Are stainless steel braided supply lines really better?

[larrymoencurly]

All the TV home repair shows recommend connecting plumbing fixtures and clothes washers through steel braided supply lines, but I noticed the hose inside those lines is just unreinforced clear vinyl.

Are there steel braided lines they really less likely to break and flood my house than regular lines made of just nylon reinforced rubber? I ended up using soft copper tubing because I wasn't sure, but copper wouldn't be practical for a dishwasher. So are there steel braided supply lines that have reinforced hoses in them?

[trader4]

I see the same thing, that various sources are recommending them. Even if the inside is a traditional type hose material, I think the steel braiding is there to prevent a sudden, catastrophic blowout.

If you prefer copper, why can't you use it for a dishwasher? It's been used for decades for that. Mine uses it. The connection is near the front, so you can hook it up after the unit is in place. Line goes underneath, no problem.

[Paul Drahn]

The only purpose of the ss braid is to keep the hose from kinking, or possible ballooning if a weak spot develops in the inner tube.

Paul

[NotMe]

[harryagain]

The braiding IS the reinforcing. Avoid like the plague, especially upstairs where a leak could be a greater catastrophy. (Usually at night when water pressure is highest) At some point they let go.

They are for mickey mouse plumbers that can't make the pipework fit.

[recyclebinned]

?Are there steel braided lines they really less likely to break and flood my house than regular lines made of just nylon reinforced rubber??

Steel or metal is always better than nylon, plastic or rubber.

?I ended up using soft copper tubing because I wasn't sure, but copper wouldn't be practical for a dishwasher.?

Soft copper tubing was all everyone used to use on dishwashers for fifty ye ars. I like to flare the ends and use flare fittings instead of compression myself. If you use soft copper for faucets you need to use a lockridge to ol if you know what that is. I stopped using soft copper though because I d on?t trust the Chinese quality control. Those water heater copper connect ors used to last longer than the water heater until they started making the m with thinner copper.

[micky]

I don't see why not. The copper can connect by removing the lower front panel, and isn't that the way a flexible hose connects anyhow?

OTOH, I wouldn't want to use copper for the clothes washer because it has to be bent everytime It's necessary to pull he washer away from the wall or put back.

The steel braid is the reinforcing.

[krw]

Exactly. The stainless braid keeps the rubber inside from developing a bulge. It might develop a leak but it won't suddenly rupture, like an aneurysm.

The last one I installed specified stainless braided hose. There was no room to get one's fingers underneath to connect anything after it was installed. Nice dishwasher (Electrolux); more vertical space than other models. Very quiet, too. We'll replace the one (contractor's crap) in this house with one, in a year or so.

[Jon Danniken]

I used a Watts brand stainless braided hose for my (incoming) water heater connection. I was very suspicious of not using a copper flex, but researching the inner core material (Santoprene from ExxonMobile) revealed that it was designed for a high lifespan in extreme (temperature, pressure, chemical resistance) environments.

Jon

[sms]

It makes people feel better to say "stainless steel" but the reality is that these hoses can and do break and flood houses. My friend recently had that happen causing thousands of dollars in damage.

What you want are flood-safe hoses.

[Congoleum Breckenridge]

I like these:

|1

[Higgs Boson]

Naive civilian wants to know WHY copper wouldn't be practical for a dishwasher

HB

So are there steel

[nestork]

I don't see any good reason why flexible 3/8 inch copper tubing wouldn't work equally well for a dish washer water supply line.

[micky]

What part of it broke? Did a strand snap and the weave come undone?

Did the stainles steel separate from the hose end and the inner hose burst ?

I don't see how either of those could happen so I'd like to hear details of what was wrong with the hose after it was over.

[micky]

Afaik no one has used the word flexible before, and on google there seems to be two main choices for that word, corrugated copper tubing shaped like an accordian, like what is used for gas lines at a stove, and soft copper tubing that is a smooth tube but can be bent by hand.

I think Higgs meant the second.

Which did you mean?

[Norminn]

Steel is all that I would think of using....one experience with a flood was enough. Fortunately, we were home when the washer hose let go, and two rooms were flooded before we could stop the water. Complicated by water shooting all over the wall behind the washer, I couldn't reach back to shut off the water there because it was also hitting the elec. plug for the dryer....didn't want to stand in water and touch either machine. Even with the water shut off at the main entry, in our condo it took a while for the pipes to drain. Since we had just finished remodeling the kitchen and put a brand new oriental rug in the D.R., the next quest was for a big vacuum. With my hysteria, hubby was only too happy to rush out and rent a super vac with a squeegee that slurped the floor dry. No damage done.

[micky]

That makes a lot of sense.

Norminn, for all your hysteria, you have to be the only woman in 10 miles who would say after that that there was no damage done.

A lot of people would think they need a new dining room table and all kinds of other things.

[trader4]

I've never seen a corrugated copper tubing used for connecting a stove. In fact, I've never seen corrugated copper tubing period. The concept would seem to be pointless, as regular copper tubing is flexible. And if you corrugated copper tubing to make it more flexible, it would seem to me it would be halfway to failure before you started to use it. The corrugated gas pipes I have seen have been stainless steel tubing. And the copper tubing I've seen used in the past with any gas equipment has been the regular type.

I think so too. And that is commonly used to connect dishwashers.

[micky]

Free high resolution close up photo of a small section of flexible copper pipe or tubing. This particular pipe is corrugated or grooved. Free picture for any use.

I wanted to know if Nestork meant something different by adding the word flexible, when others had used "soft".

[knuckle-dragger]

Rather expensive I would think and not really necessary to deal with this inlet water problem.

In all cases where the on-off function is controlled electronically, and not just based on how full the appliance is (like a water heater is), there's a much easier solution: Put the control valve, usually solenoid operated, outside the appliance where it can be plumbed into the household piping. Now there would be no flexible line under pressure except when the appliance is actually filling so bursting would be much less likely.

One wonders why the appliance manufacturers haven't implemented such a solution or at least made it an option. Maybe they all own flexible line tubing companies? Or the contractors who make money out of the repair work threaten a boycott?