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- Verified Buyer
The home gardening supply industry has a problem. That problem is they make junk. And not just junk, but China junk.Under the pressures created by Walmart et. al (see The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy ), the entire industry has devolved into a junk-making maybe-it-will-last-one-season (and maybe it won't ...) spew-hole from whence issues 60 dollar timers that quit working after a month, hoses that spontaneously leak at both ends of their connectors after 3 months, hoses labeled "no kink ever!" (you know who I'm talking about) that kink and tangle just like any other hose, two and four way water splitters whose plastic literally crumbles off the spigot it's attached to mid-season, and of course sprinklers made of the cheapest, least durable plastic money can buy and which are good for, at most, one season, unless, of course, they're labeled "all metal !!!" in which case there's still plastic at the crucial connections, and this is what breaks- before the season is over.Just read the reviews here on Amazon for timers, for splitters, for sprinklers and you'll see why I've forbidden anyone from buying anything from Gilmore et. al. ever again. I've bought 3 three items for every one I sought to own, and they're laying around the house, just as they are probably laying around your house, broken and functionless after living the life of Reilly just laying outside motionless for a month or two, as they're allegedly designed to do.So one day, as I went to fix another yet another leaking hose by cutting it and reconnecting it with a repair coupler, I discovered that this hose maker had really gone the extra mile and inserted a ridge inside the entire length of hose which prevented a repair coupling from being able to form a tight seal at the repair coupling join point.This was clever, no? Guess I just have to go buy my fourth 100 foot hose! Honey, have you seen my wallet?This.. THIS my fellow Americans, is the world even the most unpretentious and ordinary home owners, the people with the the least yard-ambition possible find themselves thrust into when they go to the local big box store to buy the simplest of items to maintain their lawns and stay in the good graces of their neighbors.Rather than continue to reward my local big box junk supplier who has successfully fleeced me for upwards of 500 dollars by now, I thought "why not look elsewhere?" and that's how I found this hose.To start with the conclusion, this is the ONLY hose I'll ever buy again.It doesn't kink. No, I mean it REALLY doesn't kink. The couplings are big, solid brass and their threads grasped the house's old spigot and went on smoothly and easily and when I turned the water.... not one drop even FORMED around the coupling, much less start to drip drip drip (or worse) against the house.I have a collection of washers and silicon tape I have been using to stop my spigots from leaking where it connects to the hose because I assumed my the 60 year old threads of my house's spigots were getting worn out. How wrong I was. 60 years ago, things were built to last. What was broken was the new stuff.So this hose. The first thing you notice is it's quite lively, meaning it's a little as if it's a spring. It's not that you can't coil it up easily (actually it forms coils more easily than ordinary ones because it's the kinks and "twists" in hoses that prevent them from coiling up nicely) but that it's not going to let itself form a 90 degree bend, no matter what. The picture you see of the person holding it in one hand bent over against itself with the water coming out is true to life. It will never, ever kink.I also get the idea that it will not wear out either. Hoses either start leaking from the connections or they split. I really can't see this one doing either because it feels and looks to be very very well manufacture; brass couplings deep threads and an excellent overall fit and finish if a hose can be said to have such a thing.So now the cost. A buck a foot is what I paid. That's perhaps three times as much as other hoses I could buy. Here's how I think about this. It didn't really cost me a buck a foot. It cost me 4 bucks a foot because I bought all those other hoses season after season before this one came to my attention. Then there were all the trips to the store, at the most inconvenient times, in growing frustration, and hooking it all up again, then trying to be frugal and buying alleged hose repair kits the hose manufacturers had, it turns out, steeled themselves against quite effectively.Who wants to play that game? Who wants the hassles of wrestling another PVC hose into a big black garbage bag so the sanitation workers will take it? Of spending the money and feeling like you've been taken AGAIN despite your best efforts to buy a quality product? Of having to explain why you need ANOTHER hose to your significant other. Then adding it up in a year or two and realizing how much money you've spent on China junk.Trust me. Buy this hose. A buck a foot, OK , but just one time. It costs something to make good things in the US and either we'll pay that cost or we'll live in China junk land, with the follow on costs.Compared to that, this hose is a money saving invention. It's a frustration saving invention. It's a self esteem saving invention. It's a face saving invention. It's a time saving invention. The other ones - and I am pretty sure I've owned even the "good ones" from your local big box store- are all terrible products created by companies who are going to sell their assets and disappear from the world as soon as their bad reputation starts to hurt them, only to have their "assets" resurface under a new name and with new branding on the same store shelves. It's a racket. Don't get caught by it. Buy this hose and it will be one of those things you're glad you bought back then; you'll look at this hose and think "money well spent" and you'll be right.
