Hydrants with dual steamer outlets. Anyone have any experience or details?

[txgp17]

I was searching for information on hydrants with two 4½" outlets and found this post from and 8 year old thread.

engine968:True, 2 1/2" ports will restrict your flow (good hydrant maintenance and dual steamers are a good fix to that problem), but so does using 4" over 5".

Anyone got any details?

Do you think a dual steamer hydrant, provided it was on an adequate main and had a substantial barrel, would provide more H2O than a traditional 4½x2½x2½?

firehydrant.org's website seems to have crashed today, so I can't look there. The google cache at least lets me read the data. They mention 3,000 GPM.

[DeputyMarshal]

Do you think a dual steamer hydrant, provided it was on an adequate main and had a substantial barrel, would provide more H2O than a traditional 4½x2½x2½?

In theory? Sure it could. In practice? I'm not sure you're going to find too many situations where such a monster main and hydrant barrel exist nor many good reasons to tap two steamers from one hydrant instead of one steamer each from two seperate hydrants. (Any such theoretical water system with such monster mains and hydrant barrels would surely have close spaced hydrants, right?)

[DFDMAXX]

I've seen a few municipalities around here go with double steamers. Yes higher flows are one reason.

One other reason is because we don't need the 2 1/2 ports on a hydrant for anything anymore. Since the cost of a double steamer is about the same price ( I was told within $10, no storz fittings just 4 1/2 theads ) why not get a hydrant with what you use on it?

It works for them. It might not for you.

[CGITCH]

I would be happy to see all of our hydrants with one steamer outlet. Let alone two. Makes it extremely difficult to use LDH without a steamer on all our hydrants. With the dual steamers, can you theoretically hook two engines to one hydrant?

[RFD21C]

wouldnt you get close to the same flow by using the 2 2.5 oulets in addition to the steamer connection? As far as hooking two engines to one hydrant just run one to the steamer and the other to the 2 2.5 outlets. I would think the flows would be close to the same as running with two steamer outlets. This is just a wild ***** educated guess, i would have to run the numbers to be sure.

If all else fails just dual pump the hydrant! That is always fun.

[Johngagemn]

wouldnt you get close to the same flow by using the 2 2.5 oulets in addition to the steamer connection? As far as hooking two engines to one hydrant just run one to the steamer and the other to the 2 2.5 outlets. I would think the flows would be close to the same as running with two steamer outlets. This is just a wild ***** educated guess, i would have to run the numbers to be sure.

If all else fails just dual pump the hydrant! That is always fun.

Assuming you have the mains to supply it, a dual steamer hydrant will definitely deliver more water than using one steamer and a 2.5" outlet. You are reducing a major choke point for water flow. Keep in mind that you need more than three 2.5" openings to equal the area of a 4.5" opening. The area of a 2.5" circle is 4.909 square inches vs 15.904 square inches for a 4.5" one.

If you are going to use a 2.5" outlet on a hydrant for an additional intake, use a 2.5" to LDH adapter and run LDH from the outlet to the pump. You will get vastly increased flow over running a 2.5" or 3" line. We found in some cases we could get nearly 1000 GPM through a 2.5" hydrant outlet through 4" LDH. To be fair, my city has an excellent water supply system though.

[DeputyMarshal]

wouldnt you get close to the same flow by using the 2 2.5 oulets in addition to the steamer connection?

Odds are you'd get maximum flow the hydrnat can offer just by using LDH on the steamer and one 2 1/2 outlet unless it's a monster hydrant on a monster main.

[DeputyMarshal]

You will get vastly increased flow over running a 2.5" or 3" line. We found in some cases we could get nearly 1000 GPM through a 2.5" hydrant outlet through 4" LDH.

For some reason 1044 gpm sticks in my head as a theoretical max for a 2 1/2 outlet on a typical hydrant.

[Johngagemn]

For some reason 1044 gpm sticks in my head as a theoretical max for a 2 1/2 outlet on a typical hydrant.

