Pest Control Equipment - It Could Have Been Worse

Pest Control Equipment - Another Problem

I know some of you guys think I make this stuff up but here we go again.

This photo shows a quick disconnect on a termite equipment truck.  As you can see the quick disconnect was dragged on the road behind the vehicle.

The technician neglected to secure the hose before driving off.  The hose end bounced off the truck and the hose, with the pest control fittings, was dragged behind the vehicle.

This could have been much worse.  Instead of just some downtime and the cost to replace the termite quick disconnects, here are some nightmare scenarios that come to mind:

-  Police stop vehicle and issue citation for unsafe load

- Quick disconnect hits a bump in the road and bounces into following vehicle's windshield

- Following driver runs over hose.  I am not sure what would happen in this case.  Would all the hose unroll?  Would the hose reel be jerked from the vehicle?  I am not sure and I am glad we didn't find out.

In any case, the company was pretty lucky here.

Suggestions:

- Advise technicians to check pest control equipment before driving off.

- Ensure manual hose reels are locked.

- Electric hose reels, generally do not have a reel lock because a tech would burn out the motor trying to rewind a locked reel.  Ensure the hose end is properly secured.  One was to do that would be to secure an extra quick disconnect somewhere on the vehicle or equipment and have the tech connect the hose end QD to the extra one.

Hope you find this valuable.

If you have photos, examples or stories, please share them: https://www.qspray.com/contact-us/

This photo was shared by Mike Britt, Owner of Patriot Environmental, a leading pest control firm in Kingman AZ.  Check out Patriot Environmental at http://patriotenvironmental.tech/index.html.  Thanks for sharing Mike!