Sad farewell to an old friend on Christmas Eve

It’s funny how some things come as a surprise, as was the case when the item seen below finally decided to fail on me, after many decades of faithful service.

I’m not sure when I bought this, but I picked it up when I bought my first proper air compressor to power various air tools in my garage. It was the biggest that could be operated from a single phase 240 V 13 A domestic outlet, and the only way to get more air would have been to add a 3 phase supply, and that was something that definitely wasn’t going to happen. It was before 2000, maybe even 1990, so that hose lasted well.

However, when I snapped the connector into place, and pulled the hose, I knew it’s days were over, and it started to hiss.

Hardly a surprise, I’ve been watching cracks appear in the outer covering for years, although the core seemed to be unaffected – until now.

The source was close to the working end, where tools etc get plugged into a quick connect, but I didn’t think this would be all, and it turned out I was right,

I dunked the whole thing in a bath of water, and there were more streams of bubbles to be seen. Pretty small, and nothing like the hissing fail at the end, but realistically, this hose was gone.

Like the insulation in valve radios from the 1930s, this hose was derived from natural rubber, and was only going to get worse. I’m almost surprised it lasted as long as it did.

That said, I added various modern synthetic hoses to my collection over the years, and they would all still appear to be like new, since they don’t get abused.

Oh well, off to the skip it goes.

You can see the blue covering is covered with cracks.

At least I get to keep/re-use the fittings from the ends.

You can never have too many fittings

😱

Stinky blue air hose V2

I think I mentioned this air hose some time ago.

I got this air hose (I thought it was a bargain, being complete with quick release fittings) during a Lidl special, about three years ago, but it hasn’t even been used once.

It stinks!

It stank three years ago, and it still stinks today.

As noted in the previous post, I chucked it outside for weeks, and left it lying on the grass, in the sun and rain, thinking this might let whatever was causing the stink to out gas.

It seemed to work, and I brought it back indoors.

However, months later I was walking past it, and the same stink was back – it’s horrible!

Per the above pic, it’s back outside, this time over winter, so it will enjoy cold, frost, and snow.

As noted, it’s absolutely horrible – best I can match it to is the worst aspects of a farmyard, combining rotting silage, cow poop, pig poop, chicken poop. Oh, and the foul disinfectant they spray all over the place too.

Doesn’t smell of any one of them, but if I was to smell it in a blind test, I would have to guess I was in a farmyard.

Ever owned an offensive air hose?

After years of trying to ‘fix’ this offensive air hose, as I bring it indoors for winter (when the low temperature outdoors will end another unsuccessful year of hoping its disgusting smell will dissipate), I’m coming to terms with the need to accept the fact that this hose can never be used near people.

I bought it as part of a load of small, cheap air fitting and accessories on offer from Lidl under their Parkside brand about three years ago, when I needed to set up a small compressor to provide a low volume/high pressure air supply in the house, as the system I have in the garage is just too big (and NOISY!) to be used in a domestic environment.

All went well, although I was slightly irritated at having to use a THIRD variation of quick connects, since the Lidl offering didn’t match either of the larger types I was already using for air tools.

Then I began to notice a smell that had me thinking something had died after finding some hidden corner out of sight in my house. I couldn’t track it down, or pinpoint the source, but just found it seemed to exist somewhere at floor level. It was quite a while before I realised the problem was the new air hose, which I kept shoving out of the way as I poked into corners and holes to try to locate the smell’s source.

I might still be hunting, had I not happened to coil the thing up and shove it under my nose as I went to store it on a shelf – and found it absolutely reeked of some cross between dead rotting meat and a toilet nobody had ever cleaned.

I threw it outside, and left it in the sun and rain for weeks/months/years, thinking this would cause the source to outgas, evaporate, be washed off, and become diluted over time, but that never happened. It’s still stinky, maybe less so, but still bad, and who knows what it will be like if/when it gets warm again.

I dared stick my nose in it before I brought it in, and it STILL stinks.

A pity, as it’s a handy little hose to have, being smaller and lighter than the usual half inch nominal garage stuff, and ideal for running through the house since it runs around things, rather than being so heavy it either it drags stuff along with it, or pulls it over.

Footnote

I had to dig out some receipts to find out how old this was, as I’d expected the smell to wear off during the first year I took it out of the plastic bag it was sealed in.

I ‘lost’ this post back in 2022, so it’s now a year older.

FOUR years after buying this air hose, I STILL avoid it – it STILL smells just about as bad as it did when I opened the bag.

I wouldn’t mind the smell so much, but it STILL smells like a dirty, unmaintained public toilet, and the smell eventually pervades any room it’s left in.