On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:04:10 -0700, "Ook" Ook Don't send me any
freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the Don't send me any freakin'
spam wrote:


I got water hammer when I replaced the rubber hoses to my clothes
washer, one of which had burst, with woven steel covered water hoses.

The rubber water hoses had acted as shock absorbers for the water when
I turned off faucets, and when the washer shut its valves.


Slightly off of the OPs topic...what kind of luck have you had with the
steel covered hoses?

So far, so good!

I lost a rubber hose once, and it was quite
spectacular.

Mine would have been spectacular if I hadn't heard the water running
when I woke up. It burst sometime that night, and it seemed like it
was only a half hour or less. I can only guess if I had left for
work, or been gone for a weekend, or a month.

BEcause of all the leaks etc. I finally glued a slat, maybe 1/2 inch
high in the doorway between the laundry room and the family room.
None of the floods so far have been higher than that and the sump pump
would probably get it before it could go higher.

Fortunately, the garage was lower then the house and the damage
was minimal. I bought steel covered hoses and now I leave them turned on all
the time and don't even think about them anymore.

Well, it seems to me that it should last a lot longer, but how much
longer is longer than 10 years.

It seems to me the water hammer thing shows/proves, that the rubber
hoses would swell when the water was turned off, and that meant that
the side of the hose was being stretched, dozens of times a day. And
I'm the only one who lives here. A second person would almost double
that, etc. Some times they shut off quicker than others, so it
stretched more than others, but still total maybe 10,000 times a year.

Now the metal keeps it from stretching more than a certain amount,
maybe very little if the metal is tight, and mostly it just compresses
the side of the rubber hose, all sides. But you could have hundreds
of people walking on a rubber mat all day for a long time before it
would wear through, and that's with abrasive shoe soles, not smooth
water.

Don't forget, I'm not the smartest guy in town. If you followed me
around, you'd know that for sure.

This is all a guess. Surely someone actually knows how long the
average metal clad hose lasts.