Giraffe Tools Retractable Garden Hose Reel 1/2 Inch x 130 ft, Super Heavy Duty, Any Length Lock, Slow Return System, Wall Mounted and 180 Deg Swivel Bracket

Love this item. I previously purchased the 1/2" x 100' last year and it has worked flawlessly. So I purchased this 1/2" x 78' model for my back yard. Same great quality and easy of installation. I will say that the nozzle that's included isn't of the highest quality. My first started leaking badly within the year! The only other thing is the bracket. For this price, they could make it of metal and not that plastic. Overall, it's a must have!

We had been looking for a retractable hose with the swivel capability and wanted one that would be easy to install. This one is it! Quick installation, well built and it even locks the hose in place where I want. With an intentional pull the hose rolls back in and retracts into the case. We had an issue with one of the devices (we bought 2) and the customer service resolution was top notch. I highly recommend this Giraffe retractable hose

I love having a retractable hose! It makes watering plants so easy and convenient. Neighbors have commented that they now want to get one because you don't have to mess with winding up a hose manually or dealing with kinks or twists in the hose coil.My husband mounted this to a sturdy 4x4 post on our front porch. He created an extra sturdy mount because we had to place the bolts through a plastic post cover (see photo). After using it for about 1 month now (maybe 2) the top of the mounting bracket seems to have started to bend, almost like it is going to slip out. The bottom mount has a screw to hold it in place, but the top one doesn't as you can see in the photo. We might have to find a way to add this, but then I'm not sure how we would unmount it for the winter months??Also, the retractor feature is starting to catch. The hose gets stuck and doesn't always retract or release completely. Maybe would be more durable if the parts were made of something other than plastic.

We installed are reel in about 15mins. Super easy and looks very neat and clean. Started watering flowers right away. Works perfect great price.

Let's face it, this is for lazy people who couldn't be bothered to hand-crank the hose, so they rather spend an extra $100 or more to get this thing, safe in the knowledge that the hose will always be neatly put away at the end of the day, because it takes no effort.To unreel the hose, you simply pull on it. When you stop pulling, it will pull back about a foot or so and then "lock", so there's not a constant tension on the hose. To reel it back in, pull the hose out for a foot or two, then release the tension and it will reel it back in. I suggest you "walk it back", otherwise it will slam the ball at the end of the hose against the unit. The spring inside this reel is quite strong, you also notice that as you pull it out to its full extent.The instructions have a full-size drill template on the back, that makes the installation a little easier. HOWEVER, you'll have a hard time finding the correct concrete drill bit for the included screws / anchors, because they're for metric drill sizes, so I went to the hardware store and bought a "beginners kit" that had screws, plastic anchors, and the correct bit. This made the installation more painful than it needed to be. If you're mounting this into wood, then you don't have that issue.To make the installation a little easier, you can loosen the small screw on the swivel base, then lift the unit from the base. Once the base is screwed to the wall, just lift the reel in and tighten that little screw.Once mounted, the entire reel can swivel roughly 180 degrees.The package includes a leader hose to hook it up to the faucet, however the connecting port is mounted horizontally, which is a bad idea. To reduce the stress on the port, and to avoid kinking the hose, I bought the following 3 items which make it a "better" installation, and also makes it easier to follow the instruction manual suggestion to shut off the water before reeling in the hose:- 90 Degree Hose Elbow CAMCO 22505, search for: B003BZD03K- Kink-Protector Hose, search for: B07N6Q141P- Inline shutoff with long lever, search for: B089QXNJNFIn my view, the elbow should be part of the package, particularly at this price. Anyhow, I mounted the elbow to the reel to make it a vertical connection. Then I mounted the kink-protector hose to the elbow and attached the shut-off to the kink protector hose. Finally hooked up the (included) leader hose. This prevents any kinks in the supply hoses, and it allows me to shut off the water right at the reel, without putting physical stress on the water inlet connection, which did not look too sturdy to me, and it certainly wouldn't be fixable if you broke it.

This thing works awesome!! The hose is a bit smaller diameter than what I had but with my lower water pressure it kicks it up to a good stream for washing the car.

I bought it last summer and used it for a few weeks. This weekend, I turned it back on, but it was leaking everywhere. Then I opened it up to see what was going on. And voilà ! Same problem as other customers: the hose connector is broken.Very good concept, but the design needs improvement.

1 1/2 yrs in and it stops retracting. It was wonderful while it worked, a very handle tool in the garden, but started having retraction issues after the first summer of use. We babied it, being careful to retract it smoothly and then one day it completely gave out after two summer seasons of garden use. For the price it was probably worth the two seasons I got from it, but seems like such a waste to throw the entire thing away when it’s probably one small broken part inside the unit.UPDATE: contacted product support. Best costumer service I’ve ever had. They had me send a short video of the problem and without further questions, sent me a brand new unit within just a week! I would give five stars for costumer service if I could.