That does not appear to be buried all the deep to me.  You might also consider digging the area around the drain and putting in some pea gravel for better drainage.

Key to a frostless hydrant is its ability to drain the water in the vertical pipe when shut off into the ground below the frost line.

1. Check to make sure you're below frost line.
2. Check to make sure you have proper drainage.

Could also be a bad valve which might allow water to seep into the vertical pipe and/or drain field causing it to flood and freeze. 

OK, you want a fountain, not a hydrant.  First off, you are right about Richies.  They are  the biggest pile of junk made.

  I have 3 concrete Petersens.  The biggest problem I have is that the thermostats don't like to stay set.  The water tends to get warmer as the winter drags on.  I have to set them lower every once in a while, and then sometimes they do freeze over after a month and we start to go the other way.  I have a 44C Super Pete.  About the only things that can go wrong on them is the thermostat and the heating element.  Floats are copper and the valves are pretty good.

My Woodford/Iowa hydrants were installed by a excavation fellow who has put in my guess would be hundreds of them in WI. He does a super job. The Iowa hydrants are good but you also need to pay attention to detaails such as having enough sand and gravel at the base so that when you close the handle the drain back water has some place to go.  I likke to put a short piece of plastic tubing on the drain port to get it out a foot or so. Also use lots of sand at the bottom drain point.

another key is that this fellow that puts them in uses a piece of 4" PVC pipe over the outside. So on an 8ft Iowa hydrant he sets ity inside a 6ft long piece of 4" PVC. About 6" of this tube sticks above the ground. He drillas a hole in a 4" PVC cap then saws it in half and glues it on the topof the 6 ft 4" pipe with the hydrant caulked and sticking up maybe 2 ft above the cap. This outer tube prevents the electrolysis mentioned above since no soil is in contact with the pipe and also serves as a heat tube to let heat from deep down come up and keep the upper portion of the hydrant from freezing before it can drain.

I have never had a problem with any of the Iowa hydrants installed like this.

By the way I think they dip new Iowa hydrants in paint if this is the sticky one you were asking about above. It helps to scrape some of the paint off of the rod/moving parts etc with a knife on a new one.

Good luck. Working on hydrants is not fun this time of year. I would definitely stick with a US-made largely brass hydrant rather than a cost-reduced imported one. They are expensive but not near as expensive as putting in a replacement in the winter time.

Jimat Dawn

Shouldn't freeze up if done correctly. We have a few Ritchie HYDRANTS and are in extreme cold & never had them freeze up. That's the only one that I would feel comfortable using/recommending. And we are FAR north.

Since I only read first part of your post - Could this be what your looking for? ( I have 4 Iowa Hyrants - the orange ones 15 - 20 years old no problems in Michigan)

Hydra

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