How to House Your Hose: Maintaining and Repairing for Longer Life

By hiebingadm

In a perfect world, each time you water your lawn or wash your car your hose performs perfectly—no leaks, no kinks, no splits. With the right care and maintenance, it’s possible. Just follow a few simple guidelines for hose care and enjoy a long-lasting, durable hose for years to come.

1. Early Season: Replace the Washer

If you look into the end of your hose that attaches to the spigot, you’ll see a little ring made of rubber or plastic. That’s the washer, and its job is to create a tight seal that prevents leaks. Washers don’t last forever, but the good news is they’re easy to replace. Just pop out the old one and pop in a new washer every year. The start of your gardening or car-washing season is a great time to do it, so you won’t forget once the weather warms and you get busy.

2. Throughout the Season: Put It Away

You’ve heard it all your life: Put away your toys, put away your dishes, put away [fill in the blank]. We don’t mean to nag, but putting away the hose after every use helps prevent kinks and extend its life. Here’s a step-by-step storage checklist:

• Drain out any water left inside the hose by hoisting it over your shoulder.
• Loop it onto a hanger, coil it into a bowl or wind it onto a reel.This eliminates kinks and tangles and prevents your hose from becoming a tripping hazard or being run over by car tires or a lawn mower. Gilmour’s Metal Hose Hanger is designed to wrangle even the longest, heaviest hose. It’s easy to install on a garage wall, on the side of the house—anywhere but in your way.
• Store your hose out of the sun.Over time, UV rays may weaken the material and cause splits. Try a shady side of the house or in your garage.
3. End of Season: Store It Well

Before the temperatures dip toward freezing, it’s a good idea to drain the water and hang your hose in your garage, shed or basement for the winter. But before you detach it from the spigot, take off any attachments and clean the insides by flushing it out with fresh water for a minute or two. After flushing, detach if from the spigot, hoist it to your shoulder to drain the water completely and coil it up for proper hanging inside.

4. As Needed: Repair Crushed Couplings, Cracks and Holes

It’s easy to fix common hose problems, and the bonus is you don’t need to go out and spend money on a brand-new hose.

• Use a mender to repair a hole or crack in your hose.Just cut out the damaged portion of the hose and splice the ends back together with a mender. Be sure to measure your hose diameter so you use the right size mender.
• If the end of your hose is corroded, worn or crushed—maybe you ran over the hose end with your car—you can replace it with a new coupling. Choose a female coupling for the spigot end or male coupling for the end that connects your sprinkler or nozzle. Simply cut off the old coupling and attach the new one.

You want to do things right when it comes to maintaining your yard, garden, cars, deck, siding and more. Your hose needs to keep up with you, day in and day out. Make it a Betterday by giving your hose some care in return.