How far horizontally can you draft from a source?

[ddeane]

Turbo Draft and Rural Water Supply in general

Not bragging but I would be willing to bet there are few who have spent as much time and effort to find effective ways to use the Turbo Draft as I have. I'm not selling it, just saying that if you think outside the box a little you can greatly improve your usable water numbers from where they are now. What would be your reaction to going from 5 to 600 gallons per minute to getting 1100 gallons per minute. Or what would you think of having three (3) engines all drafting from one (1) drop tank with a combined flow of approximately 3000 gallons per minute all being supplied by Turbo Draft. I've run 400 feet of 5inch from the turbo, connected it to the engine and still turned 500 gallons per minute. It's not a single method use tool. The ways to use it are many. I have pictures and documentation of these efforts, enough to where the use of this device is taught in our Basic Pump Operations and Rural Water Supply classes. But then we also do weird things like combine the efforts of three (3) portable pumps to achieve flows of 1000 gallons per minute. I'm not advertising but the Albemarle County Spring schedule is getting ready to start. If you have any questions feel free to look us up and drop me a line.
Dale Deane
IAFF Local 4077
Albemarle County Fire Rescue
Albemarle County Virginia

[MG3610]

This is one of the hardest "inside the box" ideas to get away from. Why do we buy HSH in 10' sections? Because that's the way we've always done it? Because that's what is required for the cert/accept/service tests?

If you have a 12' body, why not have 12' sections of HSH? If you have a ladder rack holding a 14' ladder, why not have it hold 14' sections of HSH?

On most rigs there is adequate room to stack them two high on each side of the hosebed. Imagine if every truck in your inventory carried four 14' sections and a floating dock strainer. That makes at lot more bodies of water useful water points.

Our Rigs are set up just like that. One engine has 13 footers (3) and the other has 12 foot. I always get a kick out of seeing rigs with these tiny little suction hoses on long bodies. Even better, if you have a 3 level rack, getting a 25 or 30 foot section and wrapping it from the top tray dowb to the bottom tray means you dont need to connect 2 lengths together all the time.

Here is a setup we did at a recent pump classes.

This was a 50' draft. We filled tankers at about 1000 GPM. We never did test the actual flow capability of the configuration, to my dismay.


Looking down from on top of the rig.


This configuration was 60 feet, and in water about 10 inches deep at best. We used a rock to weigh the low level strainer down. The point we were trying to illustrate was twofold-One---you can use more suction hose than your rig carries. Two---you can draft in crappy sources as a last resort.


Another view.


This was tested and we were able to acheive 500 GPM. The pump was rated 1750. Certainly not ideal, but usable in a pinch.

[Fireeaterbob]

This is one of the hardest "inside the box" ideas to get away from. Why do we buy HSH in 10' sections? Because that's the way we've always done it? Because that's what is required for the cert/accept/service tests?

If you have a 12' body, why not have 12' sections of HSH? If you have a ladder rack holding a 14' ladder, why not have it hold 14' sections of HSH?

On most rigs there is adequate room to stack them two high on each side of the hosebed. Imagine if every truck in your inventory carried four 14' sections and a floating dock strainer. That makes at lot more bodies of water useful water points.

Interesting point.
I thinks I likes it...


We have a double on one truck... E-One was kind enough to stack em so tight that you can't slide the bottom section of suction out the rear because the couplings catch (Gotta have two tall fellows to pull em off the side.) Yes, it is a spec error on our part...but I gotta blame someone.

[txgp17]

Kochek will make up in whatever length you want (no requirement to be 10').

This is one of the hardest "inside the box" ideas to get away from. Why do we buy HSH in 10' sections? Because that's the way we've always done it? Because that's what is required for the cert/accept/service tests?

If you have a 12' body, why not have 12' sections of HSH? If you have a ladder rack holding a 14' ladder, why not have it hold 14' sections of HSH?

On most rigs there is adequate room to stack them two high on each side of the hosebed. Imagine if every truck in your inventory carried four 14' sections and a floating dock strainer. That makes at lot more bodies of water useful water points.

[neiowa]

The problem with setting a dump tank up behind the primary pumper is not many pumpers are equipped with an intake on the rear of the vehicle. That is why it works best to put it either directly on the side, the best route, or out front off a front suction intake on the bumper. Not to mention the amount of hard suction you'd require to bend off the side intake, or front even, to get the suction hose back to a drop tank set up behind a standard pumper.

Placing the tank in front of the engine works well in that the pump operator can easily check on the status of available water, plus if shorthanded, its allows him to direct the tanker/tender driver into place without having to walk all around the engine.

More often than not, the drivers get short-sighted and pull right up into the driveway instead of backing in. If they took the extra 30-45 seconds to back in, putting a drop tank up front would be the best solution. Instead, they get tunnel vision and go in nose-first. Then you get stuck performing nursing operations, which as pointed out, are slow and more labor intensive.

Two sections of hard suction to foldatank in front of the pumper will have substantially less friction loss than typical front suction. And $10k (+) less to buy. 3 to 4 sections to rear foldatank same saving in apparatus cost and some reduction in friction loss. Great application is adding swivels to the pump intake with precon hard suction line.

Or buy one (1) section of hard suction length required. Kochek will make up in whatever length you want (no requirement to be 10').

[WBFD25]

We have many long narrow rural driveways with many of them 1/2 mile or more in length from the road, We try to have the attack engine drop the 4 inch ldh and rural hitch at the end on the way into the scene.
All engines carry 1250 ft of 4" so it might take the hose lay off two engines to complete the supply set up,on the longer drives. The second in engine will have the tankers set up their porta tans across the end of the drive after they pull in to the end and hook up to the ldh. that way all the tankers have to do is pull up and side dump on the way by.

