Many people would not bother to go ahead with repairing a garden hose. If they find it damaged, they will simply replace it. However, personally I find it difficult to throw away the hose, just because it's broken at one place. It's not only a waste of money, it is adding to plastic waste too. Why throw it away, when garden hose repair can be easily accomplished.
A garden hose does the important job of quenching the thirst of your dear plants. It is an important garden tool, that must repaired for leaks and breaks to save water and bring specificity to the distribution of water in the garden. You don't want water ditches everywhere on your lawn!
My grandfather is a 'do-it-yourself' kind of a guy. He repairs almost everything in the house, including the garden hose and simply gets a kick out of doing these things. If you are the kind of person who thinks like him, then this Buzzle article will give you a basic idea about how to repair a garden hose. It's fun fixing things on your own. All you need is a little bit of resourcefulness and a capacity to improvise.
Garden Hose Repair Tools
Following are the tools and supplies you will need, to get your holed-out garden hose back to its water supplying ways. You will need:
- Replacement end (male) or Plastic connectors
- Hose clamp
- Knife or anything sharp that can cut through the hose
- Screwdriver
- Cylindrical plastic medicine bottles
How to Repair A Garden Hose?
So let us get started with our repair tutorial. This job is more of a surgical operation. Let us go stepwise and see how the surgery is performed.
Step 1: Inspect the Hose for breaks and leaks
The first part of our repair job is identifying the location of leaks in the hose. Hold the hose in your hand and observe its whole length for any holes or breakages. Also, identify regions which aren't leaking yet, but are bound to crack up eventually.
If it so happens, that there are leaks abounding over whole length of the hose, then frankly its beyond repair. The surgical operation will then be too costly and therefore a transplant is a better option! That is, if there are too many holes to fix, buy a new hose.
Your need not throw away the hose. The hose with holes, can find another application as a drip irrigation tool through modifications. Think about it. It's just a suggestion.
Getting back to the discussion, if the leaks are few and localized, that is, if they are restricted to small regions, then go for the surgery.
Step 2: Amputate the Leaking Parts
Then the next step is amputation of leaking parts. You can use a knife or even a scissor to cut the hose. Cut the hose in such a way that leaks and breaks are localized and removed. Save as much of hose length as you can, by cutting it optimally.
Step 3: Attach Connectors and Put Pieces Together
The next thing to do is attach connectors that join the severed hose parts together. They are generally available in all hardware stores. You have to just clamp them on the end of a severed garden hose part and fix by tightening the screws, with a screwdriver. The other end of the connector fixes itself into the other part very easily. These connectors come in pairs with a male part and a female part or even separately. Choose whichever you like.
If you do not want to buy a connector, you can make one. Find a long enough, plastic cylindrical bottle with such a diameter that it just fits into the garden hose. Such bottles are generally available and used for medicine pills. Cut it from its closed side and you have a homemade connector ready.
Just push the cylindrical bottle, which is now a connector, between the hose parts and your job is done. Make sure that the bottle is long enough. This can be a temporary or a permanent solution if you do not want to buy a connector. If the water pressure in your hose is not very high, this homemade connector should do the trick. If the hose has been damaged at its two ends, you will need to connect it to the rest, from both sides.
Hope this humble article of mine has enlightened you about repairing a garden hose. Jobs like hose repair are simple and satisfying. Every person devoted to gardening enjoys doing these odd jobs.
