The Best Garden Hose and Hose Reel

• We’ve been using hoses our entire lives: Writer Doug Mahoney raises sheep, cows, pigs, and chickens in New Hampshire, making him a year-round hose user as he keeps all those critters hydrated. He currently has between seven and 10 hoses active on his property, delivering water to various outbuildings, gardens, and greenhouses. Wirecutter editor Harry Sawyers is a former pro landscaper who now has several hoses snaking around his house in Los Angeles. This story builds on reporting by writer Thom Dunn, whose grew up with his father’s meticulous lawn-care regimen, which was the stuff of legends in Connecticut’s New Haven County.
• To deepen our knowledge we spoke with Genevieve Schmidt — a garden writer and owner of a landscaping company in Northern California — consulted with experts at a local home garden center, asked our neighbors and friends what they used, talked specs and materials with hose manufacturers, and examined the hardware at the finest car washes of East Los Angeles.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, we review and test products with editorial independence. We are never made aware of any business implications of our recommendations.

Garden hoses are unremarkable when they work well, but if they underperform, they’ll drive you insane. If you’ve ever stood in your driveway while screaming at your hose, you are not alone, and we are here to help. Our goal is to recommend a durable hose and a convenient way to keep it spooled up off your lawn.

We’ve also researched and tested hose nozzles (and trust us, you don’t want a bad nozzle). We have more information and recommendations in our guide to hose nozzles.

All of our research and experience led us to a few simple criteria when looking for a garden hose. But even just three basic requirements reduced our test pool to a manageable number, which should give a sense of how many terrible hoses there are in the world.

Wrench flats at the couplings: We prefer a hose to have a nutlike hexagonal shape in its coupling, the part that screws on to the spigot. This gives you a place to put a wrench in order to snug the hose on and to free it up when it’s screwed on too tightly. Hoses with these wrench-ready couplings (rather than a rounded, ridged coupling, like the cap of a soda bottle) usually exhibit a level of durability not found on cheaper hoses. The coupling is unlikely to get crushed or deformed under a boot heel or car wheel, unlikely to corrode or lose its finish, unlikely to leak, and unlikely to get stuck on a spigot.

We did test (and now recommend) a number of hoses with wrench-free couplings. These hoses have a regular nut end, but with a large grip area molded around it. This makes it possible to tighten the hose onto the spigot using only your hands. The design is very effective, but the biggest drawback is that if you lack the hand strength to properly tighten the hose, there is no way to use a wrench. These grips also stiffen the final few inches of hose, so they can be difficult in a tight spot, like if your spigot is very low to the ground.

Made in the USA: After years of testing and using hoses, we’ve concluded the “Made in the USA” label is a reliable barometer of quality. It almost definitely means that the company behind it is based in the United States, which takes customer service from being an abstract concept to an entity that you might actually be able to contact if you have a problem. Plus, more than most product categories, garden hoses present a lot of US-made options for your consideration.

A 50-foot length: While a 25-foot hose can barely run around a car and back, and a 100-foot hose can be difficult to handle, a 50-footer should be enough to cover most suburban yards. If you need more than 50 feet, experts we spoke with recommended buying multiple hoses and connecting them. Most residential garden hoses have a 0.625-inch diameter, so width wasn’t a factor, although our tests did reveal subtle differences between the standard size and the smaller coiled option we considered.

“Drinking-water safe” hoses: We did not prioritize any models that claim to be safe to drink from. Even if a hose is made of non-toxic materials, it doesn’t take much for a hose to get nasty. As the packaging on a Dramm hose states, “Garden hoses can come into contact with harmful chemicals often used with nozzles, garden sprayers, or chemicals used on lawns. The inside of the hose is dark, damp, and warm, causing bacteria to form.”

We’ve been testing garden hoses for years, in multiple locations. Our most recent tests encompassed months of use for routine home chores at senior editor Harry Sawyers’s place in Los Angeles: pressure-washing the grit off the driveway and patio furniture, washing the car, watering plants, filling kids pools, and dousing the yard on July 4 (keeping our fingers crossed that a stray ember wouldn’t set the bougainvillea ablaze). We also tested at senior staff writer Doug Mahoney’s farm in New Hampshire. Between garden irrigation, supplying water for the animals, and general use, Doug estimates that he has seven to 10 hoses in operation during the summer. In the winter months this number decreases to two, but the task gets more challenging because the hoses need to be emptied and coiled after each use to prevent freezing.

