Tips to Extend the Life of Your Garden Hose

Dealing with a leaky or damaged garden hose is annoying and can be expensive. If you’ve invested in a drinking safe garden hose or a heated garden hose, you want to make sure that you get your money’s worth. While it’s not difficult to repair a garden hose that’s sprung a leak, it can cost you a pretty penny to buy garden hose fittings and clamps to put it back together again. It’s so much easier to avoid the problems in the first place – and it isn’t that difficult at all. These tips can help you extend the life of your garden hose through season after season of use.

Start with a Quality Garden Hose

There are hundreds of cheap hoses on the market. Just walk down the aisles of your local big box store or hardware store and you’ll see garden hoses in all lengths and diameters in a range of prices starting at less than $10 for a 1/2 inch garden hose with cheap  garden hose fittings to more than $80 for a good quality 1 inch water hose with multiple layers of reinforcement to make the hose more flexible and tougher. Which one is the right one for you? That’s something you’ll have to decide, but in general, you’ll want a lightweight garden hose with heavy-duty brass garden hose fittings. The higher quality you can afford, the longer your garden hose is likely to last under normal conditions.

Turn Off the Water

Don’t just turn off the hose valve and leave the water running at the faucet for long lengths of time. Constant water pressure inside the hose will weaken it over time.

Coil Your Hose When You’re Done with It

It’s tempting to just leave your hose where you last used it, especially if you use it in the same place day after day. There are a couple of problems with that. First, you’re letting water just sit inside the hose where it can breed bacteria and weaken the inner walls. Second, you’re offering a delightful, shady, moist, cool shelter for garden insects that you’d rather not have nesting in your garden hose. Third, and worst of all, it leaves your garden hose laying on the ground where it can be walked on, driven over and, horror of horrors, become just one more casualty of the lawn mower. If you invest in a good quality garden hose reel, coiling your hose is a simple matter of turning a crank. As it coils, the hose will automatically empty itself, so that you’re not letting water sit in it for days.

The better you treat your garden hose, the longer it will last. Considering how expensive a good-quality hose can be, it just makes sense to take some precautionary care to keep it in good repair.