Water-Fed Pole Equipment Daily Inspection Standard

Purpose

This standard catches a failing rig before it fails on a customer's glass. A stuck pole section, a weeping housing, a torn brush head, or resin that's already past cutoff all have visible or measurable warning signs the morning before they cost a route; run without this check and the first sign of any of them is a job in progress, which turns an equipment problem into a callback, a wasted trip, or a stranded crew. Run with it, the rig either clears for the route or gets pulled and swapped before the first stop, and the failure gets fixed on the shop's schedule instead of the customer's.

Scope

Covers the pre-route check of one water-fed pole rig: pole and clamps, brush heads, hose and reel, purification cart housings and fittings, tank, and pump. Runs once per rig per working day, before the first stop. Does not cover the physical swap of exhausted DI resin or filter media, which is its own procedure in the Resin and Filter Service how-to; does not cover freeing a section that's already stuck or diagnosing a failed TDS reading in the field, both covered by their own troubleshooting cards; and does not cover the preventive cleaning and lubrication that keeps this check passing, covered in the Extension Pole and Brass Fitting Maintenance how-to. This is a pass/fail check, not a repair.

Roles and the handoff between them

Before the check starts

Every housing on the cart can be holding line pressure even when the system looks idle, and cracking a seal against that pressure launches the cap. Close the feed valve and open a bleed port or the downstream tap before touching any housing, clamp, or hose fitting on this rig. And if that does not hold, meaning a housing resists opening or the line's pressure state can't be confirmed, do not force it; work back to the feed valve and confirm it is actually closed before continuing.

A carbon fiber or aluminum pole conducts electricity, and it looks and feels exactly as inert as a fiberglass ladder that doesn't. Run the full-extension check in Step 3 clear of any overhead line. For an unqualified person, 29 CFR 1910.333(c)(3)(ii) sets a 10-foot minimum approach distance from anything energized up to 50 kV, the same clearance this trade's ladder-safety standard sets for aluminum ladders near a service drop; treat the pole the same way even though it doesn't look like a metal ladder, and if a stop's only staging area is under a service drop, move the extension check to open ground before continuing.

The procedure

1. Confirm the housing seals are dry under full line pressure. With the feed valve reopened after the depressurized check above, look at every housing seam on the cart for weeping or a salt crust from a slow leak that already dried once. Acceptance: every seam dry to the touch under full pressure. Wrong looks like dampness or a white mineral ring at a seam, meaning the o-ring or thread seal has already started to fail. Stop rule: any weeping housing gets pulled from service and flagged for reseal before the route; a housing weeping at rest weeps worse under the vibration of a driving route.
2. Test TDS at the pole tip, not at the cart. Connect the pole, run a startup flush of 30 to 60 seconds to waste, then take the reading at the brush head. Acceptance: a reading at or below 10 ppm, the same field cutoff used throughout the route day. Wrong looks like a reading above cutoff, or a cart reading that's clean while the tip reading is high, which points to hose or fitting contamination rather than resin. Stop rule: any tip reading above 10 ppm after a full startup flush pulls this rig from pure-water work; stage a spare rig or plan the route on traditional method for the day rather than running water already known to be out of spec.
3. Extend every pole section to its full length, then fully collapse it, checking clamps as you go. Each section should extend and retract with even resistance and no gritty feel; each clamp should release fully with normal hand pressure, not require force or a second try. Acceptance: full extension and full collapse achieved smoothly, section by section, every clamp releasing on the first attempt. Wrong looks like a section that binds partway, a clamp needing extra force, or a gritty feel suggesting mineral scale in the overlap. Stop rule: any section that won't fully collapse, or shows visible cracking, whitening, or an out-of-round profile, gets pulled from the rig; do not load a pole you can't confirm collapses, since a pole that won't collapse at today's last stop strands the crew there instead of here.
4. Check every brush head for bristle coverage and mount security. Look across the full width of the head for gaps or missing bristle clusters, and confirm the head is seated firmly with no play at the pole connection. Acceptance: full bristle coverage edge to edge, head does not rock or shift when pressed against a firm surface. Wrong looks like a bald patch that leaves a streak the width of the gap, or a head that shifts under light pressure. Stop rule: any head with a coverage gap or a loose mount gets swapped for a spare before the route; a streaking brush head reads to the customer as a bad clean, not a worn part.
5. Inspect the hose full length and the brass quick-connects at both ends. Run the hose through your hands from reel to pole tip, feeling for kinks, soft spots, or cracking in the outer jacket, and check both quick-connect fittings for weeping or a green or white corrosion crust on the brass. Acceptance: hose runs full length with no kink or soft spot, fittings dry and free of corrosion buildup. Wrong looks like a cracked jacket that splits under route pressure, or a fitting with visible crust already restricting flow. Stop rule: any cracked hose section or a corroded fitting that won't seat cleanly gets swapped before departure.
6. Confirm the reel brake and the tank seal, then run the pump if the rig has one. Test the reel brake under light pull to confirm it holds; check the tank cap seats and seals; if the rig runs a pump, run it briefly and listen for cavitation, a rough surging sound meaning it's pulling air rather than water. Acceptance: reel brake holds, tank cap seals without weeping, pump runs smooth with no cavitation noise. Wrong looks like a reel that free-spins under light pull, a tank cap that weeps at the seal, or a pump that surges. Stop rule: a cavitating pump gets checked for a low tank level or a loose suction fitting before the route starts; running a cavitating pump dry burns the pump seal within a single route day.
7. Log the result and clear the rig, or pull it. Record every check above on the daily inspection sheet with a pass or fail per item, sign it, and either clear the rig for the route or tag it out with the specific failed item named. Acceptance: a completed sheet with every line marked, attached to the rig or the job record before departure. Wrong looks like a rig leaving the shop with an unsigned or partially completed sheet. Stop rule: a rig with no completed sheet does not leave for the route, regardless of how it looked to the tech who ran the check.