During this testing, we connected hoses to spigots, other hoses, and pressure washers. We used them to water the garden, fill animal troughs, spray window boxes, and power pressure washers. Through all of this, we paid attention to their maneuverability, if they kinked easily, what they were like to tighten and loosen and whether or not they easily collected dirt or made our hands grimy.

In our most brutal test, we put the hoses in the hands of several children between the ages of 3 and 16. Carried out mostly in backyard pool battles and other mayhem, this test allowed the kids to drop, grab, kick, twist, fold, bury, submerge, jam, and generally use the hoses in ways no adult ever would. We probably voided the warranties on everything, but we had to do this to be sure these hoses and nozzles could handle true abuse.

We also looked at the amount of water each hose was capable of moving. We timed how long it took each hose to fill a 5-gallon bucket, confirming a measurable difference in flow rate between different diameters of hoses. In a 2019 test in Ithaca, New York, staff writer Thom Dunn dragged the hoses out to the street and drove a two-door Honda Civic back and forth over them several times, making sure to catch the fittings right beneath the wheels.

Alongside our ongoing tests, we have been evaluating the long-term durability of all the items we’ve recommended in this guide over time. Torture tests are fun, but nothing can quite compare to the real-life rigors of coiling, uncoiling, stretching, and storing a hose, or to the long-term degradation a hose endures over years of seasonal changes and sun damage. We’ve picked up a few tips on maximizing the life of a hose, too.

Top pick

The best garden hose

Continental Commercial Grade Rubber Hose (50 feet)

This tough rubber hose isn’t cheap and can be heavy to wrangle, but its strong fittings and durable body should last for years — and it has a lifetime warranty, just in case.

$50 from The Home Depot

For a general-use, all-around reliable garden hose, we recommend the Continental Commercial Grade Rubber Hose. This hose has so little pizzazz, it’s downright boring. It doesn’t come in a variety of colors or have shiny couplings, but what it does offer are the things people require of a garden hose: reliability, flexibility, and durability. Through the years, we’ve featured a lot of picks in this guide, and we’ve found that problems with hoses usually don’t show up until after a couple of years of use. But through all of our years of testing, the Continental hose has remained consistent in its performance. We can’t say that it will never deteriorate over time, but we can say that we have a few that have been in action for over 10 years and they’re still going strong.

It’s durable and flexible. The Continental hose’s thick, abrasion-resistant wall is far tougher to cut or puncture than the walls on cheaper vinyl hoses, which we’ve seen lacerated by thorny bougainvillea shoots. Continental says the hose remains flexible to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. We (mercifully) could not test that claim, but we have used this hose throughout many New Hampshire winters, and we can verify that it stays flexible and usable in extreme temperatures (at least -20 °F).

It resists kinking. During regular use, the Continental hose doesn’t have a cheap hose’s tendency to fold over or bind up if you’re pulling it taut when it still has a few curls to unwind. Kinks with this hose are extremely rare, especially if you work with it and make an effort to keep it straight.

It’s readily available. We’ve seen a lot of hoses go in and out of stock, so we like that the Continental hose has great, long-standing availability at Home Depot and many local hardware stores we’ve visited. Typically priced at around $50 or so, it’s an excellent value.

We’ve been using this hose for well over a decade. With all of our experience using the Continental hose in a wide variety of settings, we view it as one of those excellent and reliable things that, as long as you’re not intentionally abusive, should last for years and years. As we said above, we have Continental hoses that we’ve been using for over 10 years, and they’re still fine.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It’s heavy and a bit unwieldy. At over 11.5 pounds, the Continental hose is pretty beefy, and for some it can be hard to manage. Our recommendation is to get a reel, or you’ll spend an excessive amount of time lassoing this hose each time you try to unwind it or store it. Because of that heft, the Continental hose can feel like overkill for a small patio or garden; in those spaces, a coiled hose might be a better option.

Runner-up

Light and maneuverable, but less proven long-term

Craftsman Heavy Duty Professional Grade Garden Hose (50 feet)

The Craftsman hose is made of a polyurethane PVC blend that gives it the characteristics of a rubber hose at a much lighter weight.

$42 from Amazon

If the Continental hose is not available or if you want something a little lighter, we like the Craftsman Heavy Duty Professional Grade Garden Hose (50 feet).

