&&The Pirit™ Heated Hose is made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics with a knit reinforcing component. Available in 12', 25', 50' and 100' lengths, it is a thermostatically controlled cold weather water hose used to provide a constant source of water in freezing temperatures. It has heater wires extruded directly into the hose walls for uniform heating and unrestricted water flow and comes with a grounded power supply, grounded nickel plated brass female and male couplings and protective bend restrictors at both ends. The thermostatically controlled heating elements turn on when temperatures are below 45F and turn off when temperatures are above 57F.

&&Heading 39.17 provides for "Tubes, pipes and hoses, and fittings therefor (for example, joints, elbows, flanges), of plastics".&&Note 8 to Chapter 39 states:&&&&"For the purposes of heading 39.17, the expression " tubes, pipes and hoses " means hollow products, whether semi-manufactures or finished products, of a kind generally used for conveying, conducting or distributing gases or liquids (for example, ribbed garden hose, perforated tubes). This expression also includes sausage casings and other lay-flat tubing. However, except for the last-mentioned, those having an internal cross-section other than round, oval, rectangular (in which the length does not exceed 1.5 times the width) or in the shape of a regular polygon are not to be regarded as tubes, pipes and hoses but as profile shapes".&&&&The General Explanatory Notes to Chapter 39 read in part:&&&&"This Chapter also covers the following products, whether they have been obtained by a single operation or by a number of successive operations provided that they retain the essential character of articles of plastics:&&&&a) Plates, sheets, etc., incorporating a reinforcement or a supporting mesh of another material (wire, glass fibres, etc.) embedded in the body of the plastics.&&&&b) The provisions of the preceding paragraph also apply, mutatis mutandis, to monofilaments, rods, sticks, profile shapes, tubes, pipes and hoses and articles".&&In this case, the good under review meets the definition of a hose as per Note 8 to Chapter 39 and the description in the General Explanatory Note in regards to plastics combined with other materials as it retains the essential character of an article of plastics. Thus, it meets the technical requirements of heading 39.17.&&