Toolbox

Popular, powerful Jet-Set^® electric, gas and trailer water jets from General Pipe Cleaners slice through grease, sludge, sand, and ice stoppages that many cable drain cleaners can’t clear! 

Water jets unleash high-pressure water streams that pulverize clogs – and flush them away. Nozzle thrust drives the hose down lines – and gives wall-to-wall pipe cleaning action. 

General’s rugged, reliable water jets are excellent for restaurants, hotels, hospitals, factories, schools, sports arenas, care facilities, shopping centers, and more! 

Portable Electric Jets 

Compact and economical, they’re superb for clearing smaller and inside 1-1/2” to 4” lines – like sinks and laundry drains. Hand-carry 23-lb JM-1000 Mini-Jet™ right to problems in its rugged metal diamond plate case. Or wheel the trim JM-1450 right to troubles. Its telescoping handle and detachable hose reel make maneuvering easy. Both pack 1500 psi cleaning power! 

Maneuverable Gas Jets 

General’s muscular machines punch through stubborn stoppages in longer and outside 4” to 8” lines. All sport 3000 psi, reliable engines, puncture-proof tires, and robust, tubular chassis. On-demand Vibra-pulse^® technology helps propel hoses down long runs and around tight bends. 

Models range from light, economical JM-2900 through precisely balanced JM-3000 with electric start and generous 300 ft. capacity hose reel, to JM-3055 with the highest water flow rate of any jet without a holding tank. JM-3080 tops the line with a 12 gal buffer tank and 8 gpm flow rate – the industry’s highest without requiring a trailer.

Powerful Trailer Jet

General’s brawny JM-2512 Typhoon™ delivers 12 gpm at 2500 psi to blast clogs from 4” to 12” lines up to 400 ft. long. A 200 gal holding tank aids operations in remote areas with limited water. Two hose reels offer plenty of reach. And standard equipment includes rugged radial tires, leaf-spring suspension, electric brakes, fold-down stabilizer jacks, and more! 

For details, visit www.drainbrain.com/jets. Or contact General’s Drain Brains^® at 800-245-6200 or 412-771-6300. 

General Pipe Cleaners, a division of General Wire Spring Co., is a leading manufacturer of high quality American-made drain cleaning equipment. In business since 1930, the third generation family-owned company is celebrating nearly 90 years of service to drain cleaning professionals and plumbing contractors, as well as facilities managers, the rental industry and the hardware/DIY market. The Toughest Tools Down The Line. 

Plumbers who know their trade understand that there is always a trade-off between sectional machine models. Now they don’t have to sacrifice power for portability with the new RIDGID® K-5208 Sectional Machine. It’s the most powerful, most compact, easiest-to-service and cleanest drain cleaner on the market.

Weighing 30% less than the RIDGID K-1500 Sectional Machine, the K-5208 is purpose-built to cut through the toughest roots with a ¾ HP motor and cable that can spin up to 700 RPM. Designed for drains 2” to 8” in diameter, it features a tool-less clutch adjustment to quickly switch between 7/8” to 1 ¼” cable sizes. It comes with a new Trident Sectional Cable Decoupler for disconnecting cables efficiently and cable feeder with guide tube for easy loading and unloading into an enclosed cable carrier. Infield clutch serviceability minimizes downtime, while a carrying handle allows for easy transport from truck to jobsite.

Designed with high-strength square steel tubing and rubber feet for enhanced stability, the K-5208 includes an innovative fluid management system that incorporates a reservoir to catch fluid for later draining. The enclosed cable carrier and cable feeder also enhance cleanliness by reducing exposure of the cables on the jobsite.

“The RIDGID K-5208 Sectional Machine has been thoughtfully designed from top-to-bottom based on feedback from professional plumbers who demanded a more powerful and portable option,” said Wyatt Kilmartin, vice president and general manager, global underground technologies, RIDGID. “This new machine is lighter and cleaner with go-everywhere power.”

The K-5208 and other RIDGID drain cleaners are built at the RIDGID plant in Orange, Virginia and include the RIDGID Lifetime Warranty.
To purchase or learn more about the K-5208 contact your local distributor, visit RIDGID.com/K5208, or call toll-free: 1-800-769-7743

The new Gen-Eye X-POD® from General Pipe Cleaners features a powerful new Command Module with USB port to record video inspections on flash drives.

The lightweight X-POD combines camera, reel, and monitor into one compact package. Standard features include:

• Big 7” LCD Color Monitor
• USB Recording Drive
• One-Touch Recording
• Digital Zoom 4X
• Voice-Over Recording
• Date & Time Stamp
• Flash Drive Capacity Indicator

The Command Module also includes a 3 ft. Probe Rod with color camera for inspecting hard-to-reach places – like ducts, furnaces, and wall spaces.