It’s lighter than the Continental model. Weighing about 7.5 pounds, the Craftsman hose is about 4 pounds lighter than the Continental model. This difference is clearly felt while maneuvering the hose around garden beds, hauling it across a lawn, or coiling it up for the evening. This lighter weight is due to the PVC/polyurethane construction of the hose.

It has wrench-free couplings. Instead of the traditional faceted ends, the Craftsman model has a molded sleeve over the end of the hose, so it’s easy to grip and hand tighten. During our testing period, we were able to easily snug the Craftsman hose on any spigot we tried and we could firm them on much tighter than if we just used our hands with a regular hose, like the Continental competitor. The downside of this design is that the sleeve eliminates the wrench option entirely. So if you don’t have the hand strength to tighten the hose, you don’t have any options other than to use adjustable pliers to grab the entire sleeve, which will surely damage the grip. Overall, we think most will be able to use the couplings with no problems, but we would prefer if there was an easy way to use a wrench.

The jury is still out on long term durability. We’ve been evaluating garden hoses for a long time and know that many hose issues don’t appear until year two or three. To be fully confident in the Craftsman pick, we need to see how it holds up after a couple of years of baking in the hot sun, getting squished under car tires, freezing solid under snow, and repeatedly getting kinked in the same spot. So as much as we like the Craftsman hose for its light weight, we’re not 100% confident in its long-term performance. We will continue to use and monitor this model and will update the guide accordingly.

Upgrade pick

Exceptional, expensive, hose-tastic

Eley 5/8-inch Polyurethane Garden Hose

The Eley is lighter, easier to use, and more durable than our other picks. It’s the best hose we’ve ever tested.

$108 from Eley
(50 feet)

The Continental hose or the Craftsman hose will fit the needs of most people, but if you’re interested in a hose that is better in every way — and you’re willing to pay for it — we also recommend the Eley 5/8-inch Polyurethane Garden Hose. Not to sound dramatic, but the Eley model removes all of the minor inconveniences associated with a garden hose. We had no idea that a garden hose could be this nice. After we used the Eley hose for a while, other hoses felt clunky and cumbersome, as if they were generations old; using them felt like rubbing two sticks together to make fire, as opposed to flicking a well-worn Zippo. Compared with solid hoses like those from Continental and Craftsman, this Eley hose is lighter, looser, and more durable, and it’s apparently immune to kinking (in our testing, at least).

Out of the box, the Eley hose was almost comically light. We were so used to lugging rubber hoses around that the Eley hose didn’t even seem real. The biggest downside to rubber hoses is their weight, and the polyurethane Eley model manages to shave 4.5 pounds off in comparison with the Continental hose, weighing about 7 pounds as opposed to 11.5. It’s even half a pound lighter than the Craftsman. That’s light for a durable garden hose. Spraying water with the nozzle at waist height, with 4 or 5 feet of the hose lifted off the ground, barely feels like anything with the Eley model.

Adding to the ease of use is how flaccid the hose is. Rubber hoses are loose, but the Eley hose is at another level. Looping it, lasso-style, to coil it up is especially easy, partly because of the lower weight but also because the loops don’t have the kind of structured memory found on rubber hoses. With the Eley hose, the loops just fall into place.

We cannot get it to kink. We’ve been using the Eley hose almost daily for over two years, and in that time we have not been able to get it to kink. Even under some circumstances when we could get the Continental hose to sharply fold over itself, the Eley model refused to succumb. But what’s particularly nice is that when we wanted to kink the Eley hose on purpose — such as to stop the flow of water to put on a new hose nozzle — it was easy to do, and the hose didn’t show any sign of tending to kink in that area again, a characteristic that marks inferior hoses.

It moves water faster than the others. The Continental filled a 5-gallon bucket in about 70 seconds. The Eley model finished the same task in 55 seconds. The difference doesn’t sound like much, and for small tasks, such as filling a 5-gallon bucket, it’s not a big deal. But once you start filling larger things — topping off a swimming pool or 100-gallon livestock waterers, say — those seconds add up.

It’s durable. The hose is made of polyurethane; Eley equates it to the material used for the wheels of inline skates. The hose is durable, and the nice-looking brass fittings only exemplify that point. It’s durable enough that Eley covers it with a 10-year warranty, whereas the company covered its now-discontinued rubber hose for only five years.

