Best Way to Store an Extension Cord

hey dirk farmer jay here from dirtfarmerj.com if you're like many people dealing with these guys extension cords can be a real problem common way that people will wind these up is to take one of the ends grab onto it and then start to coil it around their arm like this catching at the cradle of the the thumb and the forefinger around the elbow and winding it around like this now there's a couple problems with this approach number one every time you wind it you're introducing twist in the line because you have to roll it around to get it back to itself some of the loops are bigger some are smaller you plug this thing together and you go hey good it's stored i need to get a loop on it somehow but you can see look at the irregularity of this thing it's all kind of twisted some of the loops are larger some are smaller and worse yet the most uh problematic thing here is you go to use the cord and you toss it out like this and that's what happens but i'll tell you what there's a better way all right if your cord looks like this and you've got a mess like this here's the way to solve that and to make it so every time you've gotten your toolbox your truck box stowed in a box or stowed away in a drawer whatever you can pull it out and it'll always come uncoiled without snags without a lot of twists in it the first thing you've got to do is work through the cord just start at the beginning and get it all the curls out of it see there see how many twists are in this and look at i didn't fake that out that's just the normal way as soon as you roll something around a fixed object you're going to get twist in it we've got all the twists out of the line at this point all we're going to do now is go back find the male end find the female in plug them in so there's your starting you're going to grab both of these here and work through just like this just work right through until you have the halfway point now here's the cool thing about this method of winding cords first of all right off this is a 50 foot length and i believe this is a 25 footer right away all i've done just by this one step i've cut down one half of the length of this to a 12 and a half foot when i get to this stage that's the halfway point of the cord right there watch this next maneuver all i'm going to do is switch this hand over and i'm going to go just like that you see the other cords right in there i'm going to reach through and grab that so this is what i get see how it's corded around there there's that looped in here now i'm going to grab that handle on the top right here down below and i'm going to push one through switch grip grab the top you see my chain starting to form that's going to be the magical part of this stowage method here's my handle again i reach down below grab more push it up to my waiting hand lift again and i'm going to speed it up here we go all right there we go do you see the little chain right here now i've taken a cord that was 25 foot long i've put it in this length here's the great thing about it it doesn't matter if i throw it on the floor to twist it up it's always going to come back to this form i can wad it up cram it into a shelf throw it on the floor i don't care i can always pick it up and it's going to be that basic shape again you always start with plugging this together then working down to the halfway point starting your chain from that end and then leaving this end sticking out what's the reason for that that's because this end can be undone partially and you can use just as much of the extension core as you need for instance let's suppose you've got 25 foot of cord here but you only have a reach of 11 foot well you don't have to unwind the whole thing and then spread it all out tuck away some of it you can just use part of it and the way you do that is just to back off the front the top loop you see that loop right there with that final end sticking through you just undo the first chain and look it it starts to unwind as much as you need so let's suppose that's your need right there then you're going to throw it on the floor one half goes off to your power supply one half goes off over to your power need and you're ready when you're done you simply plug it back together pick up your loop again and rebuild the loop just like that now another really cool thing about this i want you to watch this when you take out a whole cord like this and i've taken out my tool box and i've done this look at this do you see how beautifully it lays it's flat hardly any twisted at all just a couple twists and the cord is ready to use next time you're thinking about stowing a cord it's easier on the cord it's easy on you remember this is the superior way to use a cord until the next time i'm dirt farmer jay from dirtfarmerj.com if this is helpful helpful to you like it pass it on to somebody else to make use of it and if you have a comma or a tent this has been a quick tip this has been a quick tip from jake oh for crying out loud this has been a quick tip from dirt farmer jay at dirtfarmerj.com if this was helpful to you pass it on to someone else that can make use of it or comment on our site better yet like the video and subscribe until the next time this is dirt farmer jay you