Quote:
Originally Posted by islandboy54
I have not tried an expandable hose and I have a question for those that use them for their RV water. They advertise that the hose will expand under water pressure. When you connect an RV, the hose is not under pressure so will it expand in length to make the connections? About how far will a 25’ hose expand in length without applying hose pressure? Thanks in advance!
|
That is an excellent question.
I have a low-quality 50' pocket hose I got several years ago at Walgreens on clearance, and it's neon green. I had two, and one got a pinhole leak early on, but the other hasn't leaked yet. As best I can tell, it's a 1/2" hose--certainly not 5/8".
When I lay it out with no water pressure, it's about half its stated length. When I turn on the water, it expands to its stated length, by making its own back-and-forth S-curve pattern, while the start point and end point stay the same. I can then pull it to straighten out the S-curves.
I noticed that it comes with a connector at the end that has a shut-off, which I now presume is there so it can be under pressure when you first hook it up, because it needs to be under pressure to be a 50-foot hose.
I also now have a 50' Zero G, and it acts differently. It is pretty much its stated length even with no water pressure. When I turn on the water, it expands in girth but not much in length, if at all.
It is a 5/8" hose (the one that Lowe's carries), and is therefore "bigger" than the neon green one. The neon green one balls up into almost nothing when empty, while the Zero G takes up a pretty good amount of room--probably not that much less than my 1/2" regular hose if I coil the Zero G up like a regular hose, which I do because it can become tangled if you just ball it up. But it's a lot lighter than regular hoses, even though it's got a bigger diameter than my regular hoses.
So the answer could be that it depends on which hose you have, if they're still making the ones like the neon green one I have. But if it's a Zero G, it doesn't get much longer (if at all) when under pressure. Which is actually something I don't like about it, because it means it's a lot bigger in its resting state, but it seems much burlier and better made than my neon green one, and it's still a little smaller and a lot lighter than my regular hose.
If you can find one of these hoses in a industrial supplier of hoses they are the cats meow. Drain and roll up. Take up less space and very durable. I never had issues with this hose. You can stand on them. They are very hardy that is why forest fire fighters use them in the bush to put out fires. Better than the expandable hoses that as soon as you put water in them they expand not as rugged and holds water in them after use. if you store these collapsible hoses for any length of time yes you will get mold and who know what else in them. Where as these hoses as shown drain them roll them up you have no worries what so ever and very little space to store them. I hope this helps any one out there. 
Linear Mode