It’s not the prettiest hose. One downside to the Eley hose is that it is available only in a battleship gray, so it doesn’t exactly disappear if left on a lawn, as a black hose does. “That thing is kinda ugly,” one tester said when they saw it for the first time.

The Eley is expensive. The Eley hose costs roughly $125 for a 50-foot length, a little over twice the cost of the Continental model. There is no question that the Eley model is a premium hose at a premium price, and before we tested it, we were wary of the cost. Now, having seen what the Eley hose offers, we’re of a different mind. Not everyone needs the Eley hose, but its light weight and ease of use make it a good option for a lot of people, including those who might not be confident managing a much heavier rubber hose.

Length is customizable. The Eley hose is available in set lengths from 6.5 feet all the way up to 200 feet. Eley can also create custom lengths for you.

Best for…

Best for a lightweight hose

Orbit 33185 50 ft Heavy-Duty Fabric Hose

Weighing less than 4 pounds, the Orbit hose is among the lightest 50-footers we’ve tested. It has some downsides, but it’s a dream to maneuver around a crowded garden.

$40 from Amazon

$50 from Walmart

$39 from Lowe’s

If hose weight is your main concern, we like the Orbit 33185 ExoJacket Fabric Garden Hose. By our measurements, it weighs a little over 4.75 pounds, making it a featherweight compared with the 11.5-pound Continental hose, or even the 7-pound Eley model. Just note that it has some downsides, and we’re not as confident in its long-term durability as we are in some of our other picks.

Our testers loved moving this hose around a busy garden. Because it consists of a small tube made of a PVC/polyurethane blend in a polyester fabric sheath, the Orbit hose is flexible, easy to drag, and so light it feels like it’s barely there. It’s also easy to loop up at the end of the day, although it doesn’t coil as nicely as stiffer rubber hoses.

It has wrench-free couplings. Like the Craftsman pick, it has grip areas at each end, making it easy to grab and twist while attaching it to a spigot or putting a nozzle on. In general, we find this feature convenient, but we don’t like that there is no way to use a wrench if you lack the hand strength to use the grip areas.

The fabric sheath picks up dirt. In dry conditions, this wasn’t any worse than the rubber hoses we recommend, but in wet conditions, mud really grabbed onto the porous fabric.

It gets tangled easier than the others. The Orbit hose is so light and flexible that it sometimes got tangled or kinked while being dragged around, especially if there was no water in it. We could usually remedy this with a good shake of the hose, but at times we had to manually straighten things out.

It’s not the best option for larger jobs. If you’re constantly filling kiddie pools or animal troughs, the Orbit hose might be frustrating. In our test, it filled a 5-gallon bucket in two minutes, about a minute longer than the Eley and Continental models. The hose is so floppy that the water can be slightly restricted just by draping it over a fence.

You can’t easily repair it. Our other picks can all be repaired with kits that are available in nearly every hardware store. Due to its design, if the Orbit model springs a leak, it’s probably headed to the trash.

Like the Craftsman pick, this is an unproven hose to us. As much as we like the Orbit hose, we’ve only used it for a few months as of mid-2025. As successful as that experience has been, it is merely the opening chapters of the Orbit story. We’ve found that it’s typically in the second and third year of use that real issues start to show up. We’re continuing our testing of the Orbit hose and will update this guide accordingly.

Best for…

Best for small spaces

HoseCoil ⅜-inch Self Coiling Garden Hose (25 feet)

Manageable, lightweight, and easy to store, this coiled hose is perfect for a small patio, where you don’t need a ton of range or the absolute maximum water volume.

$40 from Amazon

The HoseCoil ⅜-inch Self Coiling Garden Hose (25 feet) is nowhere near as heavy-duty as our Continental, Craftsman, and Eley picks, but for a small patio or garden — where a big, 50-foot hose feels like overkill — it is a much more manageable option. This hose’s primary distinction is its corkscrew-shaped coil, which extends to about 17.5 feet of its full 25-foot length when in use and then springs back to its original form like a classic telephone cord. No manual coiling, no reel winding, no hassle.

It doesn’t move as much water as the others. Whereas hoses like the Continental, Craftsman, and Eley models have a 0.625-inch interior diameter, the HoseCoil’s is slimmer, at 0.375 inch. Unsurprisingly this difference in size reduces the flow rate of the water. Such results are evident mostly in side-by-side tests, though, and a good nozzle can compensate for it.

