Yet another Home Depot garden hose repair kit broken in half today.
Anyway, I'm going to order about a half dozen or more of the ones suggested, but I'm going to have to make sure they're one piece each.
Kismet? Karma?
micky wrote on Thu, 07 Dec 2023 20:15:50 -0500 :
You may be right that it's my destiny to find all the garden hose repair fittings that are available (Home Depot & Harbor Freight at least) which don't last more than a year or two in normal use outside in good weather.
The problem is that's the female end, which has to spin so it's fragile. As far as I can tell, since it has to spin, it has to be in two parts.
But that crimp blew out and it's not worth it re-crimping it manually. I'll just go to Home Depot and get another (and trade it back to them).
One would hope that if everyone did that, the company that makes them (in this case, that's Orbit), would get a hint that they're selling $6 garbage.
And what did they tell you when you talked to them about this defect?
Bob F wrote on Thu, 7 Dec 2023 18:55:13 -0800 :
I'm not sure what your point is in that I suspect there's no way to talk to them about this defect, but what I'll do is take your hint & run with it.
Part #: 56648 Professional 5/8 - 3/4-in. Metal Female Hose Mender
I suspect they'll say "tough luck - it's your fault for buying it". But let's see.
Since you're open to stealing, why go to the trouble of pretending to return something? Just go get your new item off the shelf and walk out.
I probably sound grumpy, but it's only because I'm not in favor of retail theft in any of its forms. Carry on.
I don't know if brass woulld last longer than other metals. If brass would last 30 years and other metal would only last 10 years, but if you just bought it and it broke, I'd take the parts back to HD and they will give you another for free. Easy Peasy.
The time you spent repairing it the first time will be lost but that's the deal.
When I needed a new water heater, I went to Sears and bought one and put it on the trunk and back seat of my convertible and took it home. When I opened the box, the inlet pipe and maybe the outlet were bent, not vertical, probably from something stacked on top of it. They would have given me a new one but since I picked it up myself, I would have had to return it myself. Another day or two without hot water. So I kept it. It was a little harder to connect since I used non-flexible copper tubing, but so far, 3 maybe 5 years, no problems. This is only to illustrate that though they would have given me another one for free, my efforts at that point would have been wasted, like yours were. That's the deal.
Well you can't very well do that since your old one is in two pieces.
I missed this all the lines above and my previous post was not responding to them. All you have to do is show Home Depot the broken one, or even a picture if you've thrown the broken one away, and they'll give you a new one. It would help to have the receipt but they can also tell when you bought it if you charged it, and even if you paid cash and have no receipt, they will almost surely believe you.
HD will return the broken one to Orbit if that is the policy between the two of them. Probably, when you return it and they check Defective on the computer, they get a credit from Orbit from that alone and they just throw away the defective one. Especially if Orbit is an HD house brand.
I would suggest that one gets what one pays for. A $6 repair kit is not likely to be the highest quality. A machined brass repair part would cost closer to 2 or 3 times that, at least.
If HD is selling it for $6.00, they probably get them from Orbit for $2 or $3 dollars. It would cost more than a replacement to ship back to Orbit.
Orbit surely is aware of the quality of the merchandise they're importing from overseas.
Scott Lurndal wrote on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:33:29 GMT :
You know what's funny about that - I would have said the same thing - except Orbit sells for 20% less than Home Depot sells it for. So Home Depot is probably getting it for a buck or less in bulk.
The great thing about this thread is I've learned a lot from all you guys. Thank you for being helpful as I'm trying to solve this materials problem.
Guessing won't work because I would have guessed that you could put those Home Depot Orbit brass-colored zinc fittings on any garden hose.
But you can't. They're only made for city water.
I would have guessed exactly what Scott Lurndal thought, but it turns out that the sales price of these fittings is 20% cheaper at Orbit than at Home Depot (usually I would have thought pricing would be the other way around).
They're $6 each at Home Depot. Orbit 5/8 in. - 3/4 in. Zinc Female Hose Mender
When I called Orbit this morning on the helpful recommendation of Bob F, they called me back within a half hour and they told me the zinc won't work on people who use well water. They said it only works for city water hoses.
Who knew? Not me.
So it's not really the quality that is the problem here but the materials.
I am wondering though why most of my hoses have nickel plating on the machined brass fittings - why would they need nickel on top of the brass?
Jim Joyce wrote on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:29:37 -0600 :
There are multiple ways to do it, all of which work, none of which amount to stealing - no matter how you twist your corrupted morals to say it is.
Home Depot will always replace it without the receipt (no questions asked, as Micky said, as long as I bring in the broken part - which isn't abused) especially as I use credit cards for everything I buy so they have the CC receipt on file if it goes back long enough (I buy so many of these, maybe a handful every year, I don't remember when _this_ exact one was bought).
Also thanks to Bob F, I called Orbit (see my other post to the helpful poster Mr. Lurndal) who will also replace it for free, no questions asked, so it's not like they don't know what happens to their zinc fittings (they're not brass, they're cheap zinc - see my other post to Scott).
