yellow fire hydrants

[hwoods]

Well.........

Thanks all for the info. very helpful. I guess I should have asked if in your pre-fire plan do you calculate the required flow to control/extinguish a fire based on construction, occupancy, sq. ft., etc?

You raise some good points, howeve we run a lesser risk of a Large Fire anyway. We have Required Sprinklers for at least 20 years now, and most of our Commercial Properties are Sprinklered. I agree that whatever can go wrong will, but as time goes on, our exposure diminishes.........

[InsuranceLCRep]

Thanks all for the info. very helpful. I guess I should have asked if in your pre-fire plan do you calculate the required flow to control/extinguish a fire based on construction, occupancy, sq. ft., etc?

[LaFireEducator]

Does anyone include fire hydrant flow info such as gpm and pressures available in front of the building when pre-fire planning a building?

Yes.

Our pre-plans include the most recent flow test data (generally the previous year's test) for the closest and second closest hydrants.

That being said, our rating is based off our tanker flow rate, not hydrants flows, as our hydrants have been installed at significant intervals and do not even come into play for many of our commercial structures.

[mrpita]

Mr Pita

FYI
The sprinkler system in the building was designed from a single water flow test done perhaps 1 year or more prior to the building being constructed. The water flow test is used to size the underground water main into the building, the sprinkler riser, branch lines and sprinkler orifice.

If the building codes depend on this one test for a sprinkler system that will perhaps last the life of the building. I think you would be safe in using the hydrant flow test to pre-fire plan a building.

OK.

Then how's this answer: Knowing specific flows for hydrants does us no good for our pre-plans due to a confluence of factors, not the least of which is there's no guarantee we'll even use the hydrant(s) that was pre-planned. IF we even pre-planned the hydrant(s).

Our hydrants again are color-coded according to the size of the main supplying them. We generally get "sufficient" flow from our hydrants until we don't.

[InsuranceLCRep]

No, not flow info. We will diagram the basic property plot and may or may not include hydrant locations. If we do, then we may indicate the color, which in turn indicates the size of the main, but no specific flow info is gathered; I'd think there's too many factors to indicate that a given flow on day X will guarantee that same flow on day of a potential incident. Besides, rare that we get a hydrant right in front.

Mr Pita

FYI
The sprinkler system in the building was designed from a single water flow test done perhaps 1 year or more prior to the building being constructed. The water flow test is used to size the underground water main into the building, the sprinkler riser, branch lines and sprinkler orifice.

If the building codes depend on this one test for a sprinkler system that will perhaps last the life of the building. I think you would be safe in using the hydrant flow test to pre-fire plan a building.

[mrpita]

Does anyone include fire hydrant flow info such as gpm and pressures available in front of the building when pre-fire planning a building?

No, not flow info. We will diagram the basic property plot and may or may not include hydrant locations. If we do, then we may indicate the color, which in turn indicates the size of the main, but no specific flow info is gathered; I'd think there's too many factors to indicate that a given flow on day X will guarantee that same flow on day of a potential incident. Besides, rare that we get a hydrant right in front.

[hwoods]

Well........

Does anyone include fire hydrant flow info such as gpm and pressures available in front of the building when pre-fire planning a building?

No.........








Seriously, No, we don't. Our system is of the type that simply delivers what we ask of it. There are a few places with private haydrants that we watch closely, and we make allowances for those small areas with less than optimum coverage........

[InsuranceLCRep]

Does anyone include fire hydrant flow info such as gpm and pressures available in front of the building when pre-fire planning a building?

[BKDRAFT]

Our hydrants are not painted for their GPM flow like most books state.

We have all red hydrants that are "City Water."
We have all yellow hydrants that are "Cal Water."
We have all purple hydrants that are "Reclaimed Water."

[hwoods]

Uhhhhh.........

I'll mention Yellow once and move on........ The Maryland suburbs around Washington DC (read PG and Montgomery Counties) are spread over almost 900 Square miles and contain about 2 Million people. Everything from Dairy Farms to 20+ floor Hi-Rises....... The Water (and Sewer) System is owned and operated by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, a Quasi-Government body. All public Fire Hydrants are maintained by them. New Hydrants are installed by developers for new properties, but under stringent requirements established by the WSSC. All Hydrants are R.D.Wood Standard, painted White with Green Tops and Caps. All have a 4.5 inch Steamer and 2 2.5 inch ports. All Threads are National Standard Fire Hose Thread (required by Maryland Law). Flows are anywhere from really good to WOW!!..... Back when we got our 92 Seagrave Tower Ladder, we ran a flow test by hooking a 1,500 gallon pumper to a Hydrant, running a 5 inch LDH Line to the Tower intake. At a 60 degree angle, extended to 80 feet (105 ft. Ladder) with both Guns flowing, we reached 1,200 GPM. We added a 1.25 Tip to the Standpipe discharge to provide a 3rd Stream and got it up to 1,500 GPM.......

The Hydrant used was on a 16 inch main in a commercial area, on a side street that we used for training quite often. Static Pressure at zero flow is normally around 120 PSI, at 1,000 GPM it drops to 105. Max that we ever got out of it was 2,200 GPM once, but it was still at 80 PSI at 2200..............

[BULL321]

One FD in the area that uses orange for their color (t-shirts, etc) has orange hydrants. The green hydrants I mentioned are in a town that has slime yellow/green apparatus...

Slime yellow/green apparatus are just plain Ugly!

[BULL321]

Another perfectly good thread hijacked by the color yellow.

You just to hate when that happens. I guess the WT will shut us down for going "Off Topic!"

[tree68]

All of our hydrants are yellow. I thought they painted them that way to match our trucks!

One FD in the area that uses orange for their color (t-shirts, etc) has orange hydrants. The green hydrants I mentioned are in a town that has slime yellow/green apparatus...

[snowball]

Another perfectly good thread hijacked by the color yellow.

[BULL321]

Do they double as bus stops?

No but hey that's a good idea, We could kill two birds with one stone and save the tax payer some money to boot.