There’s more than just performance testing when it comes to finding the best nail gun hose. There’s also how it stores and how annoying it is when it gets coiled up and frustrating. This lay flat hose from Ridgid is the best air hose I’ve used. Here’s why.
I love it when I come across a product that doesn’t just live up to the BOLD FACE marketing claims printed on the box, but goes way beyond and solves all kinds of other issues for me on the job site.
Ridgid’s ¼-inch 50-foot lay-flat air hose, Model # R5025LF is just such an item.
Get the Ridgid Lay-Flat Air Hose at Amazon.
Top Line Tool Review
Framing, trim, outdoor, cold, hot, crowded this 50 feet of easy-to-manage air hose is on my truck forever. Under 40-bucks. Not sure how they can make it better, so it’s the best air hose on the market.
Ridgid Product Details
- 3 pounds
- Easy to coil–even under pressure–and uncoil
- Swivel fittings included
- Field repairable (I don’t know what this means or how to do it, but that’s cool!)
- Fabric clad
- Bend-restrictors at pinch points
- 300-Max PSI
Get the Ridgid Lay Flat Hose at Amazon.
Problem – Solution
Here’s the lowdown on the problem that this Ridgid air hose solves and what makes it the best nail gun hose I’ve used.
Problem.
It’s a problem since the typical ¼-inch urethane (or PVC or whatever gob of chemical make these balls of yarn up) nail gun hose has one state: Tangled.
That leaves me in one state: Infuriated!
These rolling booby traps are 4-dimensional chess to coil/uncoil. It’s 8-dimensional chess to manage them in anything other than a wiiiiide open environment. Gotta haul that thing around an obstruction like existing stairs in a basement remodel or around a corner adding base molding to a hallway? You’re snagged every 12 inches, nevermind the knots.
There’s no way to make these things relax.
How to uncoil cords and hoses.
Solution.
Ridgid’s Lay Flat Hose is an order of magnitude better than any gun hose I’ve used, so it’s won the best nail gun hose category for us.
I don’t know what dragon’s breath they put in this thing, but—under pressure—I can coil it up like an extension cord.
Laid out, it’s not perfectly flat, but it’s so flat I don’t have to think about it that much. I can pull the thing around a corner as I trim a hallway or enter another room.
The thing is relaxed–like me– and is ideal for crowded job sites. It paid for itself on a basement flood recovery we did. I call projects like this, Basement Remodeling By Surprise!
In the storm recovery work we do, nobody is ready (obviously). So to get this basement habitable we couldn’t empty it. We just moved everything then worked around it.
What do you think is the best air hose? We’d like to know so we can try it out and compare.
