Two outlets that test hoses for a living rate this the best one made. Wirecutter calls it their upgrade pick and reports more than two years of near-daily use without being able to make it kink, plus the fastest bucket-fill time they measured at 55 seconds. TechGearLab scored it 89 out of 100, the highest in their twelve-hose test, with 9.0 for construction. Eley backs it with a ten-year no-leak warranty and a -40 to 165 degrees F range. It costs $113.23, weighs 0.15 lb per foot, and comes in one unlovely grey.
Full review
Polyurethane Instead of Rubber or Vinyl
Eley builds this hose from reinforced polyurethane rather than the EPDM rubber used by Dramm or the PVC blends used by most budget hoses. Polyurethane is springier and more abrasion-resistant per unit of wall thickness, and it does not plasticise and go brittle under UV the way vinyl does. Eley specifies a 5/8 in. inner diameter with a 7/8 in. outer diameter, a 150 PSI maximum working pressure and a minimum burst of 450 PSI at 75 degrees F, across a service range of -40 to 165 degrees F. Fittings are lead-free forged brass, crush-proof, in a hex profile. The cover is non-marking, which matters if the hose gets dragged across a boat deck, a pool surround or finished concrete where a black rubber hose leaves streaks.
The weight ladder Eley publishes makes the wall thickness concrete. A 6.5-foot hose weighs 1 lb, a 25-footer 4 lb, the 50-footer 7 lb dry and 14 lb filled, and the 200-foot run 28 lb. Nothing about this hose is trying to be light. The design brief is a hose that behaves like plumbing, holds its bore under a boot or a car tyre, and does not degrade after a decade in the sun, and every material decision follows from that.
Wirecutter Has Used One for Two Years
Wirecutter names the Eley its upgrade pick and describes it in unusually strong terms. "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." They were careful to distinguish kink resistance from stiffness, noting 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." That is the behaviour that separates a good hose from a bad one: it bends when you want it to and springs back rather than creasing. They also weighed it against their main rubber pick and found "the polyurethane Eley model manages to shave 4.5 pounds off, weighing about 7 pounds as opposed to 11.5."
The Fastest Bucket Fill They Measured
Wirecutter's flow test is simple and repeatable: connect the hose to a faucet with no nozzle and time a five-gallon bucket. The Eley did it in 55 seconds, the fastest result they published, against about 70 seconds for the heavy rubber hose they rank above it on value. That gap comes from Eley's full 5/8 in. flow path with full-flow fittings, which avoids the internal step-down that many couplings introduce. TechGearLab reached the same conclusion qualitatively: "This 5/8 inch diameter hose moves a lot of water; perfect for filling up buckets or watering plants in a hurry." If you fill stock tanks, buckets or a pool, flow rate is the specification that actually determines how long you stand there.
The Highest Score TechGearLab Recorded
TechGearLab tested twelve hoses across convenience (35 percent), performance (35 percent), construction quality (20 percent) and variety of options (10 percent). The Eley came out at 89 out of 100 with sub-scores of 8.5, 9.0, 9.0 and 9.5, the best overall result and the best construction mark in the group, earning their Editors' Choice for best premium hose. Their assessment of the build was unqualified: "It is immediately clear that the Eley has some of the highest construction quality and material standards of any hose we tested." On handling they wrote that "it pulled straight out of any coil or storage pile and laid flat. It is also one of the most flexible and maneuverable hoses we used, despite its heavier weight," with a second tester adding that "the weight isn't very noticeable in hand."
The Storage Penalty and the Grey
There is a direct cost to the thick wall. TechGearLab measured 0.15 lb per foot and 14.8 lb across a 100.5-foot sample, listing "expensive, heavy" as their only two cons. More annoying than the weight is the coil diameter: because the hose resists tight bends, it will not wrap small, and the testers found it "took up more space in our garage." Eley sells hose reels and this hose is clearly designed around one. There is also the appearance. Wirecutter noted that "the Eley hose is available only in a battleship gray, so it doesn't exactly disappear if left on a lawn, as a black hose does," and quoted a tester's first reaction: "That thing is kinda ugly."
