It seems the coiled hose on “water flossers” or “water jet” oral hygene appliances (I can’t even type that with a straight face) lasts about three years, then fails in a spectacular water spray. Mary’s Interplak cleaner just blew a hose, whereupon I discovered that 3/32 inch ID Tygon tubing is a very snug press fit over the 3.8 mm OD white plastic hose:
The hose blew out during the early part of a protracted snow storm / cold snap, when driving out for a replacement wasn’t going to happen. This fix, ugly though it may be, has been working well enough that we’ll wait for something else to go wrong.
It’s not clear replacing the entire length of hose with Tygon tubing would work as well, because the rigid hose transmits water pressure pulses from the pump to the tip without much damping. We’re not sure how much that matters and, if the Tygon hack outlasts the OEM hose, maybe we’ll try that.
As you might expect, the hose isn’t a replaceable part. In fact, Interplak doesn’t list any replaceable parts, other than the jet tips, which never seem to wear out…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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5 responses to “Splicing Interplak Water Jet Handle Tubing”
Had the same problem
It would be too much to expect that WaterPik and Interplak pumps use the same hose diameter; I suppose I can fix that. [sigh]
Thanks for the pointer!
When my WaterPik handpiece cracked, I called them, and they sent me a new hose assembly. They did ask first if I had gotten free parts for this particular unit before. I’m guessing their policy is to only send free parts once per unit.
And to depend on the honesty of their customers, too, it would seem…
My first WaterPik was a rechargeable one-piece unit. The charge socket corroded (gee, dissimilar metals in a wet environment. Who’d have thought that would cause problems? [groan]). The 110VAC replacement has a separate tank, and aside from having to lubricate the gears once, it’s going strong. Curiously, the pump is happier with the absurdly hard water we have than distilled water. (We get iron sulfate–one of the side effects of a geothermally active area.) At least the water tastes good…