A hose letting go is loud, messy and usually happens at the worst moment. The first few minutes matter, mostly for safety rather than for the repair.
Stop the machine and take the pressure off
Shut it down. Lower any raised load or attachment to the ground if it is safe to do so, and if it cannot be lowered, keep everyone out from under it and prop it properly rather than relying on the hydraulics.
A circuit that has partly failed can fail completely, and anything held up by that circuit is not being held reliably.
Do not go looking for the leak with your hands
This is the part that gets underestimated, so it is worth being blunt about it.
Hydraulic fluid escaping from a pinhole can penetrate skin. It does not feel like much at the time, and the entry wound can look like nothing more than a pinprick. Underneath, the oil is tracking through tissue and causing damage that frequently ends in surgery, and sometimes amputation, when treatment is delayed.
Never run a hand along a hose to find a leak. Use a piece of card or a board, from a distance, and only with the system depressurised. If anyone does get injected, that is an immediate hospital trip, and whoever they see needs to be told explicitly that it is a high-pressure fluid injection injury, because it is easy to mistake for a minor puncture.
Contain the oil
Get whatever spill kit you have around it, keep it away from drains and watercourses, and do not wash it down. If you are on a permitted site, or oil has reached a drain, follow your site procedures. Oil entering surface water is a reportable matter and it is far better handled properly at the time.
Then call
Useful things to have ready when you ring:
- The machine make and model.
- Roughly where on the machine the hose has gone, boom, track, attachment line.
- A photo of the failed assembly and, if you can get it, the fitting at each end.
- Your postcode or a map pin, and what the access is like.
- Whether the machine can be moved at all.
That is enough for us to tell you what it will cost and when we can be there. See emergency callout.
Afterwards, ask why
Once the machine is running again, the question worth asking is why that hose went. If it was abrasion, something is still rubbing. If it failed at the ferrule, the assembly may have been wrong. A replacement fitted into the same conditions has the same future.