Liberty Garden 714 Decorative Cast Aluminum Navigator Rotating Garden Hose Reel, Holds 125-Feet of 5/8-Inch Hose - Bronze

Sturdy and beautiful

Worked great

This swivel reel fit our needs perfectly. It's pretty sturdy, but not made of heavy duty metal and I'm not sure it'll last more than a couple of years, but we'll see. I rated it a little lower as a bolt came loose from inside of the reel within the first week of use. It's held since I had to fix it, but this part was preassembled and should have been correctly tightened before being shipped out.

This is the best hose reel ever! Now people complaining that it rusted in the rotate bearing aren't wrong that it does this and it does take some periodic maintenance of popping the plastic cap off and cleaning and lubing the bearing. It's a tapered roller so if you keep lube in there it will last forever!

Install was relatively easy, but I have a broad set of tools including a hammer drill and carbide tipped bits. I bought 3. VERY expensive, but after looking at ALL alternatives, this fit the decor and function and they do look magnificent. None leak - although one did start to leak when put in a bind. I suspect the o-ring got compressed. I removed the tension and it stopped leaking so I am hoping for the best. The units are quite sturdy and the aluminum won't rust. They fit my 3 75' hoses nicely. Finish was good. The test will be next year when I fire them up after winter. If they leak - I will be back to update the review.Update: At the end of the summer - 1 has a small leak. Another lost a screw in the handle which required disassembly. The pivot mechanism is hard to work and looks like it is going to rust. I am only 5 months in. I will update at the beginning of next spring if they don't do well over the winter.

I installed one of these for a neighbor lady a few years ago and it has held up well. It is VERY well designed, metal construction throughout, and the swivel is brass with O-rings. See image ... a simple snap ring, disassemble and replace 2-3 O-rings (hardware store has them), a little grease, and put it back together. It's a snap, no pun intended. My old reel was about $40 cheaper from a different manufacturer, but the swivel was made of "plastic" parts, leaked like a sieve, and there was no way to fix it. Wish I would have bought a Liberty Garden product the first time.

The Yugo of hose reels! Terrible engineering! There’s an Allen bolt that attaches the handle to turn the overall wheel. This bolt is inside the outer cylinder and keeps falling out no matter how tight it is. After using the reel 2-3 times the bolt falls out inside the cylinder. I bought 2 of these POS and they both do the same thing, even with very limited use. In order to put the bolt back on you have to take the whole damn thing apart. I would love to meet the genius engineer who designed it this way. I will never buy one of their products again.

What is listed as aluminum is in reality mostly steel. The couple of decorative parts are in fact aluminum but the rest is steel. If you are wondering how I determined that I simply used a magnet. Too bad since it is very good looking and is easy to use. I hope it lasts.