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garden hoses

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Mr_Yan

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In the past I have bought two cheap hoses that are now broken and cut up. One hose was a gimick flat hose that failed when under pressure and sitting in the sun. The other hose got left draped over the fence for a week in the August sun and it fused together where it was kinked over the fence. I attempted a repair of my kinked and fused hose with the replacement fittings but they never worked well.

Now I need a new hose to water the lawn I am trying to start again. While I love the idea of the expanding hoses all the reviews and comments I hear on them is they suck.

The two main uses I will have are watering the lawn and filling a kiddie pool. I will never need more than 50'. I may water the back lawn as much as weekly or bi-weekly as I try to get new grass going. I've never watered the front lawn and it has looked great all 7 years I lived here.

As often as I say I won't buy cheap tools again I have a hard time paying over $40 for a garden hose. Am I being stupid? Why are these things so expensive? There are very few exceptions where I don't take reasonably good care of my tools.
 

w_r_ranch

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Buy a real 100% rubber hose, they are worth the money, IMO. They are not cheap by any means... the last one I bought was about $80 for 50' X 3/4" (5 yrs ago). I have a few that are over 30 yrs old & never been patched.
 
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ErnieCopp

Guest
Rubber hoses like Sam describes certainly last the longest but they are heavy and stiffer than some others. My favorite now is the 100', 20 dollar dark gray hose from Costco. it is light weight and easy to drag around, and if you only need fifty feet you can cut it in half and install high quality connectors, and have two hoses, which will last twice as long if the spare is kept out of the Sun. This is the fourth year i have had them and no problems so far.

Only drawback i have found is they can kink, but easy enough to flip out since you are alread there holding one end.. I use a lot of hoses and have five of them around the place. I do believe in having a hose hooked up at every spigot, as i hate to drag hoses around to different locations. I have never had a leak with any of these Costco hoses and end fittings have not been a problem, either. I have real high water pressure here and use a pressure regulator to bring it down to 50 psi, so that is not a problem with them, either.

Ernie
 
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Mr_Yan

Guest
Well I bought an Apex 75 foot 5/8 inch hose for $17.99 from Farm and Fleet on my way home yesterday. These were the low cost option at the store but the only one with prominent made in the US labeling. The hose is laying out across the yard for the coil memory to relax but I did water the lawn today.

We'll see how long it will last. For the summer I will have it coiled on the ground in the back yard on the tree shaded east side of my house.
 
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ErnieCopp

Guest
While we are talkkng about garden hoses, i got sucked in to buying a couple of the Expandable Hoses. They are very light and neat, really nice to work with, and the first one did fine. A few weeks later i used the second one and it started leaking at the Faucet connection and then blew out the first time i used it. .
I have fixed many hoses so i assumed it would not be a problem, and boy, was i ever wrong. The center is a soft rubber surgical tube like is used in slingshots. As it is advertised as 3/4" hose, i tried to slip the tube up over a 5/8" fitting bayonet. Impossible to do it direct. finally had the idea to slip it over the 3/8" shank on a 1/2" drill bit, stick the drill bit thru the fitting and roll the rubber tube up on the fitting. Finally managed to do that, so then tried to slip the outer covering up over the tube, and impossible to even get it started.

So, i bought a fitting for a 1/2inch hose, cost six bucks for a good one. but had to drop down to a 7/16" drill bit so i could slide it through the half inch bayonet. Got the rubber tube on again okay, and could get the outer sheath on the 7/16" drill but could just not stretch the outer covering enough to get it over the bayonet, and that had to be done or the tube will balloon out and blow off.

Threw the damn thing into the trash and sat on the veranda for an hour trying to think of a better way as i like to think i can fix about anything that is not electronic. Finally decided to try one more time, dug it out of the trash barrel, slipped the tube up over the bayonet, took some real thin Monel wire and wrapped the tube down in the bayonet groove, then i slit the cover, pulled it up over the tube, and wrapped it with the monel wire and put the plastic clamp over it all. At least 3 hours of hard labor, at $3.00 an hour and six dollars for the fitting and probably another five dollars for the Monel wire, if i could even locate some of that anymore, and I could have bought a new hose, instead of having a dubious one that i have to be careful with.

