I would love to know any info you guys can give me about your hose reel experiences. Mine have all been bad. My yard is pretty big, and I have some watering to do that is quite a ways from the house, requiring an additional hose length. My hose reels always leak, causing a soppy place in the flower bed. On the other hand, it looks pretty bad to have that ragmop mess of hose always making an eyesore, not to mention the knots and kinks I get.
My DH says there is NOT a good hose reel that won't leak, and he's reluctant to put out the $ on another dud. Again, I would love to have the benefit of your experiences.
Hose Reels
I gave in to the ragmop mess myself. :(
How much trouble would it be to run a pvc line underground out to a spot that would end in a spigot you could attach your hose to that is located nearer the far away plants? Im considering doing that. Do the hose reels you buy always leak or just begin to do so after a period of use? Is it the connections that leak or the hose itself develops a hole?
Well, to answer your first question, I do have a spigot out away from the house, but it has to service 4 different areas. We have a sprinkler system, but these areas are outside that range. Two of these areas could be reached by one hose, but two require two, so I just keep this long mess of hoses on it.
It's the connections that leak beyond fixing. Of course, hoses spring leaks from time to time, but hubby is good to fix those. It's the reels that just don't last. I paid about $75 for each and thought they would really last, because I'm not rough with them. I'm not sure they lasted even two seasons.
Something I'm wondering, but haven't figured out yet. Since I really don't care if the water goes through the reel, is there some way to just use it to wind up the hose? Sometimes I think I can see how it could work, but then I lose it before I can get hubby out there to help me with it. If the hose is connected to the spigot and you leave a long length of it to get started on the reel (with reel close to spigot) and hose entering reel from the side, why couldn't you just wind the thing up? In my mind (watch out now, we're getting into dangerous territory) I see it working like when you're filling a bobbin on the sewing machine. You know, you have to hold one end of the thread until it gets started, etc. Anyway, hubby says it absolutely will not work, so it probably won't. I can't try it by myself, because there's just way too much heavy hose to deal with.
I have a hose reel mounted on the side of a brick house with 100 feet of hose on it that is at least 20 yrs old. I'll see if I can find the brand on it. Does replacing the hose washer not fix the leaks at the connection? Also Ive found that the connector can get bent (by someone stepping on it usually) and correcting that can help a connection not to leak as well.
PVC underground to new spigot, less hoses to buy, less length to fight, less apt to bust, less wear on moving parts and cheap! Add in butterfly valves for turning off water to that line and a lot less eyesore.
They are expensive, but take a look at "Rapid Reel". They have a wall mounted version, as well as a rolling version. All of the review for these say that they are built to last forever. I wanted one when I was looking for a hose reel, but it was a bit overkill for my small yard. I wish that they made a more compact version for smaller yards.
I ended up with a smaller metal rolling hose reel that I keep in the garage. I think it would rust out if I kept it outside.
This from the original Ebeneezer scrooge I use a bucket(5 gal metal) bolted to a post wit a biglag bolt fasten thru a large washer...Here is my experience with hose reels after the water is left turned on with the hose wound up on the reel they work pretty good the trouble starts when the hose is empty and wound unto the reel and the fitting at the hose end is in the off position ,and someone turns on the pressure to the reel and said pressure crushes the reel ..This is especially common with some of the flat hoses..I spent most of my working life as a maintenance mechanic and have repaired countless numbers of hose reels and we are not talking cheap home owner type reels but rather industrial quality..
That's good to know grits. Makes sense.
Thanks all. I'm discussing all your "fixes" with my hubby (except the underground PVC pipe--just way too far between watering targets).
This message was edited Jul 17, 2012 1:34 PM