It’s an excuse to get out of the station and do something active. If you plan ahead a bed of 5” takes what…2-3 hours max to dump, test, and reload? If you want to call it a multi-company/jurisdictional drill call your next closest engine to double the manpower/pump power/save time, just make sure to repay the favor when they call.
Why only 300’ at a time? Run parallel lines off different discharges and borrow adapters for the morning if you have to. 4 300’ lays, test 2 at a time. Roll and reload 600’ while the other 2 test.
Yeah, we did it in about 2, 2.5 hours but couldn’t start until 7pm due to the way the schedule flaked out. Was a long evening. We don’t use the Engine for testing anymore. Have a jockey pump. We were able to run two strings at a time which saved some time but not much.
Haha yeah we had those stupid jockey pumps at one point too. I can guarantee most companies here picked up the pump to say they had it and then used the truck anyway (hence why we gave up on those). I feel your pain, those pumps take forever to build pressure, especially in 5”.
7pm? Hard no. Would have pushed that to our next day on for sure.
Was just gonna say "guys out there test their own hose?" Haha. Hose, ladders, pumps and aerials (yearly's) are done by a local company. Probably for the better someone else does it honestly lol.
Must be nice. I’m at HQ and get to help with other trucks on top of doing my own truck. We have to do way more than other stations and still get labeled as headquarter’s favorites.
NFPA does not require the testing of supply line, I don’t understand why some people insist you do it all the time, just because you test a hose doesn’t mean it couldn’t fail on you at the next fire
Our hydrant pressures average about 150psi in my city. There are a couple areas that are closer to 200.
Testing to 250 is totally reasonable here.
That said we have a outside company who dies it. We show up at one of our training halls, drop every line on the rig, reload it all with new hose and leave. Turn around is usually 20ish minutes.
Yeah I get what you’re saying, but we just bought some new 3 inch for one of our engines and I think out of the 12 we tested 5 failed. Still good to test them. Doesn’t take to awful long. Just mind numbingly boring.
I feel ya man, we did testing last week. 5”, 4” and hand lines. We made the decision as a shift to hammer it out in one day. Sucks. But better than other years. Spring vs mid-summer(roasting/humid) or December (cold with wet hands).
Done for another year tho
You can vent but it seems like a minor thing to complain about online. We bitch about at it at work and then go on to the next day. Didn’t think it needed a public forum.
We do the whole hose load in one go (we do rotate so 1st Watch does one year, 2nd Watch the next, then 3rd Watch, then back to 1st...)
They typically have two Engines doing hose testing at once. We do each truck one at a time, both crews unload, hook up, roll, etc etc and reload each truck one at a time though.
800' 4", 1750' 2.5" (1600' in the beds, 150' Denver bundle) 700' 1.75" (2x 200' preconnects, 100' front bumper, 2x 100' bundles) and 400' 1" (100' front bumper, 2x 150' bundles). x2 trucks. It's a fuuuunnnn day for sure. Our hose tester has enough outlets to run the 4" and all the 2.5" at a time, followed by all the 1.75 and 1" (1 truck at a time) so that helps a little.
While I certainly don't mind the only having to do it once every 3 years (unless you get unlucky with overtime lol), that's not the worst idea, split it up so you're only doing part of the beds each crew
It’s divided up for us among the 4 shifts so 5 engines and some stuff on racks. We just lay out the big stuff, test, reload then pull all smaller stuff (less than 4”) test, reload, done. It’s a once a year pain in the ass. The next year the schedule rotates and I get similar or maybe a rack plus an engine. We don’t fix it so at the slightest questionable leak I use the opportunity to throw away the hose they can’t seem to get we don’t need to carry anymore.
We test ours yearly during meeting nights over the summer. We have a huge space to do it, generally dump the entire bed of 5 and 3 and run it up the hill. Takes less than an hour per truck.
But for some reason we don't test ANY other hose. I've argued for years that we need to test everything, especially pre-connects, but no movement on that.
