Choosing a Shower Hose

Three materials, three jobs

PVC hose is the volume option — light, cheap, and entirely adequate in a domestic bathroom used twice a day. The two PVC hoses here are 13.5mm outside diameter at 1200mm and 1500mm, and both are stated as available in lengths made to your requirement.

Stainless steel is what a hotel or a landlord specifies, because the visible finish stays bright and the outer casing survives being stood on. Copper is the heaviest section in the range, at 14mm and 15mm, and it is the one to choose where a hose is replaced least willingly.

Single buckle, double buckle

The buckle is the interlocking metal strip that forms the outer casing of a flexible hose. A single-buckle hose uses one strip: it lies flatter, coils more loosely and costs less. A double-buckle hose interlocks two, which holds its shape and resists the kink that eventually splits a hose where it leaves the bracket.

In this range the single-buckle stainless hoses come at 13.5mm and the double-buckle stainless and copper hoses at 14mm. If your complaint is hoses kinking behind the mount, the double buckle is the change to make.

Spring and extensible are not the same thing

A stainless spring hose holds a coiled shape and returns to it, which keeps a long hose off a wet floor. An extensible hose is built to lengthen under pull and draw back afterwards.

Extensible is the right answer in a small enclosure or on a bath-shower mixer, where a fixed 1500mm hose simply trails. It is the wrong answer where the hose is expected to hang straight, because the retraction will fight it.

Length, diameter, and the fittings on the end

Most of this range is 1500mm, with one PVC hose at 1200mm. Diameters run 13.5mm, 14mm and 15mm. One hose is specified by its connections rather than its material — F1/2" at both ends, 13.5mm by 1500mm.

When you enquire, send diameter, length and the fittings at each end. On the PVC hoses the length is made to requirement, and on the metal hoses a non-standard length has to be confirmed before you order rather than assumed.

What the hose will not fix

No hose material prevents limescale forming inside it. That is a function of the water, not the hose, and a copper hose in hard water will scale on the same schedule as a PVC one.

What the material does change is what happens at the fittings and the outer casing — corrosion, crushing, and the split at the collar. That is where hoses actually die, and it is where paying for metal earns its money.