Went to do a walk wash today. Connected to water and started filling tank, pulled my softwash hose out, connected up my pressure washer then proceeded to pull my pressure hose off the reel.
Needless to say, I wasn’t washing much with that hose. I blew two 100’ sections. I “thought” I blew all of the water out before the freeze, apparently…. Shoulda pulled some anti-freeze. I’ll never do that with that hose again 
I bet you did but then it gravity fed undoing your work
Good grief I had no idea pressure hose could be affected by ice like that.
I had a job yesterday so the day before I checked everything. While I did use antifreeze on the machine, my supply hose still had water and the end of a cheap connector cracked off. The PVC ball valve for my 12v ‘gun’ also cracked but thankfully that was the extent of my damage from our -7f cold snap.
This time I blew out my 12v, pressure and supply hoses along with RV antifreeze for the pump.
Agreed. I spoke to the folks at the pressure wash store I use and they said that the hoses will actually stick together and when you unreel it quickly, it will rip the outer cover off of the hose. I should have got a video of the leaks when I started up the pressure washer!
Ouch -7f - I do not miss those temps (I’m originally from New England). I also had the swivel blow on another reel, I suspect the same reason a a little bit of water left and it expanded.
The wife says I should bring everything inside when it gets cold. I’ still trying to figure out how to park my truck in the family room. I mean - “I” would be fine with that, but I’m pretty sure she’ll take issue 
That sounds like the a green light to go ahead and build a garage for the truck!
I don’t understand this if you blew them out. I blow mine out until there is only mist, then I let it continue blowing mist for about another 30 seconds. I also ensure both ends of my hose are open. If you keep one end closed and the other open I could see issues, or not blowing it out enough, but other than that I don’t see how this is occurring. Who knows, I might have problems this year after the spring thaw. I think they said it was like -30 or -40 or something with the wind chill. I did get to crawl under a trailer and help thaw water pipes for 2 days, that was delicious. Ever seen a python eat a fat rat then crawl into its hole? That’s what it looked like with me crawling under the trailer through the skirting opening.
Wow - thanks for the visual Dirtyboy - it’s like trying to I ring a bell now - 
. I don’t know what you look like, but I’m sure I resemble that!
I don’t understand what happened either. My softwash hose - no issues, although it is bigger which may explain it (5/8” bs 3/8”). After talking with the pressure wash store folks, they said that it’s common for the outer coils of hose to essentially freeze to the inner layers and when you unroll the hose it rips the outer jacket off in spots.
I have to say that I did get my money out of those sections though - they were two years old and have seen some abuse. I just didn’t expect that a freeze would get them. It’s odd that we saw those temps here then also - usually end of January beginning of February we see maybe a day or two in the teens, rare to see single digits here. (I’m about 40 miles north of Atlanta).
I’ll tell you the response I got “nice try” was all she said ( but I like the way you’re thinking!).
You are in GA, buy new hoses from BCE. They probably have a stockpile of them. I thought the blue ones marked everything up, but racer says his don’t. Maybe I got a bad batch for color fastness. Mine lasted 3 years, but I don’t have a lot of hours on them.
If you’re talking about the blue Kuritec hose for softwash, never seen it mark up anything on any of our setups.
No, I think he means blue high pressure hose….I had some and when I used heat it would transfer the color to the concrete at times. Maybe got a bad batch or something?
That’s impressive. I’ve never seen that happen and I’ve had machine so frozen that I had to thaw one out with a weed burner to get it going and then use that machine to thaw out three others that were frozen solid. No issues with the hoses though.
I had this same thing happen to me early in December I never in my life thought that would happen. Guess now I know to bring the hose in next time it gets that cold.
I was just talking about that with my wife. That’s a ton of work. I still get jobs here and there when it’s warm. (We had about a week of that cold and the following week it was in the 60’s). It’s really inconvenient to take everything off the truck and put it all back on. I had no issues last year, but we didn’t get cold for as long as we did this year.
A garage is the answer for me. Then I can actually work on my vehicles as well. Two trucks now in the driveway is really taking a toll on the grass!
I know I wanted a heated garage so bad definitely would make things much easier.
Someone on here built a big ol’ insulation box to put on the back of it…I’m sure someone makes something you could lay over it and plug in to do just enough to avoid the freeze…
No, BCE had blue PW hoses. I bought mine with the rig. They also had greyish and blackish ones, but I bought blue so it would stand out a little more in the grass. I regretted it highly while on pvc decks because I would have to go back and hand scrub the blue marks off the decks. It also marked up asphalt and concrete too, but a brush would knock it out quick. Racer said that his didn’t mark up anything, but mine left marks all over. Like I said maybe it was a bad batch, but I won’t buy blue again. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
I was thinking a beating blanked would do the trick. You could tie it down easy enough to keep it from blowing off. Wouldn’t need it for long where I am - y’all would probably need something heavier-duty for further north though.
