Leaky Hoses: Ideas to fix them?

Ok, so I have been plagued by leaky hoses ever since I started homesteading. I know the point is to not have to water, or water as little as possible, but regardless we all need some hoses for day to day operation of our farmsteads, and subsequently we all need those hoses to work when we need them.

I salvage my hoses from trash cans every spring, and until now I have bought replacement fittings that are usually held on with pipe clamps or similar. The problem is I have found about 3-4 styles sold in many different stores and all of them are complete junk.

So… Here’s a couple ideas I am going to start implementing this year. But maybe if one of you has a much better idea I won’t have too!

1. I was thinking of using plumbing fittings, the nice Pex connections/clamps.
2. Or just assuming the fetal position among my Holy Basil and crying.

So I need ideas people!! I am sure there are several of you out there hoarding your awesome garden hose discoveries…

Thank you.

Using plumbing fixtures should work, in a pinch, but eventually they'll leak, or the clamps will rust off.
If your going that route, you'd be better off replacing what you need to with the actual pex or poly pipes, unless you actually need the pipes to be bendable.
A coil of 1in black poly pipe is weather resistance and generally not brittle, it's about 25$ for 100ft, and my grandfather once networked an entire fishers island to all the houses with the hose for running water. It's still there and running, some 20 years later, with very few repairs necessary. And this is technically zone 4ish, Newfoundland winters and freezing temperatures, on an island that no one stays between October and whenever the ice breaks up, sometimes March or April. They ran at least 2 km of the pipe to everyone's houses(at least 20).
You can even see similar piping rigged up on that NatGeo show, Port Protection.

Alice, thanks again for another good post.

I have about 80 ft of 3/4 inch pex. In a roll. But I need about 100 ft minimum of flexible garden hose for watering seedlings. Once plants are established I do not need to water the rest of the year. And its on that flexible garden hose that I just need male/female adapters that will actually last more than a month before leaking. I already have plenty of rubber garden hose. Its just not the same diameter as the pex piping.

If your garden hose is a bigger diameter than your pex, it'll still work, but it'll reduce the pressure on the line.
If your garden hose is a smaller diameter than your pex, it will increase the pressure on the line.

As for joining hoses together, yeah, don't bother with garden hose connectors, just cut them off and go with something else in brass.
To permently join two pieces of hose, what your looking for is a barbed connector(I recommend brass), and you generally find them in the irrigation, water heater, air compressor or even the pond supplies sections in hardware stores. They just slip inside, you might have to warm up the ends of the hose in hot/boiling water to get them to fit, then clamp them (brass if you can find it).
To temporary join two pieces of hose together, your should replace the hose ends with a brass piece(ie 1in barbed x 1in male/female), then use a compression fitting to join them together.

Take a walk thru the air compressor parts and you'll see a multitude of brass coupling connectors that would work in a pinch for a water hose. My dad used to do that before he sucked up and just bought a longer hose. The connectors meant for air compressor hose's handle a lot more pressure than what you'd ever find in a water hose, and meant to be banged and run over in a shop enviroment, so theoretically, they're built to higher specs.

Because the connections are used for different types of applications, they can have different names for the exact same pieces, if you just try to google or online search thru a hardware description it's nearly impossible to find, because of course nothing's fully detailed correctly because only people who need these parts would know exactly what they're looking for anyways.

That being said, using an air compressor hose instead of a garden hose will work in a pinch too, and sometimes they're cheaper if you find them in the right hardware store. They also come autocoiled, and they're more flexible than a water hose.
If you look carefully at some greenhouse's, those with overhead water lines that hang down and coil that are bright blue, that people just reach up grab and let go? Those are air compressor hoses'. I can't find a picture of them off hand, but that's what they are. I know my local 'garden centers' are all setup with a system like that(Canadian Tire, Walmart, ie).

Thats interesting about the air compressor parts and hoses. I will def look for some. But do they make male and female ends with the same threading as garden hose in air compressor parts? Maybe theres a special order attachment for blowing out water lines or something.

