Would it be too hard to slide the hose on?
Been there, and it was an absolutely easy thing, perhaps the easiest out of all I made for my home setup.
In my situation I had a neat stainless coil. Needless to say that straightening it up and then bending back in a coil was totally unthinkable, leave alone impractical.
Just follow my steps:
1 - Get a piece of a PVC pipe or whatever cylindrical you can find that is about 1/2 to 2/3 diameter of your existing coil. It should be long enough for BOTH the hose AND the coil to be slid onto it
2 - Wind the hose onto this cylinder as tight as you can (you will need to fix the ends; zipties work fine - sticky tape doesn't). Wind it starting from one end and make sure you leave another half vacant.
3 - Pay attention to direction in which you wind the hose. It MUST be the same as direction of your coil.
4 - If you have a strong enough blow hair drier you might want to heat up the hose so it gets to "remember" its current shape better. This helps but it is not anything mandatory.
5 - Leave it overnight or better for a couple of days. The hose will sorta get used to its shape.
6 - Slide your chiller coil onto the vacant half of the cylinder.
7 - Silicone spray would help, otherwise soapy water works just as fine.
8 - Release the hose end that is near the coil end, but don't let it unwind freely.
9 - SCREW the coil into the hose. Enjoy the ease of the process - it took me perhaps longer time to type this manual than actually to put my coil into the hose.
10 - Step back, observe your well done job and retire to a pint of beer.
