the outlet from the gas boiler so I'd want to check in case there are any regulations against covering it, and to leave it well-alone.

Regarding the clean water supply, unless they would have put the extension actually on top of it, it probably comes in somewhere under here too, close to the tap.
That's not a trunk main or distribution main, it's a supply pipe under my land, so I don't imagine it's regulated as a build-over. I could try and put a lintel over it anyway, and if the cupboard had to be torn down to access it that wouldn't be a big problem. It might even be better not having roots so close to it.

The height would be below the government guidelines for my Zone, and I'm probably not intending a continuous span of bricks since there will need to be access panels. I could also make trusses to support it against the house wall. Assuming it's 8 bricks high, the existing wall and its footing I think would need to come out to make room for a better footing 300mm deep and 450mm wide.

Vertical spacing for wall-ties is apparently 450mm so I guess I'd want to use screw-in ties at the ends where it comes back in to the existing wall of the house.

There should be a damp course. And the sealant that's used vertically when walls meet at right-angles is impermeable.

I'll look more carefully into each stage, but I'd assume it doesn't want engineering bricks or whatever since it mustn't trap water against the house.

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I'll need to look up how to do much of this - but are there any major considerations I've missed?

 

[JohnD]

I got a meter cabinet. Big enough for the tap and some rolled up hose. Provides reasonable weather protection, but you ought to have an isolating valve inside the house so you can turn off the supply and drain the tap for winter.

Made of GRP which you can paint if you like.