Patent Application
20130221167
On a regular basis it was necessary to use a water hose to clean the sidewalk in front of a commercial retail building. There was no accommodation to store the hose when it was not in use. Therefore each time it was used it was necessary to carry it from a remote location. Re-coiling the hose for subsequent transportation back to the remote location was a recurring problem, so I visited several hardware stores seeking a suitable, simple device. I found none.
In seeking a solution I first tried to form a coil of the hose by hand. With the hose length laid out longitudinally and pointed towards me I rotated the hose end towards me, forming the first loop of a coil. Then I continued to rotate the hose, but found that with nothing to hold it the end of the hose fell to the ground, thus defeating the coiling process.
I then used a heavy rubber band to secure the end to the full circumference of the first coil. While this resolved the initial problem, it afforded no stability to the subsequent coils.
At this point I decided it was necessary to make a clip of some sort to secure the first few coils of the hose, thus providing some stability for subsequent coils. To do this I purchased a ⅛ inch thick by 1 inch piece of steel which was formed into a horizontal u-shaped clip into which was fitted first the end, and then the subsequent first few coils of the hose, thus providing the desired stability.
Use of the clip was promising, but subsequent coils became a problem because using just the hands was insufficient to hold any substantial number of additional coils. Therefore using the same size metal strip, I formed a second, wider u-shaped “saddle”, the base of which was soldered to the upper side of the original clip. This saddle is sized to accept a number of subsequent coils, making it possible to accommodate a hose of reasonable length.
The uReel Hose Holder is a simple, one-piece device to assist the user in manually assembling a water or similar flexible, elongated item into a manageable coil for transporting, or for storage on a hook-type devise for vertical storage, or for horizontal shelf storage.
The uReel Hose Holder consists of a one-piece, two-section device—a clip and a saddle—and is used to assist in reducing a hose into a manageable coil after use. For best results the user lays the hose longitudinally with both ends open to permit the outflow of liquid, Holding the invention with the u-shaped saddle on top, the user places the near end of the hose into the open side of the horizontal clip. User rotates the device and hose rearward and downward sufficiently to form the first coil, inserting a subsequent segment of the hose into the clip adjacent to the hose end. This process is continued at least two more times depending on the diameter of the hose. Subsequent loops are then fed into the upper saddle of the invention. The user accomplishes the above operation by cradling the assembly hand under hand, rotating the top of coil inward and downward until the entirety of the hose is formed into a coil. Upon completing the coiling operation the user is free to carry the coil together with the Hose Holder to a convenient location for storage.
The attached drawings depict the uReel Hose Holder:
