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Imperial vs. National Hose
I'm looking for some advice and I'm hoping someone out there can help me. The company I work for has bought National hose for our industrial fire brigades for quite some time. A lot of the hose we have is 20+ years old, and yet we only fail at most 5% during annual hydro testing. Recently the purchasing department asked us to look into Imperial hose because it was cheaper. On paper the two products look the same, but without any experience with Imperial hose there's no way I can judge how it's quality compares to National's products. If anyone has an opinion on this, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!
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Spike28: TEST, TEST, TEST!
My personal experience has reflected that the National hose has less friction loss flow for flow than the imperial and I have seen less delamination with the National hose than the Imperial.
Recent testing in NY reflected that Imperial hose that was only 2 years old had almost double the FL of the New Imperial hose. This points to a inner liner issue.
I beg of you to not simply look at the cost of the hose. Identify what you want to flow (MAX Flow), then test all the brands for FL at these flows.
Once done with that I would then determine weight considerations, both wet and dry, outer jacket design and materials, burn resistance, etc.
Dont let the bean counters push you into a hose just because its cheaper.
I have found the best all around hose to be the Conquest from Snap-tite (regardless of size for handlines). Yes there are other comprable brands that will work.
At a minimum, Flow test them for FL and work with the one that gives you your flow. Thats what puts out fires!
Just my thoughts, which were not intended to start an argument or heated debate over whos hose is bigger and badder.
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Kirk Allen
First Strike Technologies, Inc
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