A few weeks ago, I had a pinhole leak in one of my 100-foot hoses. To finish the job without moving the truck around too much, I did a field fix, which cost me about 25 feet of the hose. Last Friday, my other 100-foot section developed a pinhole about 5 feet from the end. Both hoses were the same brand single-wire, gray non-marking, about a year old, and on the cheaper end of the price spectrum. Needless to say, I’m looking for something better now.
I’ve done some research, and it seems like Goodyear Neptune (blue vs. gray) and United Hoses are the most recommended. However, some older posts mention quality issues with Neptunes and a short lifespan because of the weight reduction with United. I have a couple whip lines from Yamatic, but their pricing starts to get close to Neptune/United at length. A local guy mentioned Kobrajet, but I haven’t looked into them much yet.
So what are you guys using these days? Any other brands I should look into? Should I just plan to replace hoses every year?
i really like sutner, but they have specific ends that sutner wants to be on their hoses. hose place didnt have those ends, but I just let the hose place do their thing and its never has a leak so far. I wanted raptor, next, and whatever pressurtek sells Id gamble on. Ive got 300ft of gates 3000 ultraclean or something like that, just waiting. hopefull it stays that way. I like my sutner hose.
Sheesh, if you got close to a year out of them, that’s not bad or you’re not washing much. Keep up with your ballpark hours on them. I’ve tried all the different brands, haven’t found that much difference to worry about on most. The longest lasting hose I have came from @Firefighter4hire that he sent me, if he still has any for sale.
I’ve evolved from running one long 200’, then two 100’, now I’m at a 100’ and 50’ screwed together, with a couple spare 50’ as backup. For some reason they last longer like this, and when I finally get the nerve to install the K1 unloader I’m sure they’ll last even longer.
I expected hoses to last longer with the ZK1 but doesn’t seem to be any different. I’ve tried about every single wire hose from pressuretek. Blue Suttners outlast the grey ones & HPC outlasts both. My preference is 50 footers without running through the reel.
Can’t speak for @TheWizard but I have a whip to my unloader block and then a whip from that to my downstream bypass… plug directly into the bypass outlet.
Got to put hoses in your depreciation/expense number guys. I average about 400 hours/hose, so 2 100’ sections at say $180/hose equals about $1 hour for hose expense.
Got to know your life expectancy of every item so you can figure your expenses correctly. Reason a lot of people get in trouble in this industry. Something breaks and they don’t have money to fix. Set that money aside every week or so, depending on how many hours you ran it, into a separate account. Especially your major items. Buying a new $15 inector not going to kill you, having to buy a new pump, etc hurts.
Like racing, we knew the life expectancy of every major part. ie engines had to be rebuilt every 30-35 hours. Rebuilds were $30k, so you had to figure that into your budget.
I have “vaults” set up in my business bank account so set percentages of every invoice gets divided up automatically for various categories… emergency and equipment funds are two of those. I’m not at the point of counting/tracking hours per use (except engine/pump for maintenance) for the small stuff, I just know that things will fail, and I’m slowly building up my back up and oh-■■■■ kit.
This is the way I think I’m going to do it, sounds like a lot of guys have a sacrificial hose at the end of the line since thats where it typically blows.
Thats what I’ve been using as well… doesn’t feel the safest, but it at least lets me finish out the job.
I have a whip from the unloader to the injector & plug straight into the injector. I blew a hose Friday and rolled off another section. Back up and running in 5 minutes.
