LDH pony section setup

[Jrvrescue]

Hey all, I've got a quick question about how you have LDH setup on your Engines. As our first out is set up now, we have a 50 foot pony section of 4inch LDH rolled up and stored in front of the pump panel, under the intake. The chocks are also stored in this same "flower box." Personally, I've found that deploying the 50ft of rolled LDH to take my own hydrant can be a time consuming pain, I'm thinking that keeping the LDH connected to the intake and flat loaded into the flower box, with the (hydrant end) coupling up, would be faster, easier and require less running back and forth, to hook up compaired to the roll we are using now.

Has anyone done this? What are your thoughts? I have included a very high quality, detailed drawing to better show what I'm talking about.

Thanks!

[FWDbuff]

We currently run the same method you described. None of our D/O's have ever complained about it, I personally don't see it as being a "time consuming pain." Really, how long does it take to throw a 50 foot section, remove the storz cap, hook on one end, then go do your thing at the plug end?????

That being said, I also have no problem with the method you described, unless it contributes un-necessarily to the overall width of the apparatus....Does the hose and/or coupling plus your intake device stick out too far??????..If it is a newer rig, with a "notch" cut into the running board, it may not be a problem.

[BoxAlarm187]

The drawing you did describes how we run it at work. Does pretty well for us. However, one thing some of the D/O's will do is put a small piece of webbing under the flat-loaded hose to assist with getting all of the LDH out of the trough at once.

[kuh shise]

Jrv: We have been running preconnected intake hoses on a gated intake since 1972. Originally they were 25 ft. sections of 3" w/2 1/2" couplings attached to a gated siamese. Since we still had a number of two headed (Mae West) hydrants, this was a great choice to speed hook-up. We run two section engine companies with the first due going to the scene and the second engine making the lay. When we changed to 5" LDH, we also added the 25' pre-con of 5" with the 4 1/2" female hydrant coupling. The 5" is on the officers side, while the 3" remains in a trough on the pump panel side. Using the dual 3", there is a friction loss of about 15 psi at 1500 gpm so it is unlikely that the D.O. will be able to overstress the water system. The 5" is another matter, but proper training will have the D.O. stopping when the intake reaches 20 psi. Only drawback is the slime that you get from the overspray and winter slop thrown up onto the folded hose. Turn the coupling under on the last fold and use a bungee to keep it from jumping out of the box.

[FyredUp]

I think you are overcomplcating a simple operation. If you don't like the donut roll go to a flaked load in the "flower box." The difference I would make is I wouldn't pre-connect it.

[DFDMAXX]

Used to have a 50' and a 25' section of 5" in the engineers compartment. 100' sections were in the bed. 25' always seemed too short, and 50' too long or they complained about the weight when deploying it when rolled.

So I made them both 35'. It was a good compromise.

[WBFD25]

My department runs with hose flat-loaded into the running board pan, coupling on top. Its easy to grab the coupling and then walk out the hose to the steamer on the hydrant. Some are 10 foot long, others are 25 foot long. We also have one that's a 50 foot section of 6" LDH rolled up. That's a bit tricker to handle but overall, its not that big of a problem that we're running to fix any issues. If I could pick one length for them all to be, it'd be 35 foot. That's based off the furthest setback of the hydrants in my community.

The one issue that I've tried fixing is how we used to leave one end of the supply hose connected to the pump panel. This method resulted in the hose connection sticking out beyond the side of the engine. I solved it by disconnecting the hose from the pump panel and laying it into the board pan with the rest of the supply hose. The portion sticking out caught the door frame a few times when new drivers would be backing into the station.

You can run either way you described. My advice is just be sure that all your pump operators practice with whichever route you end up picking.

[RoaddoggAK]

It sounds like you're looking for the exact setup that we use, only we use about a 35' section of 5". Normally, take the end that you want connected to the steamer and put it up on the steps on the front of the body. This will then be the last step when you connect it to the steamer.

Lay the hose in the bottom of the trough, going back and forth until you have the connection to the hydrant laying on top. Then go ahead and connect your steamer connection. It should pull out forward, which we found on our top mount pumps seems to pull out easier than pulling towards the rear of the truck.

http://westridgefire.org/Apparatus.htm

You should be able to get a decent view on our apparatus page, and the photo gallery may have some more pics. If you need something more detailed, I can probably get some pics at the station this weekend.

[Eng34FF]

We keep a short lengh of hose flat loaded in the trough, but don't preconnect it to the pump. The reason for this is that normally when we break the supply line from the hose bed, we have enough to reach the intake. The extra hose is for the times that the last coupling ends up just a few feet off of the rear bumper and it's easier to use the short shot than pull the remaining length of hose off of the bed.

[Lifeguard911]

We do not preconnect our LDH, mainly because of the width problem. If it were preconnected to the intake relief valve, it would stick out to far.
For safety's sake, we connect all our 5" LDH to the intake relief valve mounted on the passenger side. With this setup, if the charged LDH ruptures, the Engineer doesn't have to worry about getting injured by the ruptured hose.
On the steamer connection at the pump panel, we have a butterfly valve to attach the suction hose to for drafting operations.

[ffp20]

An easy way to do it is "double donut" the ldh and preconnect one end to the pump inlet. This way you can just lift the roll out and set on the ground. when you pull the hydrant end the roll just simply unwinds kink free. Its worked well for us for years.

[CKirk922]

An easy way to do it is "double donut" the ldh and preconnect one end to the pump inlet. This way you can just lift the roll out and set on the ground. when you pull the hydrant end the roll just simply unwinds kink free. Its worked well for us for years.

DIDDO- Same thing we have done. It works well. Unrelated, we use the same setup on a jump line (100' 1 3/4).

[Weruj1]

I think you are overcomplcating a simple operation. If you don't like the donut roll go to a flaked load in the "flower box." The difference I would make is I wouldn't pre-connect it.

thats how we do it !

[ChiefKN]

Got a gate? Didn't see that in your original post and it would be critical for the setup you are describing.