Hose Reels Locks And The Things Pest Control Techs Have Done to Them

The next topic for our Stupid Sh*t Techs Do video is a specific part on hose reels - the hose reel lock. This small but important part keeps hose reels from spinning when you are not using the reel.

These parts are small, and they can break from stress and when they break, bad things can happen!

If your hose reel lock breaks, do not tie it down with a rope. If you hit a bump, the spray gun & hose can go bouncing off the truck. Or as an example, a gun can be dragged behind a truck. Thankfully no one drove over the gun and nothing was damaged except for the tip, but it could have been much worse.

We have also seen a sprayer gun that bounced off the truck because it wasn't locked down and was a total loss. Not only did they have to replace the $80 spray gun, but the downtime cost them a lot of additional money.

We recommend that you continually train your pest control techs on equipment safety. Inspect your vehicles to make sure they are safe, and the equipment is in proper working order. Go along on appointments with your techs to make sure they are doing what you want them to be doing.

A little preventative maintenance goes a long way. Keep watching for the next installment of "Stupid Shit Techs Do."

Andrew Greess:

Hello this is Andrew Greess with Quality Equipment and Spray to qspray.com with the next edition of “Stupid Shit Techs Do” to your pest and landscape equipment this is the next in a series to help you learn from other people's mistakes to protect your business and save you money.

Today we're going to talk about hose reel locks. This is of course a hose reel on your power sprayer and anyone who has a power sprayer has a hose reel. But today I want to talk more specifically about the hose reel lock.

This is the part of the reel that keeps the reel from spinning when you're not using it and it's, it's not an expensive part. And most of the time not that important a part except when you don't have it. And it's you know, it's kind of like your health, you don't worry about it until you don't have it and that's clearly a situation with hose reel locks. And so what happens to these they can break.

Here's an example one that broke, kind of on this on the base where it bolts down but more often they snap at this pin point, cuz that's where the stress is. And then they when the hose reel is broken hose or lock is broken, bad things can happen.

And here's an example. This was a sprayer that was brought in the hose roll lock was missing and someone decided to just tie it down with a piece of rope. This is just a really bad idea because if you don't have a hose reel lock and you hit a bump then your spray gun or your hose can bounce out of the back of the truck.

And I'm not making this up here's a perfect example this is a spray tip, it's actually a spray tip of a 36 gun, that bounced out of the truck because the tech did not lock the reel and it was dragged behind the truck for quite some time. You can see that wear pattern. It's a perfect wear pattern. It was driving down the road for for quite some time to wear off half of this tip and in this case, it wasn't that bad because frankly the only loss was this tip, but it could have been worse.

What if someone had run over this spray gun and pulled the sprayer out of the truck out of the pest control or weed control truck. Or what if this spray gun had bounced up into the windshield of the vehicle behind it it could have been really a nightmare. And it is critical, absolutely critical, that your techs check the hose reel and the hose roll lock before they drive off.

Here's another example this is a GREENGUARD gun that bounced off the trailer because the hose role wasn't locked, and it was a total loss. This is about an $80 gun and it was a complete loss because the tech didn't take five seconds or 15 seconds to check the hose roll lock before driving off. And again, there was no injuries to anyone, but the gun was a total loss. And they not only had to replace the gun they had to drive to the repair shop to get a replacement. So quite a bit of time was lost. The company lucked out here there was no one injured there was no lawsuit but there could have been.

So what do we recommend? You know we've talked about this before - train and retrain your people. Discuss safety at your, at your meetings. We know we know most companies have a staff meeting regularly. Most of the time they're talking about how to upsell customers or how to use a chemical to get control but we also want you to talk about safety and equipment safety in particular.

If you're the boss do inspections of your vehicles. Make sure your technicians are checking their equipment before they drive off and do ride-alongs to make sure they're doing your they're doing what you want them to do.

So thank you so much for watching if you think this is valuable, please consider qspray.com whenever you need to spray equipment for your pest or landscape business.

Thanks so much for watching have a great day!