What the Length Options Are Actually Worth
TechGearLab's highest sub-score for the Eley was 9.5 for variety of options, and it is easy to undervalue that on a spec sheet. Eley sells 6.5, 12, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175 and 200-foot lengths plus custom runs, all in the same 5/8 in. diameter, priced live from $38.19 to $370.59. A 12-foot hose for a patio spigot and a 175-foot run to a back paddock are both stock items with the same fittings and the same warranty. By comparison the Teknor Apex zero-G offers three lengths and the Briggs & Stratton 8BS50 offers four. Only the Dramm ColorStorm Premium Rubber Hose, orderable custom to 330 feet, does better on range, and Dramm does not go below 50 feet.
Buying Direct and the Missing Amazon Listing
Eley sells this hose through its own site rather than Amazon, which changes the buying experience. The live price for the 50-foot SKU 1163 is $113.23, discounted from a $141.54 list, and all ten lengths show in stock. There is no Prime shipping, no Amazon returns window and no third-party seller pool to price against. On the other hand there is no counterfeit listing or child-variant churn either, and warranty claims go straight to the manufacturer that wrote the ten-year guarantee. Wirecutter frames the cost plainly, noting the hose "costs roughly $125 for a 50-foot length, a little over twice the cost" of the rubber hose they rank first on value.
Who Should Not Pay $113
If the hose gets carried, coiled and re-hung several times a session, the Teknor Apex zero-G's 0.08 lb per foot is a difference you feel every single time and the Eley's higher scores will not compensate. If the hose is going on a reel and stays there, the Eley's coil diameter stops mattering and its case gets much stronger. And if you simply need a 50-foot hose that works for a few seasons, the Flexzilla Garden Hose with SwivelGrip does that for well under half the money.
The buyer this hose genuinely suits has already replaced a hose two or three times. The failure pattern is always the same: a kink hardens into a crease, the crease becomes a leak, and the hose goes in the bin two summers after purchase. Both outlets that examined the Eley found the specific behaviour that breaks that cycle, which is that the hose deforms into wide loops rather than folding shut. If you have been through three cheap hoses, the money has already been spent and the ten-year guarantee is the only part of this deal that is new. Consumer Reports, whose protocol weights flow rate most heavily and separately measures strength by hanging weights in fifty-pound increments until a hose fails, also included the Eley 50-foot polyurethane in its tested lineup, which is a third independent lab reaching for the same product. Between Wirecutter, TechGearLab and Consumer Reports, no other hose in this guide has been picked up by three testing organisations of that calibre, and none of the three found a fault worse than weight, price and colour.
Strengths
- +Wirecutter's upgrade pick and, in their words, "the best hose we've ever tested" after more than two years of near-daily use without a single kink
- +Highest score TechGearLab recorded in a twelve-hose test at 89 out of 100, including 9.0 for construction quality
- +Filled a five-gallon bucket in 55 seconds in Wirecutter's flow test, the fastest hose they timed
- +Ten-year no-leak, no-fail written warranty, the longest here; rated 150 PSI working and 450 PSI minimum burst at 75 degrees F
- +Sold in ten lengths from 6.5 to 200 ft, so you buy the run you need instead of coiling 30 spare feet
Watch-outs
- −$113.23 for 50 feet, which Wirecutter notes is a little over twice the cost of a comparable rubber hose
- −Only one colour, and a Wirecutter tester's reaction on seeing it was "that thing is kinda ugly"
- −TechGearLab measured 0.15 lb per foot and listed "heavy" as one of only two cons
- −The stiff wall coils in large loops that TechGearLab found "took up more space in our garage"
- −Not sold on Amazon and offered in one diameter only, so no Prime shipping and no 3/4 in. option
How it compares
The Eley posted the highest raw score in TechGearLab's test, ahead of the Dramm ColorStorm Premium Rubber Hose and the Teknor Apex zero-G, and it carries the longest published warranty of any hose here at ten years. It is also the most expensive by a wide margin and roughly twice the weight per foot of the zero-G. Against the Briggs & Stratton 8BS50 and the Stanley FatMax BDS6650, both of which testers got to kink, the Eley's stiff polyurethane wall is the entire point: it bends into wide loops instead of folding shut.
Rating sources
“The heavy-duty Eley actively resists kinking. Even attempting to manually kink the hose was a challenge; it simply bends into a loop with water flowing through it the entire time.”
“Eley 50' 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.”
Our 4.5 score is the average of the 2 scored reviews above; 1 more reviewed it without printing a score and is not in the average. More about methodology.
