Why don't they make a garden hose puncture repair kit?

[Scott Lurndal]

I think I'm quite happy with hoses that I already have, with one exception - a cheap POS that kinks when you look at it funny.

Get a quality hose, forget the gimicks.

[Ralph Mowery]

If your 401k/IRA is large, start drawing out some money while you can enjoy it. My IRA is not that large but I started taking out part of what it was making in the investings every year after I retired. I do keep some money in cash in the IRA to cover the RMD for 2 years in case the market does what it did after the Biden election. I put more in cash after the election and now the t-bills are over 5 % I put that cash in them for 3 to 6 months periods.

If you have to go to a nursing home later in life they will take all your money in a short period of time. The rates they charge are crazy high like $ 200 to $ 300 per day or more.

[Cindy Hamilton]

I expect to start drawing on it next summer. I can't quite recall what my portfolio is, but it's equities, bonds, and maybe some real estate. I have seven years to go until I start having to take the RMD at age 74. My husband has a couple of years after that.

One 9mm cartridge will do me.

[Ed P]

Used to date a girl like that.

[hubops]

There have been some advancements, in Canada, for M.A.I.D. :

John T.

[Cindy Hamilton]

I always knew you were a lucky guy.

[Ralph Mowery]

I can understand that. While I do not think it will come for me it will not be a painful way to go. Maybe the car running in the garage.

[Clare Snyder]

With a Tesla that will take a long time - unless you grab the top of the battery - - -

[micky]

The difference is that you get extra money but when you die, you don't own your house anymore. (Maybe you don't own it since you make the mortgage but you have the right to live in it until you die or choose to move.)

You are not the only one who says that the fees for reverse mortgages and iirc annuities are high, but even if they are higher than other things, the primary consideration for me, for anyone in my shoes, would have been the payout to me, not the fees they collected. If you have a portfolio of $300,000 and you're trying to live off the income, but the income is not enough so you have to keep taking from the principal, and that descrease next year's income so you have to take more, every year, eventually one will run out of money and yet he may still be alive and need money. With an annuity, you get more money paid monthly than you would from investments, and it's payable for your entire life, but you own none of the assets when you die, and why do I need assets after I die?

People with widows or children or grandchildren have a use for assets after they die, but someone with none of these does not and he has reason to want to maximize his income while alive. If the fees he pays, the profit to the insurance company is higher than with other "products" that's less important than what he gets.

And while lots of people say the fees are too high, with the market system I can't believe that is true everywhere. Either some company is selling them at a fair price, or critics misunderstand what a fair price should be.

But other than a nursing home or semi-fancy assisted living, given how little I spend I do have enough money so I'm no longer interested enough to try to decide if the fees are too high. Too many variables, hard to do, would wasted the time of salemen and my time too.

The guy who played the detective in Hawaii was advetising reverse mortgages a lot, but I don't remember seeing commericals for annuities. Of course by now I only watch MeTV and they play a limited set of commercials.

[TimR]

I don't know if this is true, but I've been told that since catalytic converters and electronic controls, the exhaust is not poisonous enough to be certain.

[Ed P]

[Clare Snyder]

- when running properly and in reasonable condition, put out VERY LITTLE Carbon Monoxide - but they DO put out Carbon DIOXIDE, and they DO burn a lot of oxygen. AN engine starved of oxygen to any degree WILL produce more Carbon Monoxide. Only a malfunctioning engine with a bad exhaust could poison the occupants out in the open. (an exhaust leak ahead of the catalytic converter can also fool the engine into running too rich or too lean - either of which will cause incomplete combustion - which is the cause of Carbon Monoxide production) AN engine with a leak anhead of the converter is NOT "running properly" by definition.

[Andrew]

Scott Lurndal wrote on Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:59:00 GMT :

Do you think the Home Depot repair kit is forged or stamped?

Yet another Home Depot garden hose repair kit broke in half today. I was watering the plants, and all of a sudden, there was no water. The two-piece metal "nipple" separated at the metal to metal junction. How can I tell if it was forged, machined or stamped together?

[Scott Lurndal]

The brass barbed coupler that I had cited, and to which you responded with the above comment was, indeed, forged.

[Andrew]

Scott Lurndal wrote on Thu, 07 Dec 2023 23:24:26 GMT :

I appreciate that you suggested a fitting that couldn't have failed that way given a single-piece fitting can't fail at a junction that isn't there.

This one failed at the junction between the female threads & the nipple.

Here's a head-on picture of the repair of the much older garden hose. It looks like it failed because it corroded, doesn't it? But from what?

My water is definitely hard. Something like 150 ppm calcium (according to the pool guy anyway).

But would that have caused the nipple to corrode like it seems to have?

Had that been a single nipple, it couldn't have failed at the junction (although it would have had two pipe clamps which make it unsmooth).

I'm slowly coming to the realization that maybe it's my hard water that is destroying all these supposedly brass hose fittings such that they fail.

The machined brass (from the original hose, which is way older than the fitting) is in better shape inside than the brass from the Orbit fitting).

How can that be?

Do you think the original nickel plating on the old garden hose machined brass ends made that much of a difference in lack of corrosion over time?