The record this produces

A daily inspection sheet per rig:

• Pass/fail per item, steps 1 through 6, with the specific reading (TDS ppm) recorded, not just a checkmark.
• Any pulled item, named specifically (which pole section, which housing, which fitting), so the shop lead knows exactly what to source before the next shift.
• Tech signature and date, so a repeated failure on the same rig traces back to a pattern, not a one-off.

This record turns "the rig's been acting up" into a specific, dated maintenance trigger the shop lead can act on before it becomes a route-day failure.

One run of this procedure, filled in

Tuesday morning, Rig 3, before a 14-stop commercial route.

• Step 1: all cart housings dry under full pressure. Pass.
• Step 2: startup flush 45 seconds, tip reading 3 ppm. Pass.
• Step 3: this step failed. Section 3 of the pole collapsed with a gritty resistance and stopped short of full retraction. Stop rule taken: Rig 3's pole pulled from service; the tech switched to the shop's spare pole for the day and flagged Section 3 for the scale-dissolution procedure the stuck-section troubleshooting card covers, rather than forcing the collapse or working around a pole that might jam again mid-route.
• Step 4: brush heads on the spare pole checked, full coverage, secure mount. Pass.
• Step 5: hose and both quick-connects inspected, no kinks, no corrosion. Pass.
• Step 6: reel brake holds, tank seals, pump runs smooth. Pass.
• Step 7: sheet completed noting the Section 3 pull and the spare-pole substitution, signed and attached to the route job record; office notified to schedule the scale service before Rig 3 goes back into rotation.

The rig still made its route on time because the substitution was made at 6:50 a.m. instead of discovered at stop 6 with a section that wouldn't extend.

References

• See related: Pole Section Stuck - Decision Tree, for the field-repair procedure once a section is already jammed.
• See related: Water-Fed Pole System Resin and Filter Service, for the resin and filter swap procedure this check triggers but doesn't perform.
• See related: Extension Pole and Brass Fitting Maintenance, for the preventive service that reduces how often this check finds a failure.
• See related: TDS Targets For Water-Fed Pole Pure Water, for the ppm chain behind the Step 2 cutoff.
• See related: Ladder Safety (ANSI A14), for the equivalent electrical-clearance rule applied to conductive ladders.
• 29 CFR 1910.333(c)(3)(ii), minimum approach distance for unqualified persons near overhead lines.