The couplings are so-so. The HoseCoil has nice brass-alloy fittings and at the end that connects to the nozzle, you’ll find generous facets for a wrench to grip. Curiously, however, there are no accessible facets on the spigot end, where in our experience the connection has been more likely to end up cramped or stuck; instead, the entire spigot-end area is dominated by a black plastic strain-relief sleeve.

Buyers seem to have fairly modest expectations for this hose, and it delivers. The most encouraging reviews describe similar hoses as lasting four and a half years or two and a half years. In our ongoing tests, the HoseCoil has lasted for at least five years of routine light-duty action at a Southern California house, enduring exposure to harsh UV light and the occasional full-length extension to wash off a sidewalk on the other side of a patio wall. Just be careful when stretching it to the max that the coil doesn’t get twisted out of alignment, because returning it to its original orientation can be frustrating.

Top pick

A durable, stable, maneuverable hose reel

Gorilla GRS-175H 175 ft. Mobile Hose Reel

The Gorilla GRS-175H is easy to reel and roll around the yard. It comfortably holds 150 feet of rubber hose and is far better, in every way, than any inexpensive reel we’ve tried.

$129 from The Home Depot

It may be tempting to buy an inexpensive hose reel, but in our experience we’ve found that such models are flimsy, difficult to use, and so frustrating that they’re just not worth dealing with. If you’re looking for a solid hose reel that will effortlessly feed out hose without tipping over or getting dragged along behind you, we like the Gorilla GRS-175H 175 ft. Mobile Hose Reel. We’ve been testing it for a year, and although it sports a utilitarian look, it hits all the high points that a hose reel should.

The design is not glamorous, but it’s effective. The Gorilla reel has a simple aluminum-bar design with a wide footprint that creates stability. The reel itself moves in a nearly frictionless fashion, both when you’re coiling up the hose and pulling it off. The cheaper models we tested consistently tipped over when we pulled out hose, but the Gorilla reel just sat there, readily spooling out however much we needed. This reel lacks the design flourishes found on some others, but we’ll take utility over aesthetics, especially when it comes to hose reels.

Reeling in a hose is easier than on most other models. For added stability when you’re reeling in a hose, two of the Gorilla reel’s feet have small extensions that you can stand on. We needed that only when pulling in a long length of hose, but it’s a useful feature and a nice touch that indicates the thought that went into the overall design.

The Gorilla reel is also easy to move. You just tip it back onto the wheels and pull it behind you like a piece of luggage. We would have preferred bigger wheels, and the handle is a little low for a tall person, but neither of those drawbacks is a real issue when you’re just shifting the thing a short distance across a yard.

Replacement parts are available. Another indication of the quality is that Gorilla sells replacement parts for its reels. It’s nice that an item that typically costs around $150 is not seen as disposable — Gorilla’s sentiment in that regard seems to be increasingly rare.

It holds a lot of hose. Gorilla says the reel can handle 175 feet of hose, but we think that number is better capped at 150. In our testing, when we went over 150 feet, we had to be much more intentional as to how we were reeling on the hose. With 150 feet of hose, we could just reel it on and not worry about it so much.

Gorilla has other models available, both larger and smaller, but the 175-foot reel offers a great balance of size and function.

Upgrade pick

The buy-it-for-life hose reel

Eley Portable Garden Hose Reel Cart

The Eley hose reel offers top-notch durability, overall quality, and ease of use. It’s not cheap, but it’s a joy to use.

$301 from Eley

The Gorilla hose reel is very good, but the Eley Portable Garden Hose Reel Cart (or the wall-mounted version, if that’s a better fit for you) does everything better. Eley reels sit at the top of the garden-gear pantheon, and for good reason. Through a combination of high-quality materials and an attention to detail found only in high-end products, the Eley reels excel in all ways. The Eley reel cart is stable, it moves easily, the reeling action is smooth with a free-spinning handle, and the overall build quality, durability, and ease of use are all outstanding. During our research, we were initially suspicious of the high cost, but once we began testing the Eley reel cart, we could see an investment in it being justified for those who want to solve all of their hose-reel problems over the long term with a single purchase.

