Is It Time to Replace Your Garden Hose?

April showers bring May flowers, but your garden hose can certainly make a difference. As the year rolls into gardening season throughout the country, it’s time to inspect your garden hose and decide whether it’s up to all the jobs you’ll use it for this spring and summer.

What to Look for When Inspecting Your Garden Hose

If you stored your garden hose properly for the winter – unless, of course, you had a heated garden hose that stayed out for the season – chances are that it’s in good shape for the year. A high quality garden hose will last for up to ten years if you take good care of it. A cheap garden hose, on the other hand, may not even get you through a full season.

Inspect the hose around the garden hose fittings for any fraying or wear. The hose is most likely to fray and wear around the connectors. If there’s even a little wear, your hose could sprout leaks at the spigot, which will waste water and make it harder to do the tasks you need to do.

Uncoil the hose and check its flexibility. A quality garden hose should uncoil smoothly and lay straight when you stretch it out. A cheaper vinyl garden hose without nylon braiding for reinforcement will very likely have settled into the coils and may not want to unroll. It may even have developed kinks that won’t release at all.

Check the length of the hose for cracks, splits or hard spots. Squeeze it gently along its entire length and be conscious of any areas where it feels different. Those areas may have hardened and become prone to cracking or splitting when you run water through it.

If everything seems fine, hook up your garden hose to the faucet and turn on the water to do a final test. If all of the tests go well, congratulations!

If, on the other hand, your garden hose fails any of these tests, it’s probably time to do some repair work on it or replace it with a new one.

Replace or Repair Your Garden Hose?

If the only place you find wear on your garden hose is close to the fittings, the repair job is a fairly easy one. You can purchase brass garden hose fittings from a supplier of garden hoses and gardening supplies. Cut the old garden hose fittings off with a sharp knife, making sure to remove the worn part of the vinyl. Follow the package directions to replace it with the new fitting.

If the damage to your hose is more extensive, you should replace the entire thing. Invest in a high quality garden hose so you won’t have to replace it again in a year or two. You’ll find many different types and sizes of garden hoses available, including ½ inch garden hose and 5/8 inch garden hose, the most popular sizes for general home use. Choose the right garden hose for your needs – and don’t forget a good garden hose reel to keep it safe and prevent damage to it when you’re doing yard work.