Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

What is the best way of preventing this?

Use metal fittings. The Hozelock plastic fittings don't last long.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I'll see if I can locate and fit some metal fittings
in place of the plastic.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland