My parents are still using the same four garden hoses they bought back in ’60s. Unlike their daughter, my parents really know how to extend the life of their garden tools.
I’m quite a bit more careless then they are. I fold over the ends of the hoses when switching out sprinkler heads, drag them across the street where they can be run over by cars, coil them up on sawbucks, and leave them outside all winter long where they’ll freeze.
It should come as no surprise then, that at our place, garden hoses last less than a couple of years before ending up in the trash can.
Extending the LifeFor those of us with old upright vacuum cleaners, we learned from our mothers that the way to prevent wear and tear on the cord was to wrap it with a figure eight from handle to base.
When coiling up a garden hose, using the same type of figure eight wrap will prevent the tube from permanently developing a kink to the left or the right. Over time, kinks in the line eventually turn into holes.
Kinks aren’t only caused by improper coiling, but also by folding the lines in half when changing out sprinkler heads. Since I water from a central well, this lazy way of kinking the end saves me multiple trips when I need to irrigate.
Unfortunately, over time that fold will eventually split and then must be repaired. Avoid the temptation to kink the tubing at the end, and always turn the water on or off by using the faucet.
If watering from a central well, consider investing in a few quick change adapters to save endless trips back and forth across the yard. Adapters easily attach to nozzle ends and sprinkler heads, and pop apart when it’s time to change sprinklers.
They also have a baffle inside of them that shut off
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