Air Hose Storage Ideas

Reel

• A hose reel is the easiest and most convenient way to store your air hose. The best reels have a recoiling feature in them, allowing you to rewind the hose onto the reel automatically. This not only saves you a lot of time and hassle winding up your air hose, it leaves it in a safer location and arrangement when you're done. Winding up an air hose on a hose reel eliminates the risk of kinking the hose while you're winding it up, thus reducing the risk that your hose will spring a leak and prolonging its life substantially.

Reverse Loop

• "Fine Homebuilding" recommends using reverse loops when you wind up your air hose. Because the diameter of an air hose is substantially larger than that of an extension cord, it's difficult to wind up an air hose in the same way that you would an extension cord. The winding begins to kink the air hose, and it rebels against you by trying to flip backwards. If you wind each loop in the reverse direction of the one before by bringing the loop in front of the remainder of the air hose rather than behind it, you will overcome this problem by allowing the twist in the hose to reverse directions.

Wall Hook

• An easier, if less elegant, alternative to a hose reel is a simple hook on the wall. It has to be a fairly large hook to accommodate numerous loops of hose. Wind up the hose using the reverse loop technique and hang it on the hook. If the hook isn't big enough, tie the loops of hose together with a piece of rope or cord, or secure them together using a bungee cord, then loop this rope or cord over the hook in the wall.