Who Invented the Garden Hose?

Author: Hou

Mar. 07, 2024

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Tags: Measurement & Analysis Instruments

Watering our new seedlings, flowers, and grape tomatoes this weekend triggered a question: who invented the garden hose?

Turns out, people have wanted a way to transfer water from one location to another pretty much since the dawn of time. Whether it was irrigating plants or fighting fires, being able to move water has been a consistent challenge for inventors and anyone who wants to direct water to a specific area.

Back in the days of the Bible, early firefighters would fill ox stomachs with water and use intestines as early hoses. And if dealing with oxen intestines wasn’t discouraging enough, the water-filled organs were heavy and unwieldy to move around.

Firefighting largely depended on bucket brigades until the 1670s, when Dutch painter, inventor, and printmaker Jan van der Heyden and his son produced a firehose that consisted of 50-foot strips of leather that, when sewed together, formed a tube that conveyed water from Amsterdam’s water system.

Leather hose tended to leak, and this problem was addressed in 1807 when the Philadelphia Hose Company lined the sewn edges of their hoses with metal rivets. This alleviated most of the leaking, but more than doubled the weight of the hose sections.

Leather was replaced as a common hose material when the Industrial Revolution led to the development of reliable rubber products including hoses, tires, and bicycle inner tubes. In the 1870s, the Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Company developed a process for coating rubber with canvas and forming hoses—a process that, with refinements, forms the basis of most fire hoses today.

The early half of the 20th century brought the development of synthetic rubber and plastic hoses used in most of the hoses manufactured for household use. Demand for synthetic rubber accelerated in World War II, when most of the countries that provided natural rubber joined the Axis Powers.

Garden Hoses Today

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Any garden hose involves trade-offs between factors such as length, weight, the ability to handle pressure and temperature variations, resistance to kinking, and cost. Using synthetic rubber or plastic tubes lined with interior reinforcing fibers results in a hose that’s generally flexible, has a smooth interior for being pulled past trees and rocks, and is strong enough to survive being dragged along a sidewalk or dropped in a driveway.

Synthetic rubber hoses tend to be more flexible, but also heavier. Polyurethane hoses are more kink-resistant and lighter. Vinyl, the least expensive material used for hoses, is heavier, prone to kinking, and most likely to remain coiled as you try to use it.

Beyond a typical hose for watering plants or washing cars, consumers can choose specialized hoses designed for providing drinking water without carrying dangerous plastic chemicals, porous “soaker hoses,” or hoses that expand when they’re carrying water.

Whichever you choose, these modern hoses provide safer and more convenient choices for directing water than their leather predecessors. Or ox stomachs.