The Eley reel cart is built for a lifetime of use. The majority of the parts are either brass, aluminum, or stainless steel. It comes with a high-quality 6.5-foot leader hose and flat-free tires. Most of the parts have a powder-coated finish, and there is really nothing on the cart that should rust. Eley backs it with a 10-year no-leak guarantee.

The reel is easy to use. When we pulled in 100 feet of hose, we still needed to brace the frame with our foot, but only for the first 25 feet or so; after that, it just reeled right in. Other models typically needed us to brace them in at least two spots for about the first 50 feet. The Eley cart’s handle spins freely, so it doesn’t apply rug burn to your hand, and since the sides of the reel angle inward toward the center, the hose is unlikely to jump over the edge, something that happened to us more than once with the inexpensive Suncast reel we used to recommend. The Eley cart also comes with an adjustable brake that sets the resistance of the reel so that it reels out only what you want and doesn’t keep spinning once you stop pulling the hose.

The Eley cart moves around a yard with no problem. The large tires, the handle placement, and the center of gravity make for an action that’s as easy as using an empty two-wheel dolly. In our tests, on an especially uneven section of lawn, the Eley cart bumped its way around and got to its destination with no issue.

The standard configuration of the Eley reel fits 125 feet of 0.625-inch hose. An available extra-capacity kit (simply a wider reel) can fit up to 200 feet.

If there is a downside to the Eley reel, it’s the cost. Currently sold for roughly $325 — up almost 20% from its price in 2021 — the two-wheel cart is almost 10 times the price of the plastic Suncast hose reel found in big-box stores nationwide and nearly three times the cost of the Gorilla reel. (The wall-mounted Eley reel costs $200 or so; that version is showing a similar increase from previous years.) The Eley reel is not for everyone, but we’re convinced that some people — whether through an appreciation of high-quality gear, an impatience with inexpensive plastic goods, or just daily use of their garden hose — will find that the durability, features, and overall usability make it a worthwhile investment.

Eley stands behind its products. Two winters ago, we failed to pack the Eley reel away before the first freeze, so the part that connects the hose to the reel froze and blew apart. For a while, we were able to make things work with a temporary solution, but it’s a unique part and difficult to repair, so we finally decided to order a new one. What we found was that Eley had put a blanket discount on the part, lowering its price from $55 to $27.50 with a note explaining that the price drop was “due to the high number of customers caught off guard this winter and need to replace it due to freeze damage.” Guided by our long years of watching the habits of manufacturers, we can say that Eley’s customer-first attitude is truly rare. Eley could have easily charged full price for the part, but instead, it cut the price in half, making replacement much less of a burden on the owners of its reels.

We also need to note how simple it was to locate and order the part through Eley. The company’s section on replacement parts is easy to understand and provides clear schematics of its products for customers to quickly locate and purchase the pieces they need — another rarity among manufacturers.

Best for…

Best for low-effort hose management

Hoselink 82ft Retractable Hose Reel

The Hoselink hose pulls out easily and retracts on its own, making it a great choice for those who need the length but want minimal hassle.

$259 from Amazon

Another quality hose-reel option is the Hoselink 82ft Retractable Hose Reel. Unlike the Eley reel, the Hoselink reel retracts the hose automatically, making it not only convenient but also a nice option for people with limited strength or mobility. The hose pulls out easily and returns to the reel with a slight tug, like a window blind. As it reels in, a guide roller moves from side to side as the hose enters the housing, ensuring that it spools on evenly. The reel comes with 6.5 feet of leader hose, a decent enough hose nozzle, and a quick-connect system that makes it easy to detach the hose from the spigot or to remove the nozzle. We also like that the Hoselink reel can be mounted at any height, eliminating the need for the user to bend over to deal with the hose or the reel. The Hoselink reel attaches to the side of a house or a sturdy fence post with four screws and can rotate from side to side.

The Hoselink reel offers an easy way to manage a lot of hose. The hose pulled out easily in our tests, and when we were done, the wait was only five or 10 seconds before the whole thing was reeled back in and we were on our way to our next task. It was nice not to have to deal with a hose in the yard. As appealing as the Eley reel is, we tended not to reel that hose back in after every use, but with the Hoselink reel, we did because it’s so easy. We also like that the nozzle end of the hose rotates freely, so you can turn the nozzle without also rotating the hose.

It can be installed at any height. We put it at chest height, and after a couple of days, we realized how nice it was not to bend down to get the hose, reel it in, or turn on the hose spigot. We were able to go through the entire watering process standing straight up, with almost no physical strain at all. It’s for these reasons that we think the Hoselink reel combined with the Melnor R301 nozzle makes a great combination for someone with limited mobility or hand strength.

The included hose is okay but not great. The Hoselink reel comes with a hose and it hose that doesn’t match the flexibility of the Continental hose or the overall greatness of the Eley hose. But because of the reel’s retractable nature, it doesn’t need those things. Since this hose spends its days in the safe cocoon of the enclosed reel, it’s far less likely to be roughly dragged across a driveway, accidentally left out for an entire winter, or driven over by a car. And because this hose is never manually looped, it doesn’t really matter that this hose is not as flaccid as the others we tested.

The hose has a smaller diameter. The downside of the Hoselink package is that the hose’s diameter is smaller than that of our top picks — 0.5 inch as opposed to 0.625 inch. This means that some tasks, especially filling buckets and the like, will take longer. We timed the Hoselink hose filling a 5-gallon bucket and did the same with the Continental hose, and the Hoselink model took twice as long, about 2 minutes 15 seconds. Giraffe Tools has a similar retractable reel with a 0.625-inch hose; we did not test that model.

The Hoselink reel costs around $260, which is a solid amount of money. But it offers a lot, too, including 82 feet of hose, which isn’t cheap. Considering the amount of convenience that the Hoselink reel provides, we believe that the cost is justified if using it would benefit your lifestyle.

A hose stored off the ground, out of the elements, and drained between uses will last longer. Ultraviolet rays can deteriorate even a properly drained and coiled hose, so storing it under some kind of shelter is a good idea. Although hose manufacturers usually recommend completely disconnecting both ends of the hose between uses, some people like to keep a nozzle on the hose at all times because doing so can help protect the couplings’ threads from being scuffed on asphalt or pavement and can prevent critters from burrowing inside. For winter storage, Wirecutter senior staff writer Doug Mahoney likes to tie the whole coil together with a length of Romex (electrical wire) — “the twist tie of the gods,” as Doug puts it.

No matter how well you take care of your hoses and nozzles, you’ll occasionally need to replace a gasket to stop any leaks that have emerged, since the gaskets either wear out or go missing. We recommend picking up a pack of gaskets, like these Danco ⅝-inch Hose Washers, the next time you’re at the hardware store. The effort-to-satisfaction ratio is off the charts with this fix. For about 20 cents and 20 seconds of work, you’re solving a problem that prompts literally hundreds of hose and nozzle buyers to return or discard their “defective, leaking” purchases.

Here’s another handy pair of accessories to know about: the male thread repair kits and female thread repair kits that, for a few bucks, you can buy packaged with a hose clamp at most hardware stores. If you have a hose with a leak (like the one we accidentally put a pitchfork tine through), you can cut off the damaged area and fix the rest with one of these kits. Or if you need to simply cut a short length off a garden hose — to make a little section that you can use to drain out a dehumidifier, for example — these kits can get your “new” hoses up and running in no time.

The Dramm ColorStorm Premium Rubber Hose (50 feet) was a previous pick but a combination of long-term kinking issues and the newly elevated price tag have put it out of contention. We think it’s barely worth $50 and certainly not worth over $100. If you’re looking to spend that on a hose, the Eley model is a far better hose.

The Giraffe Lightweight Lay Flat Water Hose seems great on paper as a nice, thin hose, but once we filled it, it lost its shape and turned into a regular hose. It feels a lot flimsier than our picks.

Even though we’ve formed a generally negative opinion of expandable hoses, we tested HydroTech Standard Expandable Hose thinking it might change our minds. It didn’t. It feels inadequate, it’s difficult to manage, and even at its most stretched out, we couldn’t get it to 50 feet.

The Goodland Everlasting Garden Hose is light and floppy compared with the Continental hose, but it’s heavier and stiffer than the Eley pick. It comes in a number of designer colors, which is nice, but based on performance alone, it’s tough to justify the nearly $200 price tag, especially since we already consider the $120 Eley hose to be on the pricey side.

