As the title suggests, I always have issues with my garden hose leaking at the connection site. It leaks coming out of the faucet, and makes the landing around it a muddy mess, and leaks into the adapter in my chiller. It's a B3 super chiller, looks top notch, but I have to wrap a towel around the connection and drip it into a bucket the whole time I am chilling. Is it just this cheap hose?
How do I get my garden hose not to leak?!?!
- Thread starter Pleepleus
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
fatherbigfoot
Well-Known Member
try changing the gaskets inside the female end of the hose or whatever you are connecting it too
Wade E
Beer Buster
Have you tried using a new rubber gasket between the connectors? They sell them at Home Depot and Lowe's. If that doesnt work, use some plumbers tape around the hose fitting and screw it back in.
Teflon tape or any other thread sealant won't work on the garden hose fittings. The seal is made with a washer (gasket) compressed between the fitting flange and the face of the spigot, not at the connector threads. The tape is intended for use on pipe threads, not hose threads. Keg lube on the gasket is worth a try, but replacement washers are super cheap. The first thing to check is to see if the washer is missing from the connector. Sometimes simply tightening up the fitting with a large pair of pliers or Channellocks will get you by until you have time to replace the washers. The washers get brittle and lose their pliability over time and will eventually fail to seal well.
scopey
Well-Known Member
Brilliant! I agree, address the problem on it's turf not farther down the pipe. Washer's are cheap!
...or the teflon tape helped to better seal the gasket. I don't see the harm in doing both.
...or the teflon tape helped to better seal the gasket. I don't see the harm in doing both.
There would be no harm in doing both, but the tape won't help anything either. As I said above, the seal is not made with the threads, it's made with the washer squeezed between the face of the spigot and the flange face inside the connector. I sometimes see people using the tape on compression or flare fittings. It's the same kind of thing with those. The threads don't do the sealing. I use nylon garden hose fittings throughout my setup, so I'm quite familiar with how to get them to seal properly. There's really not much too them and so long as the gasket isn't worn out or otherwise compromised, they normally are easy to tighten and seal very well.
The teflon tape may allow you to tighten the fitting more easily and perhaps making a seal, but you risk damaging the fitting or the threads if over-tightening is your long-term solution.
Pleepleus
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys, I will check to see if I am possibly missing gaskets, as these are both new hoses. I can't believe I have been brewing for years with leaking hoses....damnit, I should have asked sooner!!
Cheers
Cheers
If water is leaking past the gasket, it may be finding its way out of the threads, in which case teflon tape would help. It's still a band-aid and not a solution though.
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
Personally, I have never seen a garden hose attachment that didn't leak at least a little, be it with new or old hoses, expensive or cheap. I just make sure the ends of my chiller aren't over the wort; a little dripping to the side is no big deal.
Nope. If it's leaking past the gasket, it will get past the flange first, but it may leak from both the flange and the threads. My point is that you won't be able to seal the flange without the gasket. The teflon tape still won't help if the gasket is failing. The only way the tape might help is if it's wrapped around the gasket and possibly rehabilitating the gasket, at least temporarily. Much easier and smarter to just bite the bullet and go down to the local hardware store and spend 65 cents on a pack of washers. You might even find them at your local supermarket or drugstore.
None of my garden hose connections currently leak. When they do, I replace the washers and/or tighten the fitting. Done.
Wade E
Beer Buster
I too dont have any leaking hoses but both of my outdoor faucets themselves leak. I need to replace both as they are from 1946 so I highly dought they are repairable.
You'd be surprised. Most of the time a leak at the faucet is a problem with the seat washer which is easily replaced. This can usually be observed as a drip from the spout when the faucet is turned off. A leak from around the stem, which will usually only happen when the faucet is turned on and connected to a hose is likely a problem with the stem packing which is also fairly easy to repair. Sometimes you can get the stem packing to seal by tightening the crown nut below the valve handle. You can remove the handle, remove the crown nut and unscrew the valve stem to replace the seat washer. If the brass valve seat is damaged, you can restore it with a special tool made for this that costs about $10 at Home Depot or wherever. There's not a whole lot to these valves, and they will last indefinitely. The ones I have must be at least as old as yours and they are both still going strong. A new faucet should be inexpensive, but the R & R can be a PIA sometimes. I'd try to repair the old one first, but that's just me.
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
Huh. Even nice brand-new hoses (presumably they come with new washers) leak at the faucet without exception, in all 4 houses I've lived in.
springer
Well-Known Member
I have found that the silicone washers (Blue)work better than the buna black washers seems they are softer and will mate with an irregular surface better.
Not to say "I told you so", I just wanted to see what would happen. I just tested this theory with a hose I have that was leaking. That hose stopped leaking after I wrapped the threads with a few turns of teflon tape. Yes, I know that logic says it should leak past the flange first, but I guess that hose didn't want to behave logically. If you have some handy, it can't hurt to try.
That doesn't surprise me at all. Preconceived ideas often work out that way. It's a human nature thing. Could it be that the washer made a successful seal the second time you tightened it up? Try testing your theory without the washer using only the teflon tape and see what happens. A test with two variables doesn't cut it.
Nope, teflon is made of magic.
New washer sure, but what really helps is a little keg lube on the threads to make it easier to tighten.
+1 But that would be too easy Bobby.
I get all twitchy when people want to put thread sealant on flange sealing, flare, and compression seal connections. These are bandaid fixes at best if they work but an engineer dies a little inside every time it happens.
If "all" garden hose connections leak a little, I would recommend hacking the connections off and using the higher end barb to GH brass fittings you'd find in Lowes in the fittings rack, NOT the cast white metal stuff near the garden hoses.
If "all" garden hose connections leak a little, I would recommend hacking the connections off and using the higher end barb to GH brass fittings you'd find in Lowes in the fittings rack, NOT the cast white metal stuff near the garden hoses.
Laughing_Gnome_Invisible
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2008
- Messages
- 12,262
- Reaction score
- 733
Don't turn the tap on.
Last edited by a moderator:
skidaddytn
Well-Known Member
I've pulled gaskets from leaky hoses that looked like they were still in good shape, but when replaced with new ones, all is well!
Similar threads
