Why You Should Maintain Your Hose
Keeping your hose healthy matters. At Snap-tite Hose, we firmly believe that showing care and attention to “hose health” gives you peace of mind and keeps your hose ready for any situation that may come.
It may seem time-consuming to consider either adding in a maintenance checklist or adjusting your schedule to complete your existing checklist more often but we truly feel that keeping up with your “hose heath” can help in more ways than one. You send your car in for oil changes and check-ups, you visit your doctor to check your health, and you certainly need to make sure your hose is as healthy as possible by scheduling and performing regular hose maintenance.
WHY IS A CHECKLIST IMPORTANT AND WHY SHOULD YOU USE ONE?
The best way to keep your hose healthy is to have a comprehensive checklist of things to look at, do, and check during your scheduled maintenance time.
The NFPA has standards out to clean and maintain your hose, and those are found in the latest edition of NFPA . The NFPA puts out these guidelines “[to] provide requirements for fire hose, couplings, nozzles, and appliances in order to ensure a reasonable level of reliability when they are used at an incident.” These guidelines are a great starting point to use!
A HEALTHY HOSE MEANS LESS EQUIPMENT DOWNTIME.
First, making sure you use a checklist and regularly maintain your hose means you have less equipment downtime. If you check your hoses often you’ll come across issues before they become catastrophic. Keeping an eye on small issues helps you address them easier and with less downtime for your equipment.
It also helps to keep your general hose wear and tear top of mind so you can be conscious of when you need to replace your hose. Rather be safe and prepared than up against a quick hose replacement!
A HEALTHY HOSE LASTS LONGER.
Second, it increases the life expectancy of your equipment. Just like your own health, you want to make sure your hose is healthy. It’s simple really. Take care of your hose and it will take care of you!
Ensuring you use a maintenance checklist and a regular maintenance schedule keeps your hose performing and performing at its best. A well-performing hose is a safe and dependable hose.
USING A CHECKLIST AND SCHEDULING FREQUENT MAINTENANCE CAN REDUCE REPAIR COSTS.
Third, you’ll reduce your repair costs. Regularly scheduled maintenance means lower repair costs. Changing your car oil on a schedule means your car runs longer, better, and you lower your overall repair costs- it works the same way with hoses. Keeping them in tip-top shape over time is a great cost-saving move. The reduction in repair costs comes from keeping an eye on and taking care of small wear and tear before it becomes a bigger issue.
YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT SPARE PARTS YOU HAVE AND NEED.
Fourth, you will have better control of spare parts. Cost-saving isn’t the easiest if you cannot understand why you have or keep ordering spare parts. Keeping a log of the maintenance done, the parts ordered, and a spare parts inventory list allows you to know what you have on-hand to repair an issue before it turns catastrophic. You can keep a good handle on what you have for spares with regularly scheduled maintenance.
Fire hose health is something to not take lightly – and using a checklist on a regular schedule can help keep your hose in top shape. For more tips, read more on the blog and visit our proper care page.