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Retractable Garden Hose

mariakay | Nov 5, 2010 |

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If you are serious about gardening or if you live in a community that has strict landscaping regulations, you may need to use your garden hose almost daily. If this situation applies to you, then there you want to make sure that your garden hose is easily accessible and easy to put away. You do not want to have to spend time unraveling your hose or untangling crimps and kinks. In addition, once you are done with your watering chores, you want to be able to put the hose away quickly and in a manner that will ensure that it stays in top condition. In this situation, you will want a retractable garden hose storage system.

Garden hoses need to be stored so that there are no crimps or kinks in the line because storage with a bend can cause that section of hose to weaken and be prone to failure. To avoid crimps and tangles, people like to store their hoses wrapped neatly in coils. Some people coil the hose on the ground or around a peg and hang it. Retractable garden hoses are coiled around a wheel similar to a spool of thread or ribbon. The spool wheel turns in two directions so that you can wind up the hose for storage and unwind it when you need to use the hose again. There are several different designs for a retractable garden hose.

First, the spool can be activated by a hand crank at the end or it can be powered by a motor and need electricity to operate. Of course, the manual method is more strenuous and takes more time and effort. The automatic retractable garden hoses are preferable for an older homeowner who might not have the strength to turn a wheel with the full weight of the garden hose on it. Another difference of design is that sometimes the spool wheel is a free standing structure and other times it is hidden inside a small storage cabinet. Obviously the free spool shows the garden hose and if your hose is not wound up neatly, it can be an eyesore. The small storage cabinets hide any unpleasant sights, and often come equipped with small storage compartments for various garden hose nozzles and garden hose attachments. You might need a regular nozzle for most jobs but special attachments like a telescoping nozzle can come in handy for jobs like cleaning the solar light collecting panels on your roof or cleaning gutters.

If you have a storage cabinet for your retractable garden hose there will be an opening somewhere for the hose to reach a water source. Most homeowners store the retractable hose next to the water source so that it can stay hooked up at all times. Another opening will be for the end of the hose that you use and you can pull on this end to start unraveling the stored garden hose. Most cabinets also have a lid that opens in a manner similar to a storage chest or cooler. This is so you can remove the spool if need be or check to make sure that your retractable hose system is winding the hose properly.

The most common reason for not using a retractable garden hose is that you do not have room for the large storage system outside and it is too big and heavy to carry around from place to place. If this is the case for you, try to find a way to multitask with a retractable garden hose storage system. For example, you might sit a potted plant or other decoration on top. Another example of multitasking would be to store other gardening tools in the storage compartments so that you have easy access to them.