We once recommended the Flexzilla Garden Hose, but it did not hold up well over long-term use. This hose is still lightweight and flexible, and its coupling hardware is still solid, but its stiff sidewalls have degraded enough that its tendency to fold flat and block water has become increasingly frequent and frustrating. We’ve also found that the slightly porous outer jacket tends to accumulate filth — maybe not more so than the exteriors of most hoses, but more visibly because of this hose’s chartreuse color.

We had originally named the now-discontinued Hospaip Expandable Garden Hose as an expandable-hose pick. Unfortunately, even though it seemed durable in our initial tests, it quickly succumbed to the same rips and leaks that seem to plague every expandable or “pocket” hose. If you want something small that’s easy to store, stick with the HoseCoil model.

Although the Gilmour Flexogen Super Duty Hose handled well enough, the steel spring coils on the end — intended to prevent kinking on and near the fittings — made us bleed when we tried to unscrew the hose from the spigot. No thanks.

The Teknor Apex NeverKink Heavy Duty felt great to handle, and the sleek yellow racing stripe down the middle made us feel like gardening champions. But it was almost too firm — knocking over patio furniture and stubbornly catching on branches and thorns. And on the occasion that it did kink (despite its name), we found undoing those knots and tangles to be difficult.

The Teknor Apex Zero-G looks like it should be an expandable hose, even though it isn’t one. It’s a good, flexible hose overall, and some hardware-store employees we spoke with even recommended it as a better alternative to an expandable hose. Although it’s lightweight and generally reliable, nothing about it stood out enough for us to make it a pick.

The Water Right 600 Series Polyurethane Garden Hose seemed almost too good to be true — in our tests, it was durable, sturdy, and remarkably easy to maneuver. But once this hose finally kinked, it was difficult to straighten out — a problem we’ve seen repeated in negative owner reviews. And at the time of our research, the Water Right hose cost about $100, which was way too much to pay for a flawed hose.

We’ve tested and dismissed the Gilmour Flexogen Super Duty Garden Hoser, and we briefly recommended the Tuff-Guard Perfect Garden Hose, but it ended up leaking during long-term testing.

We also dismissed a number of hoses without testing them, as we determined (during our research or our in-person assessments at various hardware stores) that they did not meet our criteria. This group included the Apex Medium Duty, the Flexon Medium Duty Garden Hose, the Goodyear Maxlite Premium Rubber+, the Plastair Springhose PUWE650B94H-AMZ,, and the terrible yet terribly ubiquitous Pocket Hose Silver Bullet Lightweight Kink-Free Expandable Garden Hose.

The Suncast Hosemobile Hose Reel Cart represents everything meh about inexpensive hose reels. This cart is adequate, and it’s about the best you can get for the sub-$50 price, but it’s marred by too many of the flaws that plague all inexpensive hose reels, as it’s unstable, takes too much effort, and feels kinda flimsy. Not everyone has the budget for a Gorilla reel, an Eley hose reel, or a Hoselink retractable model, and this is a barebones hose reel available at a much, much lower price. But aside from the fact that it barely functions, nothing about it sets it apart. In other words, if you’re truly after a low-budget hose reel, get this one, but keep in mind that it causes a lot of frustrations — far too many for us to wholeheartedly endorse it.

Gorilla sells a number of other reel configurations, both larger and smaller than the 175-foot model we recommend. The smaller models lack the top handle, making them more difficult to move around, while the larger ones can get quite bulky. But if you need 200 feet of hose reeled up, the GRM-200G 200 ft. Mobile Hose Reel looks nice, as does the 250 ft. Heavy Duty Hose Reel Cart.

As for other hose reels, we also looked at models made by Liberty, including the 302 2-Wheel Garden Hose Reel Cart and the decorative 301 2-Wheel Garden Hose Reel Cart. These carts aren’t as expensive as the Eley model, but they’re still in the $150 to $200 range. Overall, buyer reviews of the Liberty reels aren’t anywhere near as stellar as those of the Eley cart, with mentions of rusting over time and leaking. Even though the Eley reel costs more, its quality (backed by Eley’s 10-year warranty) makes it the better purchase.

We have not yet tested the Giraffe Tools Retractable Hose Reel. It looks similar to the Hoselink model but has a larger-diameter hose, measuring 0.625 inch as opposed to 0.5 inch. Although it lacks a quick-connect system, it otherwise looks like a decent option. Typically it sells for about $40 less than the Hoselink offering.

This article was edited by Harry Sawyers.