The zinc is why they corroded in only a year or two with my hard water. The warranty period is 6 years (thanks to Bob asking me to call Orbit).
Orbit said they would send me any one of those, free, to replace it.
$8.00 Part #: 56803N Ultimate 5/8-in. Brass Repair Hose Menders (center + female)
Orbit has to fund it's retail operations from their price. Home Depot amortizes the cost of their retail operations over their entire inventory.
To prevent the brass from tarnishing. Some use lacquer instead of zinc.
They're pot metal.
Scott Lurndal wrote on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:31:12 GMT :
OK. Problem solved. Thanks to Scott & Bob F & a few helpful others.
Orbit is a better company than I would have thought they would be.
I called their support people twice to ask them all the questions I had asked of you and they were very helpful just like most of you were too.
I learned a lot.
Their $5 hose menders are actually zinc which is plated to look like brass. The zinc *always* corrodes within a couple of years with my hard water. Every single zinc fitting (plated to look like brass) *will fail* by then.
They told me the zinc fittings are only for soft city water garden hoses. Not hard well water garden hoses.
So that clears up one mystery. Nothing of theirs that Home Depot sells, they said, will work with wells.
But I can pick anything they have out of their list and they'll rebate the price (although their price is 20% cheaper than what I really paid at HD).
The only mystery left is why do they nickel plate some of my solid machined brass garden hose ends. Brass shouldn't corrode with the hard well water.
There's a big city near to me, that is known for its bad water - while nearby cities are OK ; I can't speak to the longevity of garden hoses but the water heaters there do not last very long. Rural well water can vary from poor to excellent within a given county, so it's not really wise to generalize about well water. I don't wear out garden hoses - I think my oldest one is from my second house - mid 1990's.. granted, it's my back-up 3rd hose. My very least favourite - looked like Andrews - 3/4 inch grey heavy duty from Costco 75 ft. < ? > - it was a h e a v y brute and we didn't really need a 3/4 hose - I gave it away. Good riddance. John T.
Scott Lurndal wrote on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 21:13:41 GMT :
I was surprised the EXACT Orbit menders are 20% less expensive than HD.
Normally when I go to a store I find the parts are less expensive than if I go to the maker who makes the part (who doesn't sell much to the public).
In this case, I suspect the typical buyer who goes to Home Depot is a less sophisticated (less knowledgeable) buyer than the one who goes to Orbit.
That less-sophisticated buyer, by the way, used to be me. At least until I opened these two threads asking how to find good menders.
I think perhaps the best mender is this one which, strangely enough, doubles as "either" a center connect or oddly, as a female end only.
$8.00 #56803N Ultimate 5/8-in. Brass Repair Hose Menders (center + female)
This is similar but it doesn't do the double-duty of being a female. It too has a strange secret way that it seems to attach to the garden hose.
$7.00 Part #: 58372N Heavy-Duty Brass Hose Mender (center only)
Thanks for that interesting information about preventing tarnish. What I care about is corrosion making the metal break - but not tarnish.
When I buy a new $50 rubber 50-foot hose, I only get the machined brass ends, but if it also comes with the tarnish-protector, that's OK with me.
BTW, if you know of a good hose for less than $1/foot, please let me know.
snipped-for-privacy@ccanoemail.com wrote on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 17:15:27 -0500 :
I understand you but I'm just saying what the Orbit customer support told me when I asked why the zinc hose mender corroded without being abused.
Mostly, for me, they puncture and the ends begin leaking, usually it's the female end that is attached to the spigot (due to the localized bending).
But a few develop puncture wounds, where the Orbit solutions are these.
$8.00 #56803N Ultimate 5/8-in. Brass Repair Hose Menders (center + female)
Yes! That gray hose is definitely a "lifetime" hose from Costco! I think I bought 3 or 4 of them, and I think they were 75' or 100'. They have multiplied since then to about a half dozen shorter ones.
You can see one of those shorter ones in the background of this image.
But you are completely correct that gray hose is from Costco years ago.
They're OK but they're definitely not "lifetime", but who is going to bring them back to Costco to tell them that to get their fifty dollars back?
The reason they were sold as "non kinking" is, I believe, if you look inside, they have a white liner which has a pretty big rib down it.
That rib is a pain. It has to be pulled off in order to fit in the mender barbs.
No other hose that I have repaired except those gray "lifetime" Costco hoses have that internal long rib which gets in the way of the repairs.
Did that include shppipng?
I looked at the page but iddn't stop to figure that out.
When HD doesn't stock something, they often have free shipping either to the store (which makes sense) or straight to me. But it definitely doesn't charge extra for shipping when you buy in the store, and orbit might charge.
BTW, I didn't realize that well water could be so caustic (or acidic or whatever) but for me that would be a reason to buy plastic connectors etc.
I still dont' believe that when the right size is bought, they don't fit and last.
Perhaps when the water is on but the nozzle at the end is closed, a hose will come off. For a hose that is outside, I would assume it's not going to happen until it did once, and after that, I would put it back together and from then on, not turn the faucet off before turning the nozzle/fertilizer-weedcontrol sprayer off.
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