There's all sorts of different sizes for compressor hoses, but the connector ends, male/female are pretty much the same size with universal adaptors. I've seen them with male and female brass threadings, and I've seen someone using them with a garden hose sprayer screwed onto it.
The way the garden centers had them rigged up was that they connected a water hose to a piping frame above head, and at points, it t'd off to a valve connected to compressor hose. One of the garden center's before they moved buildings was the size of a 5 bay wide commercial garage bay. I'm fairly sure our 'big box' hardware store, Kents, has the same sort of setup for their greenhouse like thing that they run their garden center in. Our local u-car-wash uses the same sort of system too, now that I think about it.

I know for a fact there are 4 thread styles that are all very similar to the garden hose and only 1 actually seats tight on the garden hose. Im going to look for tje part that sprinkler companies bjy to winterie sprinkler systems.

Whatever you do, get one of these:

http://clamptool.com/

It'll add a tremendous degree of versatility to your homestead's toolbox, and it'll pay for itself in, like, 20 hose clamps (faster in big ones).

I really like mine.

I too scrounge hoses whenever I see them, and am determined to get the most life possible out of them. For semi-permanent lines that don't have to move very often, I agree with the poster who mentioned black poly tubing. It's often sold for irrigation with emitters, pretty cheap compared to new garden hose, durable in the weather and freeze resistant (as it can bloat a bit, like hose) compared to rigid pipe like PVC.
For small pinholes, i go with strips of bike inner tube, wrapped around and around....do it with the water on so you can tell when you've got the leak. Don't get it too tight so as to compress or crimp the hose. Tuck the end under the last loop to finish. These inner tube strips work much better on smooth hose or on pipe rather than grooved hose. Finish with a wrap of duct tape to keep the sun off the rubber, or it will fall apart fast. I have fixed all kinds of leaks with inner tube strips....even propane and high-pressure steam, and the repairs have lasted for years.
For splices I just use a small piece of rigid pipe about 4 inches long....plastic, PEX, copper, whatever is around, that fits snug inside the cut ends of the hose.....dip these in boiling water if the fit is too tight. I clamp them in place with ties made of twisted wire tightened with a nail or screwdriver in the loop....I learned about these years ago at a bamboo workshop and hardly ever need hose clamps any more! But they are a bit hard to describe how to do.....maybe one day I'll get ambitious and make a video!
Drip irrigation "tape" is the most challenging for me.....and I know it's supposed to be temporary, and many farmers simply replace it every year, an idea which I refuse to go along with! But its thin and flimsy and uneven because of the emitter section, and rodents love to chew into it to get at the water. A big hole simply has to be cut and spliced, but I've had some luck with small holes with a small square of black electric tape, directly over the hole, followed by a wrapped strip of the same kind of tape, carefully pressed around the emitter strip, followed by a cover of duct tape. It's an imperfect solution that often drips, but then again the whole hose is supposed to drip so it usually works out....

Great stuff Alder, that will def help me out.

Mike, looks like an awesome tool, though I could save $70 and do Alders idea of the wire and nail. I am sure it would be easier but I just do not want to spend the money at the moment lol.

Thank you guys.

We're lucky to have a flea market next door and buy used hoses in great shape, cheap. Also the folks selling cheap stuff from China have cheap hose mending fittings. We've always used poly pipe (black flexible stuff) for long runs. It lasts forever and there are goof plugs, couplings, several sizes (and fittings), and easy plug-in emitters for all types of watering. We even reuse the SS clamps, by inserting a small screwdriver in the raised section of the clamp and spreading them open. I'd recommend buying the clamping tool, makes it easier to reuse them. Of course, small nail pulling pliers work. You can even buy different size whole punches that can made a hole large enough to use the insert fitting for commercial irrigation tape (this can be reused over and over again). The large farms in our area throw away a lot of this stuff new that we get for free because they want to make long runs when installing it. Like the poly pipe, there are all kinds of reusable fittings, valves, etc.. We also reuse PVC glued fittings by cutting a slit in the pipe inside the fitting and using a small screwdriver to pry out the pipe. We'll put a temporary clamp on the fitting to prevent it from breaking. It's easy to do this with the thin-walled PVC and using just glue without primer; but if you're careful you can reuse any kind of broken fitting.  I know this post was about hoses and sorry I got carried away. We do use hoses here for getting transplants established, plus many other applications, but I feel that new permies expect too much out of hoses.  Wish I had the time to post a video!