What Are the Different Types of Steam Hoses (and Which One Fits Your Plant)

Types of steam hose, and which one fits your plant

Four kinds of flexible hose carry plant steam in India, and a fifth product shares the name without belonging on a plant at all. The pressure and temperature where the hose sits decide which one you need.

Flexihose rubber steam hose: one wire braid 145 PSI / 10 BAR, −40 °C to +195 °C, 1/2" to 2" · two wire braid 250 PSI / 17 BAR, −40 °C to +232 °C, 1/2" to 1-1/4" · EPDM tube and cover · brass-coated steel wire braid

Search for steam hose in India and the results put two unrelated products side by side: a wire-reinforced rubber hose for a refinery, and a thin tube for a garment steamer. We make the first kind at our works in Bhiwadi, and the question we hear most before a quote is not about price. It is about type. Which construction is right for a 7 bar lance, a jacket feed at 12 bar, or a line running above 200 °C? This guide covers what a steam hose has to survive, the five types compared for plant use, where steam iron hoses fit, and how to pick a type from your own pressure and temperature.

What a steam hose has to survive on a plant line

Every type below is a different answer to the same three loads. Knowing them makes the comparison easier to read, because each construction is strong against some of them and weak against others.

1. Saturated steam at a fixed temperature for its pressure

Saturated steam sits at the boiling point for its pressure, and that relationship is fixed and published. Spirax Sarco’s steam tables, for example, give a saturation temperature of about 170 °C at 7 bar g (Spirax Sarco, What is steam). Raise the pressure and the temperature at the hose rises with it. A hose is therefore never rated for pressure alone. Each grade carries a pressure ceiling and a temperature ceiling, and your duty has to sit under both.

2. Condensate, which is hot water, not steam

Any heat the line loses turns some steam back into water. That condensate is what a steam hose spends much of its life carrying, and hot water attacks a rubber compound differently from hot steam. This is why we use EPDM for the tube: it holds its strength and flexibility in saturated steam and in the condensate that forms with it, where natural rubber and nitrile harden and craze on the same duty.

3. Heat cycling, every time the line comes up and goes down

The wall expands when the line reaches temperature and contracts when it cools. Over hundreds of cycles, reinforcement that cannot follow that movement loosens. Textile yarn loses tension under repeated heat cycling, so our rubber steam hose is braided with high-tensile steel wire instead, and the wire is brass coated so it bonds to the rubber and does not separate from the wall.

A fourth demand sits behind all three: margin. Our one wire braid grade is rated 145 PSI / 10 BAR working against a minimum burst of 1450 PSI / 100 BAR, ten times over. That gap exists because a steam failure injures people, and any type you compare should publish both numbers.

Five types of steam hose compared for plant use

Here are the five products you will meet when you buy steam hose in India, set against the same columns. Every figure for the rubber, stainless steel and PTFE rows is from our 2026-2027 catalogue. Where the catalogue does not print a value, the table says so rather than filling the gap.

1. Rubber steam hose with one wire braid

This is the standard industrial grade and the one most plant steam runs on: steam lances, tracing, thawing, vessel cleaning and jacket heating. It is the only rubber grade we catalogue at 1-1/2" and 2", so it is also the default for larger bores. Pressure is the same at every size, 145 PSI / 10 BAR, so a 2" hose is rated exactly as a 1/2" hose. Our full specification for both rubber grades, with mean outside diameters for every bore, is on the steam hose page.

2. Rubber steam hose with two wire braids

A second braid of the same brass-coated wire takes working pressure to 250 PSI / 17 BAR and the service ceiling to +232 °C. Choose it when your pressure at the hose is above 10 BAR, or when the temperature is above +195 °C, which can happen at moderate pressure if the steam is superheated. It is catalogued only to 1-1/4". We do not quote 1-1/2" or 2" at 17 BAR; ask and we will answer from the works.

3. Stainless steel corrugated flexible hose

An annular corrugated metal hose in AISI 304, 321 or 316L, with or without a stainless braid, made to EN ISO 10380. It covers bores well beyond 2", up to 150 mm, and suits metal-to-metal connections where a rubber hose is not suitable. Its pressure rating falls as the bore rises, so read it at your size. Our catalogue prints no service temperature for it, so we confirm the rating against your duty before quoting. Details are on our stainless steel flexible hose page.

4. PTFE hose

PTFE carries the widest temperature band of the four, −65 °C to +260 °C, which makes it the answer above +232 °C where we publish no rubber grade. It also suits steam alongside aggressive chemicals, because the liner is chemically inert. As with stainless steel, pressure falls with size, from 250 BAR at 1/8" to 30 BAR at 2". See our PTFE hose range for the full table.

5. Steam iron and garment steamer tube

It shares the name and nothing else. We cover why in the next section, because it causes more wrong orders than any of the other four.

Where steam iron and appliance hoses fit, and why they are not plant hose

Type “steam hose” into a marketplace and many of the cheapest listings are spares for a steam iron, a garment steamer or a press. These are light silicone or PTFE tubes a few millimetres across, sold as low-cost appliance spares. They connect a small domestic or tailoring boiler to an iron, at the low pressure that equipment runs at.

They have no place on an industrial steam line, for three plain reasons:

• No reinforcement. There is no steel wire braid, so there is nothing to hold the wall against plant pressure or to keep it stable through heat cycling.
• No plant rating. Appliance tubes are not sold with a published working pressure and minimum burst that you could check against a plant duty.
• Wrong size and ends. Plant hose starts at 1/2" bore and is fitted with couplings that grip the wire. An appliance tube has neither.

We make plant hose only, in bores from 1/2" to 2". If you are buying for a refinery, shipyard, chemical plant, steel mill or foundry, filter a listing by three things before price: a bore of 1/2" or more, a steel wire braid, and both a working and a burst pressure printed on the specification. A listing missing any of the three is not the product you need.

How to pick a steam hose type from your pressure and temperature

Two numbers decide it, and both must be measured at the hose, not at the boiler. Plot them on the plane below. If your point falls inside the inner envelope, the one wire braid rubber grade covers it. If it falls in the band between the two envelopes, you need the two wire braid grade. Outside both, the answer is PTFE, stainless steel, or a conversation with us before you order.

In practice we work through the same five checks with every enquiry. They take a few minutes with the plant drawings open.

1. Inside 10 BAR and +195 °C

Choose rubber with one wire braid. Saturated steam at 7 bar g sits at about 170 °C, comfortably inside this envelope, which is why it covers most lances, cleaning points and jacket feeds.

2. Above 10 BAR, or above +195 °C, up to 17 BAR and +232 °C

Choose rubber with two wire braids, in 1-1/4" or smaller. A 10 BAR line carrying superheated steam can run past +195 °C, and then temperature, not pressure, decides the grade. Our guide to saturated and superheated steam works through that case.

3. Above +232 °C, or bores above 2"

We publish no rubber grade here. PTFE is catalogued to +260 °C, with pressure read at your bore, and stainless steel corrugated hose runs to 150 mm. We compare both with rubber in our guide to rubber versus stainless steel steam hose.

4. Hot oil, thermal fluid, food or a fixed main

None of the rubber grades is for these. Mineral oils and thermal transfer fluids attack EPDM, the family carries no food-contact grade, and a fixed steam main should be rigid pipe. Our guide to the best pipe for a steam line covers where hose ends and pipe begins.