The manufacturer proabably expected lots of problems as their guarantee is for 30 days from the day you BUY it, so take away a few days for Shipping and Handling and you have about 3 weeks to find any defects.

Ernie
 
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Mr_Yan

Guest
@ErnieCopp I've heard several stories like this. My mom and stepdad live on a boat and the TV ads for many expanding hoses all but target boaters because of space and weight restrictions. All of these green colored expanding hoses use plastic fittings and, according to my stepdad, everyone of them has failed in the first few weeks.

At the bed and bath big box last week I saw a DAP branded (same DAP as painters caulk) expanding hose with brass fittings - 50 foot for ~$45). I checked Amazon for this hose and it had something like 131 of the 172 reviews being 1 star. Apparently these hoses are known for blowing out when under pressure like while washing a car but between times when spraying it.
 
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ErnieCopp

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Yan,
It is a tough problem getting enough grip on the two very different materials that will keep it on the bayonets, as the tubing and tthe cover react so differently to the pressure. But i think some one will find a solution, either by changing the design of the bayonet, or using some kind of adhesive, as the hose itself is a delight to work with, both while using and when storing.

Interesting that your folks live on a boat. Lots of people dream of doing that and then only a few that do it really like it for any length of time. I lived on my sailboat for ten years back in the 1970's and again from 1998 to 2011, and i loved it, along with just a few others, but we saw many people try it and give up. What type of boat and where do your folks live?

Ernie
 
M

Mr_Yan

Guest
Ernie,
They have an Island Packet 45 and have been living on it full time for 4 or 5 years. They're just building a house in south coastal South Carolina now but will keep this boat for a few more years. As I grew up my mom would be out racing every Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon during the season on the Great Lakes. I can hold my own on a wet-bottom boat but an landlocked here. They've taken this boat from Holland, MI out the Erie Canal / Hudson and down to Marathon Key FL and have since bounced between the Chesapeake Bay and Marathon Key FL a few times and keep ending up in the Hilton Head SC to Savannah GA area. The only time I have seen or been on this boat was when it was still in a cradle in a pole-barn in Holland MI as they were reworking parts of it after buying it.
 
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ErnieCopp

Guest
Yan,
Good for them. It keeps them active and that keeps them young. I have had a Cheoy Lee Offshore 50 for 42 years, and used it a lot. Mexico winters 11 times, South Pacifc and New Zealand, and Hawaii twice, but am selling it now because of old age.

Funny joke about the wet bottom boats. Myself and some friends were out for a day sail and watched some small boats race by, They had a crew hanging butt over ther rail with their feet hooked under hiking straps, and they were outside the breakwater, so there was a small chop.
The crews were all girls and the Helmsmen were men. The crew were taking water almost to their waists while hanging over the side.
I said to Gene, " If that was your girl, she would be too tired by bedtime." Gene thought about it for a minute, and then said, "Yeah, Probably, but if she wasn't, she would sure be Clean. " .

Ernie
 

Mike

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Soaking of hoses anyone use and have any luck with quick disconnects? I bought a set from Lowe's last year and threw them away this year... Just junk.
 
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ErnieCopp

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Mike,
They are much more common on air hoses than water hoses, but i have some good brass or bronze ones that i used for years without a problem. I still see them occasionally in a drawer. The only thing i can think of that mght be a problem is if the little spring loaded balls became corroded or dirty and did not move freely. You just slike the collar back to release the ball bearings that hold the pieces together. So you have two moving objects. The spring loaded ball bearings and the slide, and if both move freely, they should work forever.

I have seen modern ones made from Plastic but with the same mechanism setup, but no experience with them.

Ernie
 

w_r_ranch

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I've use them here for years, but you have to buy the 100% brass ones which are on the expensive side. Like Ernie said the springs/bearing are the weak point... I spray ours with WD40 periodically to keep them functional.

I too tried the cheap ones & the barely last a season.
 
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ErnieCopp

Guest
Mike, I doubt any of them have brand names on them anymore. Most things like that are made on automatic milling machines, in China, so just look them over carefully for smooth operation. If you use several of one gender and only a few of the other, like for one hose on several faucets, try them all to make sure they fit each other.

Ernie
 
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