Extension Cord Storage

I have found the solution to my extension cord problem, maybe it can help with yours too.

My problem is I have 2 100 footers, a 25, and a 50. The best ones are unfortunatly the hundred footers, which is really annoying to wind up or when I only need to get so far.

Well at my old place of work, they get dozens of these 4 gallon buckets of mayo and pickled ginger every month that just get tossed out. Square, flat, and good lids. Square, to me, is important because it's easier to store than something round.

The tale on the back is the male end. It's 5 feet long to reach any outlet I have, the rest of the cord is wound up in the bucket, and the female end comes out the hole on the top OR a hole on the side.

Why the side? Because sometimes you need to improvise a table, and if a table leg can double as an extension cord, that's just a bonus.

I've found it doesn't knot up inside the bucket, so I don't have to coil the hole thing back up when I'm done, just shove it back in the hole and put it away.

Thanks for the tip. I'm gonna give this one a try.

Awesome idea!
I can't wait for SWMBO to happen across my open tabs, searching for used 4 gallon buckets for pickled ginger.
Anyone have a suggested source for these?

Your local Hibachi restaurant /Japanese steakhouse/sushi joint should have them, at least that's where all mine come from.

The "yum yum" sauce, the pink sauce they give you at the table at every hibachi place I've ever been, starts with 2 buckets of mayo, so unless they have a recycling program, they probably have a stack of buckets waiting to get thrown away.

The square kitty litter buckets are about the same size too, even if you don't have a cat, it's good to have kitty litter around for cleaning up spills anyway.

The 6 gallon round soy sauce buckets are nice too, if you don't mind everything you put in it smelling like soy sauce.

I would imagine a $3 5-gallon bucket from Lowes Depot would do the trick, too.

I tried this with a 100 ft cord. It works well. Thanks.

I've used a similar idea using 5 gallon buckets without lids to store collapsible garden hoses. One on the dock is used for flushing out the boat and jetski. It coils right back in the bucket easily when finsished and is a lot easier than the hose hanger thing that I had out there before.

I may try it with long extension cords...my longest is always as mess.

I heard that people who work on bridges (repainting, etc) can wind up their cords in such a way that they can drop them from a height and have a 100' cord just unroll with no tangles. I'd have to see it to believe it, but that's kinda cool.

Could be a daisy chain.

Or a stuff sack of sorts. On the rivers (white water guide) we all had stuff sacks that were bags of rope. You hold one end and throw the bag to someone in the water to pull them in. Probably 50-80' of rope. To reload you literally stuff the rope in the sack and it never tangles.