A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!
Guidelines:
Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!
Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.
Videos links are not allowed as post titles, but you may use them in a text post.
A limited amount of self-promotion is accepted, IF the item you are selling aligns with this criteria:
Only thing you'll ever have to replace is the little rubber O-rings (I use these at work on the radiator fill ports and they're genuinely bombproof)
Get some proper reinforced hose and you'll never need to replace your garden hose / jetwash hose again
These are great, but beware the threads can be super sharp.
I personally find that anything made out of metal is always(almost) better than there plastic alternative. I used to work in plumbing in my youth, at some point in my plumbing career I started refusing to install faucets made of plastic because the customer would always call us back because it started leaking.
There are plastics better than metal - but they are not cheap, most looking for plastics look for cheap and so often anything plastic you can get is junk.
I'm replacing my lead soldered copper with pex as I go.
I tried brass quick connect hose fittings but the ball bearings kept denting the brass and the fit got worse and worse.
I replaced them with some stainless steel quick connect fittings I found on ebay from a power washer supply place. They have held up much better. The main drawbacks are cost and the seal is non standard so you would need to stock up spares/ hope they keep selling them.
My father had these thick black rubber hoses that he got from work or the military back in the ‘70s. Those fuckers were stiff and damn near indestructible. Does anyone have a BIFL source for them or something similar?
If you search for 'Fiber reinforced hose' you should get something comparable (cheaper than anything that's labelled 'military grade' and fit for a lot of water lines PVC is decent and cheap, but if you're using it for drinking water try and get something that's silicone, just for safety's sake
Sure, any farm store. Probably home depot as well. look for rubber hose. Mine are 3/4 inch and red.
We have a hose from the "Flexzilla" brand. I'm not sure if it was any amazing deal or anything, and we haven't used it heavily I guess, but it has lasted four seasons with only sun-bleaching to show. Traditional garden hoses never lasted that long for us.
I've really enjoyed the products from eleyhosereels. The hoses have been great and avoid kinking and all their connections are brass. I think this is year 4 and everything from them is still going strong.
I second this. I also like that the connectors' interior diameter isn't smaller than the hose so it doesn't affect the flow, unlike a lot of other snapping connectors.
Simple, serviceable, quality.
Eley makes the best garden hose quick connects on the market nowadays. They're hideously expensive and can only be purchased through Eley's website with slow shipping, but good god damn are they stout and reliable.
I got brass hose fittings for my mom cause her plastics ones kept breaking and she loved them so much she got more for all of her hoses.
Do they even make the 100% brass ball valve hose ends anymore? I can only find them with plastic valve handles.
