How to Choose The Perfect Air Compressor Hose

Getting yourself a quality air compressor hose is essential to ensure stable air pressure, a tight seal and a consistent power output, but with a huge range of variety of hoses available on the market, it can be difficult to know where to start when making your selection. Whether you're a home or professional air compressor user, you'll need a dependable air hose to get the most out of your air tools.

We've pulled together our years of experience to deliver the ultimate, how-to buy an air hose guide. We'll take you through all the decisions you'll need to make before you invest in your new pneumatic equipment.

When Should You Replace Your Air Hose?

There are two reasons you'd want to upgrade your air hose. The first is you want to upgrade your air system so you can use different tools, or you're looking to get more out of your system. The second is that there's a defect in your existing air hose and you need replace it.

Choosing the Perfect Air Hose for You

With numerous varieties of air hose available to buy, sifting through all the choices and information can seem daunting. In reality, these really only four things you need to decide before you start your shopping:

1. How long a hose do you need?
2. What should the internal diameter of the hose be?
3. What material should your hose be made from?
4. Do you want a standard or recoil hose?

We'll go through each of the considerations in turn so you can make an informed decision before you part with your cash.

What Length Air Hose Do I Need?

The length of your hose will directly affect the usability and performance of your air tools. You could purchase a single 50 metre hose and reach everything you could even want to reach - but we'd advise against it! Heaviness and bulkiness aside, the longer the hose from your compressor to your tool, the more air/pressure will be lost on route.

Think about what you'll be doing with your air tool and how much movement you need to be able to do. For example, if you want to spray paint a car in a large workshop shop, you'll need a lot more hose to navigate around, than say, someone who's going to be using an air drill to make wooden toys on a work bench.

The aim when choosing an air hose length is to strike a balance between maximum manoeuvrability with your air tool and a minimum loss of pressure.

SGS standard air hoses are sold with couplers and connectors installed on them, meaning you can connect one hose to the other. You can extend your hoses reach almost indefinitely this way, however for each extra coupler you add, you may notice a small pressure drop.

TOP TIP: If you have to extend your reach to use an air tool, it's always better to use a longer hose than an extension lead. Using an extension lead causes you air compressor to have voltage dropouts, eventually leading to a burnt out compressor.

What Diameter Air Hose Do I Need?

We measure air hoses by their internal diameter (or I.D). Simply speaking, the larger the hose I.D, the more air it'll be able to carry. While the external diameter of air hoses will vary wildly depending on the quality of the hose and the material it's made from, common internal sizes of air hose are 6mm, 8mm and 10mm internal diameter.

The rule of thumb when picking your hose I.D is the higher the CFM requirement of your air tool, the larger the diameter hose you'll need. Hand held tools such as spray guns and nailers tend to require 1-3 CFM and will work perfectly well with a 6mm hose. A heavy duty impact wrench is more likely to require 6 CFM+, so you'll probably require an 8mm or 10mm hose to run at full capacity.

The diameter of a hose will affect the overall weight of the line quite dramatically. Adding a couple of extra millimetres to the hose I.D. soon adds up over a distance. For small handheld tools, where dexterity counts, choose a 6mm hose.

What Material Should My Air Hose Be Made From?

The material your air hose is made from is going to drastically affect the how flexible the line is, the weight of the line, how it'll perform and how long it'll last overall. We've put together this quick-select table so you can see the difference between the options.

Air Hose Comparison