Got Hose?

[sir_keith]

As you may have noticed from my other thread concerning mixing valves, I am in the process of upgrading the water-delivery system for my fish room. Tomorrow I have a new water heater being installed that will include a 'booster' setup that will effectively increase the amount of hot water that I have available for water changes. Once that is done, I will install a mixing valve just upstream of the laundry room sink that will automatically mix the hot and cold feeds to produce the 80° water I need for the fish room. But how to get it there?

I need a 75-foot, drinking water-safe hose to get from the laundry room to my fish room, but I have never found one that doesn't have issues. The usual white RV/boat hoses are stiff and difficult to coil for storage. The latest 'Flexilla' hose I tried (Flexzilla hose) promised much, but has been an absolute nightmare. There exist stainless steel hoses that claim to be drinking water safe (SS304 hose), as well as more expensive hoses that tout their quality and light weight (Atlantic hose). Any opinions and/or suggestions appreciated.

 

[DMD123]

On my pump for my 300 gallon I use a hose made by Plastair. I chose it because it was extremely lightweight, lead free had a fairly large diameter. The disadvantage is the way it is designed is a bit of a pain to coil and uncoil but it works pretty well for my needs, but I only have the 30 ft one.

Amazon.com

 

[DMD123]

Here is the actual website for the company: https://plastair.com/products/featherweight-ultra-lightweight-contractor-hose

 

[John58Ford]

At 75' that is a lot of hose to coil indeed. I don't know if you were using 5/8" or 1/2" when you tried the rv hose, I use 1/2" for easier storage but mines only 50' long. I roll mine over/under and it sits in a Tupperware tub I put under "my half" of the guest bathroom sink, always connected to the mixer. You could always really do it nice and get a wall mount style hose reel to attach to the wall in there, I don't recall if I ever explored your laundry room so I don't know that you could make one fit and look atheistically pleasing. If there's space, something like this might not look awful, and would make rolling a 75' hose of choice easier: Stainless Steel Garden Hose Reel, Wall/Floor Mounted Stainless Water Hose Reel with 6 Ft Leader Hose and Brass Connector, 135-Feet 1/2" Hose Capacity https://a.co/d/78sA6Xy.

You could get a cover made up for something like this too I'm sure. I don't know what to look for in a hose reel to make sure the slip joints high quality and won't drip in the house though so you may be our pioneer on the subject.

 

[sir_keith]

At 75' that is a lot of hose to coil indeed. I don't know if you were using 5/8" or 1/2" when you tried the rv hose, I use 1/2" for easier storage but mines only 50' long. I roll mine over/under and it sits in a Tupperware tub I put under "my half" of the guest bathroom sink, always connected to the mixer. You could always really do it nice and get a wall mount style hose reel to attach to the wall in there, I don't recall if I ever explored your laundry room so I don't know that you could make one fit and look atheistically pleasing. If there's space, something like this might not look awful, and would make rolling a 75' hose of choice easier: Stainless Steel Garden Hose Reel, Wall/Floor Mounted Stainless Water Hose Reel with 6 Ft Leader Hose and Brass Connector, 135-Feet 1/2" Hose Capacity https://a.co/d/78sA6Xy.

You could get a cover made up for something like this too I'm sure. I don't know what to look for in a hose reel to make sure the slip joints high quality and won't drip in the house though so you may be our pioneer on the subject.

Thanks for the suggestions! The RV hose I used earlier was 5/8" because I was unable to find a 1/2" hose more than 50' in length.

I like the hose reel idea, but both my laundry room and fish room closet have built-in cabinets and/or shelves that take up all the wall space, so there's just no place to mount it. But I do like your setup (shown below, from your post), with the hose stowed under the sink, and I think that could also work for me.

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But how do you drain the hose after each use without disconnecting it? My fish room is 4 steps lower than my laundry room, so I'm thinking that if I had a bleed valve between the water shutoff and the hose attachment, I could just turn off the water feed, open the bleed valve, and let the hose drain by gravity. I suppose a simple garden hose Y-fitting between the outlet and the hose connection would also work, but this seems a bit Mickey Mouse.

 

[sir_keith]

@John58Ford- Aha. I seem to have answered my own question about a bleed valve; here's a ball valve with a bleed port built-in...

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[John58Ford]

I have swapped that gate valve from the original build with a ball valve, mine doesn't have a bleeder though. I actually leave the hose full but depressurized under the sink with another ball valve on the end of the hose. I use the ball valve at the end of the hose as the primary on/off control locally at the tanks anyhow so after I roll the house up and close the main ball valve, I just open the hose valve into the sink for a few seconds to let the pressure off, close the valve back up and stick it in the tote. Between the two valves I've never had a leak under the sink during storage but it lives in a tote down there so we have somewhere to stash some of the more common stuff you would have under a guest bath sink too. It's no fancy digs but hers a current picture of it stored, looks like I need to restock the toilet paper before we have company again lol.


A bleeder valve would work great if you want to stow the hose completely empty, I like the one you found and might upgrade to that one next time I wear out a valve.

 

[sir_keith]

I'm also planning to store my hose under the sink in a shallow tray, so it's not leakage that I'm worried about, I just don't like to have stagnant water in the hose during storage. Probably doesn't matter, but...

I bought the mixing valve with 1/2" NPT outlets, as well as a ball valve with the correct connections and a bleeder. Should be able get this together soon.