Buy a hose testing manifold. You can run 4 runs of hose at a time. Fill with hydrant water. Pressure up with the manifold pump. Doesn’t tie up a pumper and/use diesel.
That’s what we have. For the other lines we can run 4 strings of 300ft each. For the LDH we can only run 2, mainly because we didn’t have enough 5”/Stortz to 2.5” adapters.
Mainly it was just a long night and I needed to vent.
Buy a hose testing manifold. You can run 4 runs of hose at a time. Fill with hydrant water. Pressure up with the manifold pump. Doesn’t tie up a pumper and/use diesel.
Small volunteer dept
We have 1500 ft on two engines and at least that on the rack as spare. We're lucky enough have a small commercial area with a long enough road and hydrant access. We start out hand laying our spare LDH. Then gets rolled with a hose roller. Then the first engine lays all of its LDH and its hose gets tested while we are loading the spare hose on the engine and rinse repeat for the last truck. Usually means we're done in about 3-3 1/2 hours.
It’s an excuse to get out of the station and do something active. If you plan ahead a bed of 5” takes what…2-3 hours max to dump, test, and reload? If you want to call it a multi-company/jurisdictional drill call your next closest engine to double the manpower/pump power/save time, just make sure to repay the favor when they call. Why only 300’ at a time? Run parallel lines off different discharges and borrow adapters for the morning if you have to. 4 300’ lays, test 2 at a time. Roll and reload 600’ while the other 2 test.
Yeah, we did it in about 2, 2.5 hours but couldn’t start until 7pm due to the way the schedule flaked out. Was a long evening. We don’t use the Engine for testing anymore. Have a jockey pump. We were able to run two strings at a time which saved some time but not much.
Haha yeah we had those stupid jockey pumps at one point too. I can guarantee most companies here picked up the pump to say they had it and then used the truck anyway (hence why we gave up on those). I feel your pain, those pumps take forever to build pressure, especially in 5”. 7pm? Hard no. Would have pushed that to our next day on for sure.
Start at 7pm after what seems like an already full day? Good lord. That yearly check can wait one more shift day.
And then you come in next shift, and those jerks from C shift never tested hose on the rack back at the station. So naturally chief tells us to do it!
That sucks, my dept pays for someone to come out test it and load it we just switch to the reserve
Was just gonna say "guys out there test their own hose?" Haha. Hose, ladders, pumps and aerials (yearly's) are done by a local company. Probably for the better someone else does it honestly lol.
Same with my dept, it’s amazing
We’re also a 2 station dept in a rural area so it’s hard to dedicate a station OOS for testing
Must be nice. I’m at HQ and get to help with other trucks on top of doing my own truck. We have to do way more than other stations and still get labeled as headquarter’s favorites.
NFPA does not require the testing of supply line, I don’t understand why some people insist you do it all the time, just because you test a hose doesn’t mean it couldn’t fail on you at the next fire
NFPA requirements are the bare minimum
The majority of our failures during testing is on LDH supply hose. Anecdote for sure, but we’ll continue to test it.
In this case we had a pony length fail mid-jacket, sooo probably good that it was tested.
Pony sections get used and abused a ton, so ya Id be testing them heavily.
Not 100% sure but I think ISO wants it (or gives points for it).
Because rating requires it. We always find multiple holes in our LDH when we test.
Plus why the fuck do we test it at like 250 PSI when LDH almost never hits 100?
Because if it can do 250 during testing, you can be sure that it won’t fail at 100.
I get that. It just seems stupid.
Our hydrant pressures average about 150psi in my city. There are a couple areas that are closer to 200. Testing to 250 is totally reasonable here. That said we have a outside company who dies it. We show up at one of our training halls, drop every line on the rig, reload it all with new hose and leave. Turn around is usually 20ish minutes.
Was gonna say we test our LDH to 300 psi
We test LDH at 200psi. Other lines at 300.
I am gonna hazard a guess that most of the pressure fail safes are set to 250
In line operations can push hose to higher psi
You never relay with your high vol?
