OT: Good garden hose, Craftsman RIP

[Bill D]

Looking for a good 5/8 garden hose. craftsman 100% rubber is gone along with sears. I see many were the fitting are too short to use fingers or pliers to tighten it up. Have to use a service wrench. Rolled fittings not cast.
Everything these days is super flexible, kink free, yah right.
Bill D

 

[EmGo]

Looking for a good 5/8 garden hose. craftsman 100% rubber is gone along with sears.

The tug came with a really nice heavy-duty water hose.Thick wall, fittings made out of military grade billet brass, stiff as a woodpecker's bill and took two people to coil up.

After about a month of this I went over to Ace Hardware and got the cheapest flimsiest garden hose they had. Six bucks plus tax, I think. Might have weighed two pounds, coiled up with three fingers, carried water to the tanks fine, washed off the hull fine, hosed crab guts off the dock, dragged around easy, did a great job.

Heavy duty one went into the lazaret in case I ever had to deal with a 500 psi water supply, otherwise the cheap flimsy one was hose of choice.

Pretty sure the new owner tossed that crappy-ass thing but he keeps her in a boathouse and rubs her caprail, I put 2,000 miles under the keel.

 

[L Vanice]

I tossed out my traditional style heavy garden hoses and the big cranked reels years ago. I find it much more convenient to use the Chinese expanding hose. Got new bushes around the house this year and 90 degree days meant needing to hand water the new plants every two days. The "100 foot" expanding hose from Amazon has nice machined brass fittings and, when drained, the whole hose weighs about two pounds and the coil fits in one hand. Incredibly easy for an old guy to move from one sillcock to another to reach all the plants.

The only down side is that the latex inner tube has a fairly short life, like a few years, so I cut the brass ends off to recycle and dump the hose once it bursts. Convenience is worth the cost. But the 100 foot hose is now over five years old, so I am happy with the life of that one. I had two of my shorter expanding hoses fail this summer, but I am not sure how old they were.

I use quick connects on my hose fittings, so they only need the arc-joint pliers once to apply the fittings, then it is just "quick to connect."

Larry

 

[reggie_obe]

snippet

Got new bushes around the house this year and 90 degree days meant needing to hand water the new plants every two days.
Larry

Why not install a simple trickle irrigation system with emitters and a timer attached to the hose bib or sillcock? Just drain it in the fall.

 

[Gordon Heaton]

I've been buying the Craftsman rubber hose at ACE hardware (it's a big store, so maybe others won't carry it).

 

[L Vanice]

Why not install a simple trickle irrigation system with emitters and a timer attached to the hose bib or sillcock? Just drain it in the fall.

I had an irrigation system installed in 1991 that covers the lawn, but not the bushes and flowers. Fall shutdown involves a large trailer air compressor to blow the water out of the buried pipes and heads.

The new trees and bushes will only need irrigation in extreme weather and only until they are established. Those items would need several hundred feet of hose with many individual outlets and three sillcock timers to cover the entire new landscaping. You may call it simple, but it sounds like a complex solution to a temporary and simple problem to me.

A local greenhouse has a complex system of plastic tubing and drip heads to water the hundreds of hanging baskets of annual flowers they sell every spring. It makes sense for that operation.

Larry

 

[Scottl]

I've been buying the Craftsman rubber hose at ACE hardware (it's a big store, so maybe others won't carry it).

ACE stores usually will order stuff like that on request or it can be ordered online and shipped to their local ACE.

Also, whenever I doubt the quality at local stores McMaster is the go to place. Costs more with shipping but they don't sell junk.

Edit: Lowe's carries the 50 foot Craftsman rubber hose.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/CRAFTSMAN-5-8-in-X-50-ft-Premium-Duty-Black-Hose/1000761852

 

[Bob-J-H]

ACE stores usually will order stuff like that on request or it can be ordered online and shipped to their local ACE.

Also, whenever I doubt the quality at local stores McMaster is the go to place. Costs more with shipping but they don't sell junk.

I bought the black Goodyear hose at Home Depot.

 

[rons]

I bought this and think it's better than rubber hose.
This hose feels like think rubber but will not harden up in the UV light.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/NeverKink-Teknor-Apex-Neverkink-Heavy-Duty-5-8IN-x50FT/5000141113?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-sol-_-ggl-_-SS_SOL_000_Priority_Items-_-5000141113-_-local-_-0-_-0&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0cq97KmegQMVpDjUAR08rQBfEAQYAiABEgL_UPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[boslab]

I like rubber hoses too, not these crappy pvc things.
They are heavy but well worth the expense, they must be good as mine keep disappearing from the garden.
I had a silicon rubber food grade for a while, kinked too much though
Mark

 

[jccaclimber]

Other than the color scheme my Craftsman garden hoses bought a decade ago look identical to Apex brand kink free hoses that were sold at the time. In-laws have one of the Apex ones and it behaves just like mine.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

What I've found to work is rubber hose rated for hot water at maybe 200 psi, with machined brass fittings. When they fail, I replace them with Gilmour metal clamp-on ends. As the hose develops leaks, I cut a few inches out and install a Gilmore clamp-on splice. This continues until the rubber hose is worn out, whereupon the cycle repeats. The components are available in hardware stores.

https://gilmour.com/products/hoses/professional-grade-hoses/professional-rubber-hose

https://gilmour.com/products/repair...ir-maintenance/professional-hose-clamp-mender

https://gilmour.com/products/repair/hose-repair/heavy-duty-clamp-mender

https://gilmour.com/products/repair/tool-maintenance/rubber-hose-washers-0136

 

[L Vanice]

I've been buying the Craftsman rubber hose at ACE hardware (it's a big store, so maybe others won't carry it).

The Craftsman name is almost the only thing left of Sears and I do not think that name on new Chinese products adds value.

Larry

 

[Pete Deal]

I have one of those sears rubber hoses that I bought 37 years ago when I bought my first house. They were good. Craftsman now is just one of those old names that billion dollar companies buy so they can brand crap with the name and sell the junk to stupid people.

I do have a nice rubber hose that’s similar and came from Mcmaster.

 

[Rickyb]

Neighbor has the expanding hose. Two issues there. If it springs a leak it can’t be repaired. But biggest issue is water volume. Connectors have a 1/4”-3/8” diameter to get your water through. Takes forever to fill a bucket.

similar issue with aftermarket ball Valves for the hoes end. most have 1/4” valves.

 

[Ralph_P]

I also have a black Craftsman 5/8“ hose I've had for 39 years. It stays in the garage when not in use. I have a faucet just inside the door. It seems to be still in very good condition.

A few years ago I bought 3 cheap hoses at Ace to reach the lower end of my lawn. They will burst anytime they're left in the sun for more than 10 minutes.

 

[john.k]

A local place here had a better quality garden hose last year for $19.95 ..........I see its now $39.95

 

[Gordon Heaton]

. . .Craftsman now is just one of those old names that billion dollar companies buy so they can brand crap with the name and sell the junk to stupid people. . .

That blanket statement doesn't always apply. The Craftsman rubber hoses I've been buying at ACE for the last 5 years are USA made, well built with good materials, and they're holding up great in intense summer heat and sun at home, and intense UV radiation on the mountain at 7,000ft.

 

[EmGo]

^ I think you guys are masochists

btw, "wonderful heavy-duty US-made high-quality" hoses burst too. I know this because I got a lecture about leaving the valve open at age six, back when a china version of hose was a line of people passing a bucket.

$6 at Ace for the win

 

[Machinist Joe]

Water Right
These are not cheep, but hold up to the 120 PSI water pressure I have.
Made in Oregon!