Brine Hose Reel Sprayer

 On our first trip out trying our sidewalk brine applicator we discovered to be efficient we would need the sidewalk machine operator to be able to just pound out miles of sidewalk while another guy ran a truck and treated break areas and other larger concrete/asphalt spots. He would also be able to use the truck as a nurse tank to feed the sidewalk machine and as you'll learn in a later post, a pre-wet system on a truck salter.
 So the boss says build a sprayer for the truck. I like this project because sprayers are easy to build and I had two helpers, Dan and Adrian, that I made do all the work. I just pointed, suggested, and made them do things over when I didn't like it. Like so many in house projects, we try to use stuff we already have. In this case we did buy a new tote and the sprayer parts that were robbed off our turf spraying equipment will all have to be replaced by spring. Those sprayer parts are about eight seasons old and are showing their age but still serviceable. This is how the idea started in my head:

 The tank will be up against the front of the truck box and the hose reel will hang off the drivers side. Pull up to the job, hop out, grab the hose and start squirting. Most of this will be done in private lots and not from the street. I can think of only one spot we will treat that will come close to needing all 300 feet of hose we have available, and technically we could do that with the sidewalk machine if needed.

 We used the same erector set material as was used to build the brine maker. These lightweight steel I-beams are actually designed to support semi trailer wood floors from underneath.

 Above is the basic framework. Below is the bulk of the plumbing. Everything was laid out to keep it simple.

 With the sprayer mounted in the back of the truck we just gravity fed it full from another tote that was mixed indoors.

 You'll notice the big yellow hose in the bed. That one is used to gravity feed the sidewalk sprayer and the pre-wet in the back of another truck. That one could get tricky but as suggested by one of the guys, it is all mounted in a dump insert that can be raised with the touch of a button. I think we can easily gravity fill using that method. By the way, that dump insert pump motor is located just an arms reach between the bed and the insert. It was an easy place to get power for our sprayer pump and electric hose reel.

 This is how it looks from the side. It doesn't hang out past the fender and is at a comfortable working height. I see those knuckleheads have ideas of never getting out of the truck while spraying. Not gonna happen. Next thing you know they'll be throwing brine filled balloons at door entrances to pre-treat them.

 Now we're just waiting for the right kind of winter weather to arrive so we can try this stuff out! Unfortunately we missed an opportunity to apply brine on Christmas eve prior to the snow we got on the 25th. I guess we weren't expecting a Christmas miracle!

Later.