The Genius Way To Repurpose A Garden Hose Reel For Better Garage Organization

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Garden hose reels have a rough life. They sit in the sun all day waiting to be helpful, coping with all the accidental dragging and extreme, sudden temperature shifts between the superheated water left in your hose and the cold water exiting your spigot. So, of course, they eventually break. But depending on how they break, they might still be useful.

What you can conveniently do with a hose reel that you've replaced (or maybe you've simply started burying your garden hoses to keep them from ruining your curb appeal) depends largely on what's wrong with it. If the housing is damaged or too unsightly for the grass farm, but the reel itself keeps on reeling, you can easily make use of it by simply discarding the housing or just using it as-is. Those without enclosures might no longer be useful for garden hoses — everything starts leaking sooner or later — but as long as they'll still wind up something hose-shaped, they remain useful. Be sure to give it a thorough cleaning and lubrication before upcycling it.

If the reel has lost its windability, the body of the reel (the part with a flange that keeps hoses from slipping off the sides) will still be useful for storage after you remove the extra bits that no longer function. Spring- and motor-driven retractable reels can always be used as simple storage reels, but their winding mechanisms might interfere. Depending on what's wrong with yours, it might make sense to remove the winding mechanism entirely. And note that many of these ideas can also be applied to discarded cable spools, like those used when installing bulk coaxial cable.

For a reel that still works, one of the best ways to reuse it is to wind up long, bulky electrical extension cords for storage and easy access. Many like to attach the center of a long cord to the empty hose reel and then crank the entire length of the cord onto it. When you're ready to use the cord, pull both ends simultaneously to unspool. Or, if you decide not to do the wind-it-from-the-middle thing, you can just start spooling at one end. But keep in mind that if you don't leave a tag end accessible, you'll need to unwind the entire cord to use it. While commercially available electrical cord reels, similar to this DEWENWILS Extension Cord Storage Reel, often come with a centered nipple and bushing where the short tag end of the cord exits the reel, your improvised one won't, so take care not to smack things with the spinning and end-weighted plug that will be flailing all around once you get up some unrolling speed.

There are lots of creative ways to repurpose an old hose reel around your home and garage. Air hoses, ropes, bulky holiday lights, pressure washer hoses, notoriously unwieldy welding cables, and other lengthy storage challenges can be addressed with a hose reel that still reels. One of the best uses for leaky hose reels is to store those two-inch flat discharge hoses that you use with a gas-powered pump to remove water from a basement or lawn that occasionally floods. These hoses, which look and feel like small firehoses, are extremely heavy and awkward to handle without a reel.

If you're wondering whether this approach to cable and hose storage is worth the trouble, there are lots of good reasons. Reels protect your ropes, hoses, and cables from damage, and protect you from their habit of lying about all over your workshop floor, waiting to be tripped on. When these items are neatly housed on a reel, they will take up less storage space and prevent cables from becoming tangled as they're moved from place to place. In fact, reels make it more streamlined to store a collection of them, which both improves their appearance when stored and makes it less likely you'll need to shift them around as often.

Storing hoses and cables on reels can also increase their lifespan, as they're subjected to less abrasion and less ultraviolet light, both of which can break down the plastic outer covers on many types of cable. Additionally, winding them onto a spool will reduce the number of severe kinks that can damage internal components, like electrical wires and pneumatic hoses. And a cable or hose that lasts longer is one you don't have to replace as often, so you're saving money.

Perhaps the best reason to do it, though, has to do with ease of access. A cord on a reel can be snatched up and thrown in the bed of a pickup truck or the trunk of a car in seconds, with no untangling. Not only are they more portable, they're also quicker to deploy when stored on reels. This is a benefit you might not get from DIYing a handy hose reel using an old tire rim, though that's a pretty cool workshop hack too.