 |
Roots & Shoots Garden Hose
by ryeb
I originally bought the Roots & Shoots 3 layer garden hose to extend an existing hosepipe, using a hose to hose connector. I had had to shorten my old one when it developed a crack [thanks to a friend with a mattock!] and I had to cut the damaged piece out. In the end, a change to how I irrigate my allotment and the repositioning of ... a tap meant I could use it on it's own. As I was only looking to use a short length initially, I had looked around for a cheap hose. I settled on the Roots & Shoots brand because it was available on Amazon for £9.49 for 20m which was an ample length for my needs. Other lengths are of course also available, starting at 15m.
PRODUCT FEATURES
I looked at a lot of hose both off and online and just about every one was described as kink resistant and heavy duty, despite varying widely in price. I asked the advice of both my dad who is a gardener and the boss of the garden that I work in and they both suggested that I should opt for a hose that was thick walled as this would generally lead to a stronger and more crush/kink resistant product. So I choose the Roots & Shoots brand over other similar priced offerings because it was described as 3 layer, as well as ultra strong and crush resistant. It also came with a set of 4 fittings- a 3/4 threaded tap connector, female hose end connector, a waterstop connecter and a nozzle.
SETTING IT UP
The hose came coiled in a simple card and cellophane outer wrapping with the 4 connectors nestled in the middle. The packaging displayed is slightly different to what I recieved. The main thing to do to get it started was to cut off the very tip of each end of the pipe, which are pinched flat as they come off the production line and are cut into lengths. A sharp knife did this with ease, but you do have to be careful to make a straight and clean cut or threading on the connectors will be tricky. There was pictorial instructions to show you which connecter goes where - they are just the same as those of any other hose so if you have attached them before you will know the drill. They slotted on easier than some I have out together though!
DOES IT'S JOB?
The hose does not feel a heavy as some reinforced ones do, which would be an advantage to those who struggle with them. That isn't to say that it feels less robust though. It is the sort of hose you can step on without cracking it or causing a total cessation of water. I do think it lives up to it's crush resistant advertising because of that. It is not entirely kink proof however. It doesn't twist and turn itself into knots every few seconds, but you can expect the odd kink. For the price I paid though, I think it performs rather well in this score, as it does better than my other considerably more expensive pipe! My ground is naturally rather stony between the beds and includes the dreaded sharp flints. Despite my constantly trailing the hose over these areas, it hasn't suffered any damage.
I am less impressed with the supplied connectors. The water stop connector works well - it stops the water flow automatically when you remove an end attachment. This is a useful feature to have as it saves running back to the tap. My last connector set didn't include one of these so I as pleased to have one. The other pieces seemed sturdy enough at first but the hose end connector has developed a leak within a year and I replaced it. The other pieces are O.K but I rarely use the supplied nozzle as I prefer a light spray gun instead. I used a different brand gun and it fitted without difficulty. It also attaches conveniently to my water butt which allows for easy emptying.
DURABILITY
Apart from the connector problem mentioned above, the hose is still in much the same condition as it was when I bought it. I used it less during the wet summer than I would have anticipated but it got plenty of use in the late spring and early autumn. The dark green colour hasn't faded and I imagine this will last me a good few years. I did store it inside over the winter as I believe exposure to frost and ice probably shortens a hoses life and I don't tend to need it then anyway.
WOULD I RECOMMEND THE HOSE?
If you are looking for an inexpensive basic hose that is crush resistant, this is worth considering. The price is very reasonable for a hose on it's own, so I regard the attachment as a nice extra and it doesn't feel to me as if it is so much of a problem that one hasn't proved durable. I was able to replace it and still I ended up paying less overall than I would if I had bought a simple hose from the garden centre. I am glad I didn't need to cut it up for spare parts in the end, as I think I got a good deal!
I have mainly seen Roots & Shoots products available from online sellers, which isn't to say some garden centres may not stock them. According to Amazon my length of hose has an r.r.p of £9.99 and it is currently being sold for £9.95 saving you a grand total of 4p.
Read the complete review |
 |
Proteam GH1059 Portable Water Butt
by ryeb
A distant memory it may be now, but last spring was unseasonably warm. This coincided with a water pipe problem at my allotments that meant the water supply was turned off for several weeks. I had to carry water by hand from home as my site isn't accessible by car. As my plot is uphill, this soon focused my attention on catching any rain ... that did happen to fall. I decided to buy a water butt and my dad said if I did he would let me attach it a shed on his plot and we could share the water. I found that the [wildly inaccurate]newspaper stories about potential water shortages in the summer had caused a run on water butts locally so I looked online. I saw a Proteam Portable water butt on sale for £34.99 with one left in stock so I grabbed it. I thought the fact it was "portable" would make it easy to actually get to the allotment in the first place, bearing in mind my access issues.
SPECIFICATIONS
The portable water butt is model number GH1059. It is not made from conventional rigid plastic as most butts are. Instead it is made from what I would call a dark green plastic and canvas type fabric. It looks like one of those garden tidy bags you can get, except it is larger. It holds 260 litres and has a circumference of 61cm. Proteam say it is strong, durable and easy to assemble without tools. The top has a drain pipe opening and at the base there is a tap to which you can attach a hose in order to drain it.
SETTING IT UP
The butt comes in a surprising flat and easy to manage box. If I had bought this from a garden centre I would have been able to carry it home on the bus and you couldn't say that about many water butts! The butt itself was carefully folded up inside, along with the small number of parts and a short instruction sheet. I was a bit dismayed when I glanced at those instructions and as the first thing mentioned was all the tools you should have to hand. The front of the box says that no such tools are needed to construct the butt and in fact that is correct. The tool listed are what you need to attach it to a suitable down pipe. I left that bit to my more DIY competent dad to manage while I put together the butt itself. This involves putting a stopper in the end of a few poles which slide into pockets running around the edge of the butt. This is slightly fiddly but you soon get the hang of it and it was most difficult the first time I had to erect it. I think that is because the pockets were squashed in the box where it is so tightly fitted. Putting it up this year took minutes only. The other main thing to do is to attach the tap. This I found more difficult because while the hole to poke it through was pre-cut, it was necessarily a tight fit and it required a lot of careful manipulation. I didn't take it out again when I deconstructed the rest of the butt to avoid having to do this twice.
I do not rate the instructions highly as a whole as the accompanying pictures were dark and hard to decipher. They look like a poor quality photo copy and whilst I have kept them for reference, I don't find it is the sort of thing I am really likely to refer back to. I don't have much in the way of D.I.Y skills and reading through the sheet I do not think I would have been able to attach the butt to a drain pipe myself without gaining further advice. My dad had no problems and didn't even need to use the sheet as he has put up several water butts before. I must say that I have had many other Proteam products and this is the first where the diagrams haven't been easy to follow.
EASY TO USE?
The butt certainly does its job of collecting water and the sides remain rigid even if the butt is not full, thanks to the poles. The lid is a zip on design and the zip proved a little stiff at first but I sprayed it with WD40 and that seemed to do the trick and I have had no problems since. At first I emptied the butt using the tap at the bottom and a hose. This doesn't create a powerful rush of water such as you would get from using a hose with a tap but the flow is steady enough to make it useful for watering plants. When the butt is nearly empty the water output becomes more feeble but as the butt has a generous capacity I don't mind that too much. I didn't have any trouble attaching my hose in the first place - I just fiddled around with the basic connectors that came with the hose until I found the one that would fit. I like to hold the tap firmly whilst attaching the hose as it does not feel very strong. It tends to move around if you try to press the hose connector on but I can't actually say that it has failed in the year I have had it. After a few months my dad made himself a larger water butt still and so I transported the Proteam one back to my allotment. I fill it with a hose and then keep it as a water store for the times the water is turned off. I then flip up the conveniently large lid and dip my watering can in. Of course, if the butt is nearly empty you have to lean over a lot to do this. If you wanted to fill a can using the tap, you will need to construct a stand for the water butt, as the tap is too low to the ground to allow a can to be slipped under it, as is often the case.
WOULD I RECOMMEND THE WATER BUTT?
It is recommended that the butt is stored empty and inside in the winter and that is what I did. It remains in good condition and the colour hasn't faded. All in all, I think I got a large capacity water butt for a very reasonable price and I would recommend it with a couple of exceptions. As for the advantages of being portable, I am not really convinced they are relevant to many people. Yes, it is easy to store when empty but if full it would obviously still be very heavy and I can't see many people wanting to play musical water butts anyway. I would also add that the zip on lid would be easy for children to open and the relatively low height - 70cm- may make it an unwise choice for those with youngsters around. I have actually padlocked the zip fastener as a precaution. Lastly, if you want to position this on a windy site, and it isn't attached to a drain pipe, be aware it is relatively light when empty and could blow away!
Read the complete review |
 |
Hozelock 2n1 Hose Reel
by chrisc92
If you have had the opportunity to read my previous review on the Argos 25m value hose and reel you will know that our experience was a complete disaster with our one and only use ending up with a very kinked hose, almost snapping in several places where the thin green plastic had gone white and the leaks that had happened in our hallway ... (on laminate flooring) while we were out using it on our pressure washer in our reasonably small back and front gardens, or in deed the fact that none of the fixings could be used on our taps or directly on the pressure washer for which we bought it!
After taking the defective product back to Argos we considered carefully whether to buy a Hozelock product from the store but were less than impressed by the range in their catalogue which seemed excessively priced and as I'd walked over to B&Q from work one lunchtime and looked at their range of hoses I already had an idea of which to buy. With the refund put back on my card my wife and I travelled over to our B&Q warehouse and spent less than 5 minutes looking at their range of hoses before deciding to buy the Hozelock 2 in 1 reel which was on sale at £34.98, or as I was to find £29.99 + shipping at Amazon. In fact, my wife (Sue) had sussed out B&Q and had only a week or so before joined the B&Q club and with her barcode to hand had a 20% discount that day making it only £27.98.
We bought a 25m yellow hose that is mounted on a sturdy green plastic reel with metal handle and base supports. The reel can be left on the ground or can be wall mounted using the fixing brackets that are in a small plastic bag that is located underneath the hose. This product also comes with 3 fixings allowing you to connect your hose to your taps (indoor or outdoor) and to additional items such as pressure washers. It also comes with a 4th spray fixing. To date, we have not used any of the new fixings because we are still using 3 Hozelock fixings that we used for the Argos value hose, one of which has to be used to allow the other fixing to connect to our narrow mixer taps.
The reel comes with a connector that allows you to leave the hose on the reel but in order to do so it would mean cutting the hose or buying an additional length that is not needed for the size of our garden.
As we have only recently joined the ranks of homeowner and with our front and back gardens being paving slabs our use of hoses is relatively low but certainly this product does exactly what we want. The hose itself is made of what appears to be thick rubber and although it does bend slightly doesn't bend to the extent that it would crack and compared to our previous hose is free from holes! It will certainly be used more regularly in the future but as Winter is approaching I doubt we will use again until Spring even though it now offers us the ability to clean our car rather than use the local car wash. We also plan on buying a modest greenhouse next year and as long as no hosepipe bans are in force will be in frequent use.
I would definitely recommend the Hozelock 2 in 1 hose for anyone that is looking for their first hose. The only question really is what size you need and what additional attachments you might need.
Our only concern is the cost of the extra fixings that range from around £5.
Read the complete review |