The full size X-POD features a self-leveling color camera and 200 ft. Gel-Rod® for inspecting 3” to 10” drain lines. The compact Mini-Reel carries 100 ft. or 200 ft. of Gel-Rod with mini color self-leveling camera for trouble-shooting 2” and 3” lines. The rugged steel frames and reels include a drag brake and reel lock. The full size reels sport 10” wheels.

For additional information, contact the Drain Brains® at General Pipe Cleaners at 800-245-6200 or 412-771-6300, or visit www.drainbrain.com/geneye.

Program is in beta test with industrial users both on the jobsite and off

When Bosch introduced its Bluehound asset tracking solution to select customers, the focus was on builders on the jobsite. That’s still the case. But a great beta test site has turned out to be a rental equipment and supply house that works with its customers.

Cole Breese, inventory warehouse manager, 365 Equipment and Supply, Barrington, Ill., knows an advantage when he sees one. “We’re always looking to get better,” said Breese of the company’s decision to test Bluehound. “We’ve been testing this out on a big project for about seven months. We need to see where equipment has been so that we can optimize asset availability, verify quantity access and monitor records tied to individual assets.”

Getting the Jobsite Running

365 rents everything from power tools and work platforms to cranes and front loaders, in a market area that stretches from Chicagoland to Milwaukee. The company is a one-stop shop for contractors, sub-contractors and municipalities. 365 also sells power tool accessories to support its rentals.

Ryan Braschko, warehouse manager at 365 Equipment and Supply, says there are 7,800 pieces of equipment in the company’s fleet. Up to this point, the company has relied on traditional methods to track when products were rented, when they left a site and when they were returned. If a product stays in the field, the 365 team has limited information as it moves from jobsite to jobsite.

With Bosch Bluehound, Braschko can accurately track every job an item has served, as well as duration and status. While 365 hasn’t implemented the entire Bosch solution, the pair notes that Bluehound has been able to complement and enhance their current system. Bosch tracking tags can be placed on every piece of equipment so it’s easier to see where an item is in real time. The 365 goal is to replace the manual tracking/static bar code-following computer software system that captures tool serial number, jobsite name and contact information for the foreman at a single jobsite.

Efficiency of Asset Flow

Bluehound development has pushed the Bosch research team to consult with everyone from jobsite managers to company owners, from site owners and general contractors to developers and sub-contractors. Bosch has also talked to distributors about how sales representatives find products when they’re in the field.

Even with the diverse feedback Bosch has gathered, there’s no test site quite like 365 Equipment and Supply. “Most of the adjustments we’ve made to Bluehound were influenced by our experience at 365,” said Eli Share, mobile and IoT lead, Bosch Power Tools. “We’re working to be the software link between the tool crib and the jobsite. We’ve seen the influence this technology can have here.”

Share notes that one of the biggest challenges for their customers is that tools and equipment walk from jobsite to jobsite. Nothing has been stolen, but no one in the organization knows which site has what products and equipment. There’s no clear reporting, yet some companies generate thousands of pages of paperwork. He observed that many man-hours of manually checking and verifying records doesn’t prevent lost and stolen items.

What’s clear is that companies want to know where tools and equipment are located all the time, including small tools. One of the things that makes Bluehound attractive is that users can immediately tell if a product is lost or stolen due to manual status updates in the system. And that’s related to the tag.

“On the jobsite, people see the tag – that’s a theft deterrent to start,” said Braschko. “But the real value is that it saves time by showing equipment location on a map.” And any discrepancy about tool location can potentially be cleared up with a single phone call.

The Service Angle

In the case of 365, it’s less expensive to repair serviceable tools rather than having to replace them on a regular basis. With Bosch Bluehound, users know what the maintenance history is so repairs can be completed in a proactive manner. The system also reduces the reliance on manual maintenance administration.

“Everything we need is there in Bluehound,” said Breese. “The system was raw when it first came in, but the team has built up a hierarchy of asset tracking, locations and other details. Initially, we didn’t know what to expect, but we knew this was an opportunity to improve our business.”

The lifecycle for products at 365 is remarkably consistent: small tools, three-to-five years; larger tools, five years; laser measuring tools, seven to eight years. Efficiency and cost savings come when Breese and Braschko know where tools are located all the time rather than having to purchase replacements.

Today, 365 Equipment and Supply buys more tools than it takes in return, but that’s now a product of growth. Throughout the course of its short history, 365 has seen its business grow and become balanced season to season. With Bluehound, the company has been able to optimize asset availability, quantity access and records tied to individual assets. And these functions can be done from anywhere.

“This is the first time we’ve used a live tracker,” said Braschko. “It’s been good.”