Unwind Only Empty Hoses

Do Not try and unwind 100 ft of garden hose when it is FULL of water. Turn off the water first, relieve the pressure on the hose, and THEN unwind it.

This $60 hose reel, bought about 10 years ago (in 1999 dollars) at Lowes, that has an auto-reversing threaded winding screw guide, did well until yesterday. I was BLASTING, back-washing pool filters with the garden hose. After cleaning all 8 cartridge filters on the Shasta pool cleaner, I needed to flush out left-over dirt & sand from the filter body, some 100 feet from the hose reel to the backyard. At the last 5 or 6 feet of unreeled hose, RIPPPPPP - BAM!! The spool separated from the end caps. I guess 10 years is pretty good... but I would have preferred that the $60 reel last "forever". Now, it's functionally useless. The little tangs that held the end caps on are sheared off. Maybe a HUGE amount of Gorilla Duct tape might TEMPORARILY fix it ...