Who designs houses? I mean, seriously; do people who design houses actually live in houses?
Here’s our dilemma. And, yes, we do have a made in the USA solution! 
Our home has a walkout basement, with sliding glass doors to the interlocking brick patio in the back yard.
On the other side of the sliding glass doors is a large window.
And of course, one does need a faucet in the back yard to which the garden hose is attached.
As well, one does need an electrical outlet on the outside of the house in the backyard into which electrical cords for electric lawn mower or whipper sniper will be plugged-in.
So, where do you think the best place might be to place the faucet and electrical outlet in the back yard?
How about placing the sliding door, the faucet, the window and the electrical outlet all within a 2 foot radius of each other? Geeeeeze!
So, having this unenviable situation, what would you do? I mean, do you just not have a hose in the back of the house? But, where will you put it so it is not in the way when walking through the sliding glass doors and so there is no risk of water getting into the electric outlet?
The DailyHomeRenoTips.com solution was to purchase a hose reel: one that did not have to be attached to the wall (as there was mostly glass from the sliding door and adjacent window); one that could be moved out of the way as was needed; one that could be hung inside the garage during winter so the garden hose would not freeze.
We choose to go with the Fold & Store Hose Reel Cart from Ames (pictured above). We like the 3 year warranty (which is pretty long for a garden utensil). It comes already assembled, except for the purchaser having to connect the connector hose to both the faucet coming out of the wall and the Fold & Store. And it happens to have the Made in USA symbol.
This garden hose reel met all of our above needs.
Notice in the above picture how close the electrical outlet is to the faucet. Is this even legal or up to code? To the right of the faucet you can see the edge of the sliding glass door. And, to the left of the electrical outlet you can see the floor to ceiling window. See what I mean how there was no room to hang the garden hose up on the wall?
Here is what the end result looked like; i.e. with the garden hose now contained within the Fold & Store hose reel, out of the way from the sliding door and the best solution we could come up with for the situation.
Do you have any other ideas?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Silly question - Why do you need to leave your garden hose attached to the faucet?
I’ve developed the habit of putting away the garden hose when I’m done with it, much like when I’m done with the extension cord. This also means I only need one garden hose for both front and back yard faucets.
2 Dan // Aug 22, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hi Jeff,
Many thanks for the email. As to why I leave the hose attached to the faucet, interesting Q.
It’s a personal thing I guess. First, I am not the only one who uses the hose in the back. I’m not going to make my wife carry the hose to the faucet, hook it up and then unhook it and carry it back to the shed each time she uses it. That’s a little much to ask of her I think.
And, as my wife can attest, I can be on the lazy side. What with my full time day job and our home reno activities and keeping this web site current, and ….
time is pretty prescious. I’ve never lived in a house, and I have lived in a lot of them over the years, where I had to hook up and un-hook the garden hose for each use. So, if I haven’t before and don’t have any time for unnecessary stuff, why would I?
Plus, as again my wife will attest, the constant un-hooking will see me get water all over myself.
Cheers,
Dan
3 A // Aug 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Well, since you;ll have your plumber here anyways…. why not have him move the faucet as well.
Cheerio!
A
4 Dan // Aug 23, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Hi Al,
You sound like my banker …. “Since you are already renovating why not …. ”
Do you know how much plumbers cost these days? Ha!
Dan
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