We use up to 30 feet of hard suction to feed the supply engine from the porta-tanks. We use a water witch to feed additional tanks into the primary tank so the tanker operator can drop their entire load and get back on the road to the water source.

this seem to eliminate backing into long drives or trying to get turned around to exit.

If you have the resources to relay pump like this, its an almost ideal operation.

[islandfire03]

We have many long narrow rural driveways with many of them 1/2 mile or more in length from the road, We try to have the attack engine drop the 4 inch ldh and rural hitch at the end on the way into the scene.
All engines carry 1250 ft of 4" so it might take the hose lay off two engines to complete the supply set up,on the longer drives. The second in engine will have the tankers set up their porta tans across the end of the drive after they pull in to the end and hook up to the ldh. that way all the tankers have to do is pull up and side dump on the way by.

We use up to 30 feet of hard suction to feed the supply engine from the porta-tanks. We use a water witch to feed additional tanks into the primary tank so the tanker operator can drop their entire load and get back on the road to the water source.

this seem to eliminate backing into long drives or trying to get turned around to exit.

[Fireeaterbob]

Placing the tank in front of the engine works well in that the pump operator can easily check on the status of available water, plus if shorthanded, its allows him to direct the tanker/tender driver into place without having to walk all around the engine.

More often than not, the drivers get short-sighted and pull right up into the driveway instead of backing in. If they took the extra 30-45 seconds to back in, putting a drop tank up front would be the best solution. Instead, they get tunnel vision and go in nose-first. Then you get stuck .

We've been training on that very tactic.

The hypothesis at this point is to place the pond at the end of a drive (country setting) across the first lane of traffic. The idea is that a tanker(tender) can drive to the side of the pond and side dump or pull past and then back in and rear dump.

[WBFD25]

There are times when setting up the dump tank several feet behind the pumper would work much better for a tanker (tender) to drop their load, but most departments around here insist on dump tank 3 feet in front of pump panel or nothing. When I use the term nurse tanker, for us, that means a tanker pulls up near the pumper and we pull ( or push if tanker has a pump) the water directly from the tanker to the pumpers intake. Problem is when the tanker is empty you have to disconnect everything move that tanker out of the way then move the next tanker in place and rehook. All of which takes way to much time.

The problem with setting a dump tank up behind the primary pumper is not many pumpers are equipped with an intake on the rear of the vehicle. That is why it works best to put it either directly on the side, the best route, or out front off a front suction intake on the bumper. Not to mention the amount of hard suction you'd require to bend off the side intake, or front even, to get the suction hose back to a drop tank set up behind a standard pumper.

Placing the tank in front of the engine works well in that the pump operator can easily check on the status of available water, plus if shorthanded, its allows him to direct the tanker/tender driver into place without having to walk all around the engine.

More often than not, the drivers get short-sighted and pull right up into the driveway instead of backing in. If they took the extra 30-45 seconds to back in, putting a drop tank up front would be the best solution. Instead, they get tunnel vision and go in nose-first. Then you get stuck performing nursing operations, which as pointed out, are slow and more labor intensive.

[volfireman034]

There are times when setting up the dump tank several feet behind the pumper would work much better for a tanker (tender) to drop their load, but most departments around here insist on dump tank 3 feet in front of pump panel or nothing. When I use the term nurse tanker, for us, that means a tanker pulls up near the pumper and we pull ( or push if tanker has a pump) the water directly from the tanker to the pumpers intake. Problem is when the tanker is empty you have to disconnect everything move that tanker out of the way then move the next tanker in place and rehook. All of which takes way to much time.

[rm1524]

FM

We use 10, 20, or 30 feet with a porta tank. It just depends on tank placement and the surrounding. Of course less is better because of set up times and less chance of air leaks.

[FIREMECH1]

Wow glad I read this I was always told drafting more the 20 ft from any water source was about the limit didn't matter if it is was horizontal or virtical. So I guess I can start moving my dump tank alittle further way from the pumper ( assuming theres room) to give us more room to work around the pumper and get tools? Most firefighter around here insist the dump tank be right next to the pump panel or that won't use it and that use the nurse tanker set up which for me is 100 times harder and not as effective.

I'm sure I'll be corrected, but if you're drafting off the dump tank, you DO want it as close as possible using the shortest length of hard line to draft with.

Drafting horizontally and vertically are 2 different operations with 2 different results. Same with length of the hard line you are trying to draft with.

You lost me on the last comment. Hooked on phonics???

FM1

[volfireman034]

Wow glad I read this I was always told drafting more the 20 ft from any water source was about the limit didn't matter if it is was horizontal or virtical. So I guess I can start moving my dump tank alittle further way from the pumper ( assuming theres room) to give us more room to work around the pumper and get tools? Most firefighter around here insist the dump tank be right next to the pump panel or that won't use it and that use the nurse tanker set up which for me is 100 times harder and not as effective.

[Fireeaterbob]

Try installing a dry hydrant.

Lower friction loss (with properly sized piping)

.

We wanted one put in when the company built the plant...alas, we did not push hard enough and the pond was installed and the factory finished before we could press the issue.

[KuhShise]

NEIOWA: Expect to reduce your flow by about 100 gpm for every 10' joint of hard sleeve you add beyond 20 feet. For a 1500 gpm pump with 60' of hard sleeve you should get about 1100 gpm at a 10' lift. Be very careful as you throttle up. It will be easy to cavitate at high flow rates. Like others on here have said, "expect to have some long priming times." For pumps larger than 1500 GPM you need suction from two intakes to meet the pump spec. so with only one 6" sleeve, expect to see no difference between a 1500, 1750, or 2,000 gpm engines.