Air Hose Reel

Air Hose Reel

If you’ve ever spent any amount of time working in a shop that has a lot of air tools running, you know how important it can be to keep your hoses organized.  If you don’t have an air hose reel that can help you keep your shop organized, you’re really putting yourself in danger of getting hurt.  You are also less likely to put the hose away too if there isn’t a nice place to have it conveniently stored.

An air hose reel helps store your air hose and it helps make your shop a lot safer with less of a tripping hazard.  Not only that, it will help you keep your shop organized, and make it so that you’re always able to find your air hose.  Honestly, once you start using an air hose reel you’ll wonder how you ever (or why you ever) used your air tools without one.

Simply put an air hose reel is a reel that is designed to store your air hoses.  Air hose reels work by having your hose wrap around your air hose, much like a garden hose reel that you may have seen in your home and garden store before.  A good air hose reel will always keep your hose neat, and really help prevent excessive wear and tear.

When your hose is safely wrapped up in your air hose reel, you don’t have to worry about rather what you’re doing is going to damage it.  You don’t have to worry about dropping a heavy item and punching a hole in the hose.  You don’t have to worry about driving your vehicle over the fittings, causing an air hose failure, and you don’t have to worry about tripping over a hose that you meant to put away, but never got around to.

As you already know, the better your tools, the better your work is going to be.  Simple things that will help you keep your shop more organized will mean you will have more time to work on your projects.  You don’t skimp on the rest of your tools, so why skimp on an air hose reel?

There are two main types of air hose reels available on the market.  The first is a basic manual reel that requires you to hand crank to wrap the hose around the reel.  This type of air hose reel can be hand relatively inexpensive.  You can pick them up at your local budget tool store for as cheap as $20. 

The second type is a retractable hose reel.  This type has a ratchet and a spring inside of it.  The spring will automatically pull the air hose back in to the reel.  The ratchet is designed to hold the air hose out in its position.  Basically, the ratchet only engages at certain points on the reel, so you pull the hose out until you feel the ratchet engage.  Then to feed it back in you just pull it out a little more until you feel the ratchet disengage, and then let the hose go and it will wind itself back up.