A leaky or damaged garden hose is a hassle. And hose clamps and fittings are expensive. When it comes to garden hoses, preventing problems is easier than fixing them.
Try and buy a quality hose in the first place. I like beefy brass couplings that can take life outside and the abuse of being dropped on the driveway. Here are some other tips:
Don’t drive on it. I know sometimes it is easier to leave the hose at the place you just watered instead of coiling it up and dragging it back across the yard. Don’t do it. While a few passes over a hose stretched out over the driveway won’t typically blow it out, it will weaken it. Turning the car wheel with the hose underneath it, on the other hand, will really do major damage.
- Turn the hose off at the spigot when not in use. Sure, clamping the water off at the nozzle is okay, but doing it all the time, all season long is not. Leaving water in the hose will shorten the hose’s life because its walls remain under constant pressure (add driving on it full of water and you’ve got a double whammy.) Remember, it’s a hose not a pipe.
- This one seems obvious, but I’ve got to mention it, don’t risk mowing over it—even if you think it’s lying flat beneath the mower blades, it might not be. Misjudge that runway and, well, whirring steel beats rubber every time.
Mark & Theresa Clement host MyFixItUpLife and are HGTVPro’s home and how-to aces.