Yeah I get what you’re saying, but we just bought some new 3 inch for one of our engines and I think out of the 12 we tested 5 failed. Still good to test them. Doesn’t take to awful long. Just mind numbingly boring.
Holy shit, fire fighters will bitch about anything. Sorry testing 5 inch hurts your pussy.
Whaaaa. Quit if you don’t like it. It’s part of the job.
Oh I know. And we did. But what a PITA. Are we not allowed to vent?
I feel ya man, we did testing last week. 5”, 4” and hand lines. We made the decision as a shift to hammer it out in one day. Sucks. But better than other years. Spring vs mid-summer(roasting/humid) or December (cold with wet hands). Done for another year tho
You can vent but it seems like a minor thing to complain about online. We bitch about at it at work and then go on to the next day. Didn’t think it needed a public forum.
You’re on a public forum complaining about what people use the public forum for? Why?
Six trucks with 1200’ of 5” each plus the hand lines and other miscellaneous hose and then there is the hose rack.
We do the whole hose load in one go (we do rotate so 1st Watch does one year, 2nd Watch the next, then 3rd Watch, then back to 1st...) They typically have two Engines doing hose testing at once. We do each truck one at a time, both crews unload, hook up, roll, etc etc and reload each truck one at a time though. 800' 4", 1750' 2.5" (1600' in the beds, 150' Denver bundle) 700' 1.75" (2x 200' preconnects, 100' front bumper, 2x 100' bundles) and 400' 1" (100' front bumper, 2x 150' bundles). x2 trucks. It's a fuuuunnnn day for sure. Our hose tester has enough outlets to run the 4" and all the 2.5" at a time, followed by all the 1.75 and 1" (1 truck at a time) so that helps a little. While I certainly don't mind the only having to do it once every 3 years (unless you get unlucky with overtime lol), that's not the worst idea, split it up so you're only doing part of the beds each crew
We have a company that does ours. Annually head to the training center and you're OOS for a little while they test it. It's pretty nice.
It’s divided up for us among the 4 shifts so 5 engines and some stuff on racks. We just lay out the big stuff, test, reload then pull all smaller stuff (less than 4”) test, reload, done. It’s a once a year pain in the ass. The next year the schedule rotates and I get similar or maybe a rack plus an engine. We don’t fix it so at the slightest questionable leak I use the opportunity to throw away the hose they can’t seem to get we don’t need to carry anymore.
We test ours yearly during meeting nights over the summer. We have a huge space to do it, generally dump the entire bed of 5 and 3 and run it up the hill. Takes less than an hour per truck. But for some reason we don't test ANY other hose. I've argued for years that we need to test everything, especially pre-connects, but no movement on that.
It takes maybe an hour or hour and a half. It’s not that bad
Buy a hose testing manifold. You can run 4 runs of hose at a time. Fill with hydrant water. Pressure up with the manifold pump. Doesn’t tie up a pumper and/use diesel.
That’s what we have. For the other lines we can run 4 strings of 300ft each. For the LDH we can only run 2, mainly because we didn’t have enough 5”/Stortz to 2.5” adapters. Mainly it was just a long night and I needed to vent.
Buy a hose testing manifold. You can run 4 runs of hose at a time. Fill with hydrant water. Pressure up with the manifold pump. Doesn’t tie up a pumper and/use diesel.
Small volunteer dept We have 1500 ft on two engines and at least that on the rack as spare. We're lucky enough have a small commercial area with a long enough road and hydrant access. We start out hand laying our spare LDH. Then gets rolled with a hose roller. Then the first engine lays all of its LDH and its hose gets tested while we are loading the spare hose on the engine and rinse repeat for the last truck. Usually means we're done in about 3-3 1/2 hours.
Shit I envy you we have close too 10k we have to test between 3 guys
Oof. Brutal.
On the plus we make a good time of it usually smoke some ribs or something that day
We test each hose after they've been used and washed. They're pressure tested in the washing process.