Hydrant Bag Equipment?

[Pride373]

What does or doesn't belong in a hydrant bag?

Also - Any tricks on defrosting a frozen hydrant?

[ffdfireexplorer]

Re: Hydrant Bag Equipment?

Originally posted by Pride373
Also - Any tricks on defrosting a frozen hydrant?

I dont have any ideas, but words of advice. If you have a color coded hydrant system, dont use a blow toarch. My dad is on my cities water department and he had to defrost them all so he used a blow torch, so instead of color coded hydrants we had all black hydrants.

[mcaldwell]

Living high in the mountains we do freeze the occasional hydrant, so our local electrician has made a length of waterproof heat tape that we can drop down the tube and melt the ice plug. It is 4' long, 2" wide and rubber coated, and plugs into the wall or a generator. It can also be wrapped around the outside of a pipe if you can get to it.

It is a little slow, but it usually works within a day.

If the main line underground has somehow frozen, you're up a different creek.

After purchasing LDH for the first time last year, we have realized we now need a hydrant bag as well. We have just orderd a proper hydrant bag to hold everything, and to start we will fill it with:

4x pumper port adapters,
2x small storz spanners,
2x standard spanners
1x adjustable hydrant wrench,
1x 2 1/2" gate valve,
1x 6' length of webbing

I am also interested in what others have found useful in their bags.

[colfireman]

We keep ours simple, 1 set of stortz wrenches, 1 steamer port to stortz adapter, 1 hydrant wrench and one 2 1/2" double female.....
Why you might ask... it's for the double lays and now all of our 2 1/2 are set up as attack lines.

[Dickey]

How to fix a frozen hydrant? We call the Water Department. Other than that we are clueless.

As far as the hydrant bag goes, we have been blessed a number of years ago with a member who was very talented with a sewing machine. We gave her some scraps from old savlage covers and she made up very strong and very large, not to mention very cheaply made hydrant bags. They hold up very very well.

In our hydrant bag we have....

1- Steamer to 4" Stortz coupling (5" female to fit on hydrant)
1- 2 1/2" female to 4" Stortz coupling
1- hydrant wrench
2- multi-size spanner wrenches

This assortment has proven very effective. The 2 1/2" fitting is in case we stil run into a hydrant without a steamer fitting or if the steamer cap doesn't come off for some reason.

Keep your head down and your powder dry.
______________________
Lt.Jason Knecht
Altoona Fire Rescue
Altoona, WI

[Weruj1]

we have a hydrant wrench, the steamer port adapter, and if you are smart you grab the LDH spanners from the tail board and we arap the plug. Frozen plug before use .......BAD ........gotta hook up somewhere else.

[naterg]

Living in the land of Cold. Fairbanks Alaska.. We often have temps as low as -40. All the hydrants are dry barrel as would be expected. After every use we make sure it is drained completely and closed then put about a quart of gylcol in it. Then the couplings are sprayed with glycol so they do not freeze shut. This works great..

Nate Green

[Pride373]

Is there a commercial name for Glycol?

Something that I heard the other day which I thought was good for this project was 1 or 2 extra 2.5" caps just in case you get off the truck and the hydrant is missing them.

[DFCSmash]

GLYCOL. You use GLYCOL in a drinking water sytem? PLUMBING antifreeze like for the RV or cottage, but not toxic sticky glycol. Not winshield washer antifreeze either or alcohol. You are in the Driniking water system most times. Why take any chances on liability for introducing toxins to the drinking water.

If its frozen when you grab it for a fire, go find another hydrant cause this one ain't flowing water today. Call waterworks people and tell them to fix it.

[hwoods]

No Use For Them Here.......

Hydrant Bag? Not in this neck of the woods. Everyone around here finishes off the hoseload with a loop of hose hanging down a couple of feet below the bottom of the bed. A hydrant wrench is attached to the hose with a short piece of rope or a rope hose tool, and that's it. Arriving at the Hydrant, the layout person pulls the rope or loop of hose off the engine and takes a wrap around Hydrant and gets back on. The engine lays in to the Fire, the next engine picks up the Hydrant and pumps the line. We rarely connect a line directly to the Hydrant. All supply line is 3 inch, attack lines are 1.5 or 2 inch. ( we're not bashful, we'll put a big nozzle on a 3 inch line and go get it that way if the Fire is big enough.) With 96 engines, 24 ladders, plus speciaized units including several designated water supply companies that carry 5 inch line, we do not have a problem with water except in a very rare instance. Hydrant pressures vary but are usually in the 70 to 125 psi range. Hydrant spacing is 300 to 600 feet apart, mains are usually 8 inch or larger, there are some 96 inch distribution mains out there. Stay Safe....

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

We have added one more piece of equipment to go along with the hydrant strap. Now we have a new wrench that operates our modfied hydrant stems. You know the ones with the magnet inside. Seems some of the morons in our neighborhood can't resist "coolin' off " courtesy of the water department. So now we have to use a regular hydrant wrench to pop the caps because they didnt order the right size wrench, and then the new improved wrench to turn the hydrant on. Of course this beats having to turn the hydrant on at the B BOX. We had to carry a big "street key" all summer..

[FFFRED]

As for defrosting try a road flare.

FTM-PTB

[tripperff]

Frozen hydrant at a confirmed fire???

go to the next hydrant, you can't resolve the problem quickly. If you're just out checking random hydrants or checking ones known to freeze, I know one water department near me uses a pressure washer with a steam generator. It seemed to work fairly quickly on the news segment. I have no idea how our water department handles it.

As far as hydrant bags, here is ours: 4.5"NST x 5" Storz on the end of the supply line, 2-2.5" NST hydrant gates 1 with 2.5" x 5" Storz, 2-regular spanner wrenches, 2-LDH spanner wrenches, 2 hydrant wrenches (in case one breaks, it DOES happen, I know ), I'm thinkng of suggesting a 3 lb. hammer for the stuck caps we run into when we flow test the hydrants. When we did it annually we'd find the same problems every year, it has improved a little since they started switching with us each year. But anyone else out there that knows hydrant maintenance isn't a high priority for your water dept. might want to consider the same thing.

[cozmosis]

We have the Storz to 5" adapter already attached to the LDH in the hose bed. It has a rope tied to it that is tied on the other end to the storz spanner / hydrant wrench in it's bracket above the tailboard. Pull the wrench off and the hose will follow. You should have everything you need. There is no hydrant bag here.

However, there is the compartment next to the pump panel. In it, you'll absolutely any appliance needed to pump to any other department remotely close to us. Our chief is proud that we'll always be able to take water from folks or be able to give it to others regardless of hose size or type. Granted, most of the stuff just collects dust... But it's all going to come in quite handy the day we need it.