Booster Hose

[SamsonFCDES]

Has anybody ever trided Reeltex booster hose?

http://www.edarley.com/darley/catalog.cfm?dest=itempg&itemid=13964&secid=79&linkon=category&linkid=364

We are out of hose in the shop and we need to order some for the wildland fire season. We have always used standard hard rubber booster reel hose. It has gotten lighter over the years, but it is still sort of awkward.

How does the Reeltex stuff handle, 1". When you charge the reels doest it jump around like if you have regualr soft line on it?

Does it do what hardline can?

Is it realy that much easier to handle?

Thanks

[Firefighter430]

We ordered a 100’ section and put it on our second due brush truck and it is easy to handle. The only complaint that we have is the way it has to be rolled up. You must pressurize the hose to roll it or it will kink. We have one or two kinks in our line now. It about as hard to clean as a standard double jacketed rubber lined hose.

[Resq14]

While we didn't get a booster line on our new truck, had we it would've been reeltex.

Snuffer recommends it with their systems, for what that's worth.

A department to our north has it... I haven't heard anything bad about it.

[Dalmatian90]

We have it for our Snuffer unit.

It doesn't need to be pressurized to reel -- it has a spiral wound wire reinforcement. It's 1.5", very light & easy to handle with CAFS. Maybe the 1" is more prone to kinks?

I do blow out the residual pressure/foam before reeling it back usually. If you leave the mix in the reel, the water settles making pockets of water the CAFS then "surges" by next time you go to use it. So once we shutdown the pump, just open the nozzle and let it drain.

I think ours originally was 2 -- 100' lengths. We're like 20' short now from having burned a hole and recoupled it back a bit, plus we have a 50' spare section that was left from another ruined piece -- hot embers burn it like any other hose...it's just any other hose you just grab the next length of 1.5" to replace it, Reeltex we only have what we carry so you have to order new.

[NonSurfinCaFF]

I've used it a bit, if money is not an issue its nice stuff, but I found it to be about as durable as regular hose but is much more expensive, it handles similarly to regular hose (lighter than rubber booster hose) which is nice. We went back to using rubber booster line or regular synthetic hose on the reel (just enough pressure to keep the hose full) after blowing several sections (couple to cactus, 2 by hitting the aux pumps muffler), it just cost to much to keep replacing it and most of the ruptures were just ops, not people being careless.

[mintey]

here in new zealand we use high pressure hose reels(booster hose)on
our engines and they are used as first attack,as they quicker and easy to use for house & car fires and rubbish fires

[Weruj1]

DING DING !!!

[gunnyv]

We had 3 engines with 150' of 1 1/2" Reeltex on the booster lines. The newest one-about 2 yrs old-is now down to 50' due to tears and failures. Hose has also been replaced on both older (5 yrs) engines. We have tried using rubber hose on the length at the nozzle end, figuring that would be the part dragged through debris, but that hasn't helped. It seems that merely dragging it across pavement is abrading it severely. Our Equipment Committee is considering whether to continue with Reeltex or buy something else.

To give you an idea of how much we use it, we are a career dept and each engine does about 2000 calls a year (including EMS), and the booster probably gets pulled 75-100 times. It is also the line we let the kids squirt during our school visits and fire prevention events.

We went to the 1 1/2" booster for more flow at car and trash fires, and as the standby line for MVAs. It has worked out well, but the durability of the hose is causing people to argue for return to the 1" hard rubber. Noone remembers ever having to replace the hard rubber line.

Also, be careful of the reel if you get 1 1/2". The first 2 ALFs we had the drum was too small, causing the hose to loosen and jam. Knowing that problem, when we bought the new Pierce we called Hannay direct, and they changed their mind twice with us, and told Pierce something different. It finally worked out after a lot of work.

[Dalmatian90]

Additional...

We use the Reeltex on the CAFS line -- since CAFS is "compressible" the hose has to be rigid to be kept on a reel and used like a booster.

Our main attack piece uses conventional hose charged with water (about 50 psi -- you have to keep letting a little out as you rewind the pressure tends to build). 200' 1.5" is our most commonly used line, and since it's charged we can flow when reaching the fire, whether that's 50', 75', or 123.4'. We've been using reels for the "charged line" since 1973, and for 20 years prior to that they just kept the hose coiled up in one of the hose beds on top of the older truck. Very quick to deploy, and quicker to pickup than draining & walking out 3 or 4 sections, climbing up top, and repacking crosslays. We'd probably even beat a crew re-packing a bumper line, although if they had a short line like 50/75/100' and did it a lot it would be a close race! :)

The only "gotcha" I really find with conventional-hose kept charged on a booster style reel is if you don't set the brake on the reel after pulling what you need, you end up pulling a lot more off to rewind it later -- the hose "Unwinds" a bit on its own. At structure fires this isn't a big deal since you usually eventually pull most of it off anyway. For small grass/brush/car/etc fires it's an annoyance to pull another 50' off the reel just to be ready to rewind it. The Reeltex doesn't do this.

[SamsonFCDES]

Thanks for the great info guys.

We dont have any 1.5 reels, we just run 1 inch reels on our brush trucks and such. Our pumper does not have a reel at all.

We have had brush fires where we pull the 1 off the hose reel 50 times or more to reach stuff for mop up. We always seem to drag it though rough stuff and hot stuff.

From what you guys say about the reeltex, it would be busted all the time.

I think we will stick to hard rubber, we have only busted a very few pieces of that stuff, and they were 10+ years old.

Thanks