Nah, you can get more than that. the 2.5" opening on a hydrant is somewhat like a 2.5" smooth bore nozzle. If you have 60 psi flowing from the outlet you'd be getting 1168 GPM. I should have clarified that I meant we got nearly 1000 GPM in addition to what we were getting from the 4" connected to the steamer outlet on the hydrant. We were actually getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 2600 GPM from that hydrant with the two lines connected.

I remember that, at some point, we tested it running a third 4" from the second 2.5" outlet as well, but I don't recall what we got out of it at that point. We did all of this testing as part of some engineering drills like 12 years ago.

[DeputyMarshal]

Nah, you can get more than that. the 2.5" opening on a hydrant is somewhat like a 2.5" smooth bore nozzle.

I know you can, it was just a figure that stuck in my head for one typical setup. I recall it from the early days of LDH and some experiments to see what the best way to get water into LDH from a hydrant with no steamer.
(single reducing adaptor, 2 bootlegged 2 1/2"s, etc.) It worked out that a single reducing adaptor provided the best flow.

I remember that, at some point, we tested it running a third 4" from the second 2.5" outlet as well, but I don't recall what we got out of it at that point. We did all of this testing as part of some engineering drills like 12 years ago.

My hunch is that you'd lose ground with 3 lines due to the increased turbulence in the hydrant barrel -- that was one of the factors that made a single reduce better than a bootleg.

[Johngagemn]

I know you can, it was just a figure that stuck in my head for one typical setup. I recall it from the early days of LDH and some experiments to see what the best way to get water into LDH from a hydrant with no steamer.
(single reducing adaptor, 2 bootlegged 2 1/2"s, etc.) It worked out that a single reducing adaptor provided the best flow.



My hunch is that you'd lose ground with 3 lines due to the increased turbulence in the hydrant barrel -- that was one of the factors that made a single reduce better than a bootleg.

We definitely didn't lose ground, but I seem to remember the third line wasn't as effective as the second one was, which makes logical sense. I just checked with our hydrant guys in the office and they said the standpipe we use on the traffic hydrants we make is 7.5" ID. IIRC the valve opening at the main is like 5.25".

[neiowa]

As I recall there was a thread on here a couple of years ago where someone did flowtest (thru a pumper) with steamer, then one 2-1/2" and plus 2x 2-1/2". Who is the flowtest variables guy?

[neiowa]

I would be happy to see all of our hydrants with one steamer outlet. Let alone two. Makes it extremely difficult to use LDH without a steamer on all our hydrants. With the dual steamers, can you theoretically hook two engines to one hydrant?

That's reason for jumbo siamese. 2x 2-1/2" to 5"S and you have decent hydrant pressure you may not even need a pumper at the hydrant.

I'll loan you one if you want to try it out. We have a 3x 2-1/2" valved x 5"S siamese we use for relay pump from our fire pond (no large diameter discharge plumbing on the rural pumpers in the area).

[txgp17]

For some reason 1044 gpm sticks in my head as a theoretical max for a 2 1/2 outlet on a typical hydrant.

I've gotten 1,500 GPM from a 2½" outlet alone using a 2½x4" adapter and 50' of 4" hose. The flow was measured using a 2½" pitot set used for service testing.

As I recall there was a thread on here a couple of years ago where someone did flowtest (thru a pumper) with steamer, then one 2-1/2" and plus 2x 2-1/2". Who is the flowtest variables guy?

Maximizing Hydrant Connections - Water Flow Test Results

[RFDACM02]

You may need 2.5" ports

One other reason is because we don't need the 2 1/2 ports on a hydrant for anything anymore. Since the cost of a double steamer is about the same price ( I was told within $10, no storz fittings just 4 1/2 theads ) why not get a hydrant with what you use on it?

Our water company asked us about the dual steamers and we stuck with the old standby's. The reason is that we've always required our personnel to dress hydrants with a 2.5" gate as well as the steamer. This allows us to clamp off the LDH line when the hydrant stem breaks (yes they do and not as rare as you'd think). Without the ability to open a valve and redirect the water, your pump is stuck on the hydrant until the shutoff is found and close. Not to mention the obvious ability to add the second line via a 2.5"x5" Storz.The first reason we've used more often than the latter. You could buy a 5" valve $$$$$!