5 Things to Know Before Buying a Garden Pipe

Garden Pipe is an essential part of your homes. You may not be doing gardening still garden pipe is needed for many tasks like car washing, home cleaning, cooler filling etc. It’s thus necessary that a garden pipe should be of the best quality.

There are a whole lot of garden pipes available in the market. Variety of colours, variety of sizes, lengths, variety of materials. It sometimes becomes challenging to find the right garden pipe for your desired purpose.

Here we present the 5 points that will help you in buying the right garden pipe. With the proper garden pipe, we mean that you will enjoy using it and will be proud of having bought it.

Let’s dive in.

WHAT IS THE INTENDED USE

The very first thing is to be clear about the intended use of the garden hose.

Are you going to use it for gardening or construction activity in your home? It can be either of the two, or it can be both. A good quality garden hose is useful for both purposes. The main reason to be clear about the intended use is that it will allow you to pick the right size and right quality of garden hose.

Secondly, if you are going to use some attachments with your garden hose, then selection of the right garden hose makes a big difference. Because use of certain accessories exerts pressure on the garden hose. If your garden hose is light duty or medium duty, then you might end up wasting money.

Overall, your first step in the right direction will save you lots of time, money and protection from mental anxiety.

WHAT IS THE SIZE REQUIREMENT

Many times buyers make a wrong choice here. Bigger is not always better. If you are buying for home and gardening then mostly it is the half-inch size that is required. If your lawn/ garden has a bigger water outlet, then you should go for a larger size. While doing so, do double-check with your plumber for compatibility issues.

For a bigger water output, bigger sizes certainly carry more volumes of water. At the same time, they have more bulk to them. Handling a 0.75” garden hose is more cumbersome than a 0.50” garden hose. If your water tap output is of 0.5” then using a 0.75” garden hose will not be useful.

Using a small size hose on bigger size water source is also not advised. It exposes the garden hose to unnecessary pressure and causes the flexible garden hose to burst.

Therefore understanding the right size of your garden hose is very important. It ensures a smooth gardening experience and value for your money.

THE MATERIAL OF THE GARDEN HOSE

These days the garden pipes are available primarily in PVC plastic. Initially, garden hoses were manufactured using natural rubber. But the processing of rubber and consequently the manufacturing of the rubber hoses are costly. Also, the rubber hoses were bulky, hard to maintain and move around.

With the advent of lightweight, cheap and colourful PVC garden pipes, the rubber hoses went into oblivion. The PVC garden pipes fast replaced the rubber hoses. Today there are a very few rubber garden hose manufacturers but owing to huge cost; the rubber hose finds it’s use in specific areas only.

A few years earlier, expandable hoses entered into the market. These hoses are extraordinarily compact and have captured the markets in western countries. The expandable hose is made of latex and as the name suggests, it expands and contracts on being subjected to water pressure. In India, these hoses have not been successful because of the low water pressure in our taps and also the usage pattern in India is different. So, explore more deeply before going in for an expandable hose.

Thus, the PVC garden hoses are overall the best option to choose from and provide the most value for money.

QUALITY OF THE GARDEN HOSE

Now that you know your requirement, the specification of hose and material to be purchased, it’s time to dig deep in the quality aspect.

It’s challenging to judge the real quality of the garden hose. For a common man, virgin plastic and recycled plastic are almost the same. And quite obviously they look the same also. The difference lies beneath the surface.

The overall quality aspect of garden pipe can be a lengthy topic. You can read our blog on quality for more details. In short, the quality of the garden hose depends on the following factors

1. Weight of the garden hose – Underweight garden hose is highly prone to kinks and curls. Avoid them

2. Proper Inner Diameter of the garden hose – If ID of a garden hose is too narrow or too wide use of the garden hose with taps and accessories becomes a botheration.

3. Purity of the raw materials used – Service Life of the garden hose depends highly on the materials used. Even the best maintenance activity cannot save a garden hose that is not built for quality.

4. Softness/ Hardeness of the garden hose – Oiliness in summers and breakage in winters are the natural consequences if the garden hose is not having optimum strength to it.

5. Transparency/opacity of the garden hose – Growth of algae can be controlled if you use an opaque garden hose. But opaque garden hose has more scope for filler and low-quality raw material uses. So be careful.

6. Read Customer Reviews – What others have found about the garden hose can be immensely helpful in making your mind to buy or not to buy. These may not always be accurate and at times can be highly subjective, but these are certainly one of the best ways to learn the on-field performance of the garden hose.

PRICE IN LAST

After having checked the quality aspect, now is the time for negotiating the price. If you have found the right product then paying for the demanded price is not at all a wrong move. Simply because pure milk cannot compete with the price of water added milk. It shall always be costly.

The basic thumb rule is - Don’t discuss the last price; Discuss the price in last.

Similarly, don’t get lured by the freebies that come along. The attention of the freebies is sometimes to divert your attention. If the freebies are complimenting the usage of your original product, you should certainly go for them.

These five tips will always stand you in good stead. Your next garden hose purchase shall certainly be a great one.

Here is an additional Sixth Tip that will add 100% value to your original purchase.

ADDITIONAL TIP – THE MOST BENEFICIAL ONE

Some of the best quality PVC garden hoses in India are made of chemicals that are restricted for use. The use of these chemicals is in practice to lower the cost of manufacturing the pipes. These include phthalates that are used as plasticizers. Chlorinated Paraffins that are abundantly used these days are also proposed to be restricted under the upcoming edition of RoHS.

RoHS is the directive that restricts the use of specific Hazardous materials. The restriction is due to the reason that these restricted materials are hazardous to the environment and pollute landfills, and are dangerous in terms of occupational exposure during manufacturing and recycling.

We must take into account these reasons while deciding to buy a cheap quality garden hose.

Garud PREMIUM Garden Hose is one garden pipe that is not only RoHS complaint in current form but also for future RoHS requirements. It is

100% PHTHALATE FREE and

100% CHLORINATED PARAFFIN FREE Garden Hose.

Adding to that Garud PREMIUM Garden pipe ensures to the maximum extent that your Garden Hose will not be a pollutant. It will last longer and would give you the service life equivalent to three regular quality garden hoses.