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Hose Testing
What are you Dept's policies on hose testing? Who does it, How offen, and Why?
I work for a Company(my day job) that does it, and I want to hear what other Depts do.
I work for a Company(my day job) that does it, and I want to hear what other Depts do.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by George on
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once a year anything that is less than LDH gets tested at 250 for 5 minutes, LDH at 165 for 5 minutes. Each hose numbered and noted pass fail. Who checked hoses and what was done with failed hose. This is pretty much ISO standard.
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Permalink Reply by Craig Billman on
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George,
I work for a company that test fire hoses and we follow NFPA standards.
We test LDH at 200 for 5mins, rubber 3",2 1/2" at 300 for 5 mins and 1', 1 1/2", 1 3/4", 2', 2 1/2" cloth at 400 for 5 mins. And then we repack the riggs to the dept specs.
All hose is numbered and logged. then a copy is given to the Dept we're testing and we keep a copy for our files
Our company has tested just over a million feet of hose to date, and are gearing up for another season.
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Permalink Reply by Ed Dean on
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All of our fire hose is tested to NFPA standards annually by a contractor. The company unloads all hose beds and returns the hose after completion of testing. We keep records of hose testing for 10 years or until the hose is removed from service (whichever comes first). Being an all-volunteer fire department, this system works best for us so that trainng time can be spent in other areas. We also have the added benefit of having our set of records and a back-up set that is kept on file with the testing agency.
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Permalink Reply by Engine 32 Capt. on
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We test our own hose to NFPA standards and keep records. Each stick of hose is numbered and a log is kept as to whether a particular piece of hose passes or fails.
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Permalink Reply by Greg cousler on
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I manage our hose testing program. We are a 6 station department. Currently we test all fire hose at my station. We test hose in compliance with NFPA 1961 2003 edition. I have not studied up on the 2008 standard. We test hose in advance of the next station due. Once it is done we set an appointment for that station. On that day we reload there apparatus working together and replace the extra hose on the rack at the station as well. The hose that was dropped off is tested over the next few weeks to get ready to rotate hose on the next due station or reserve apparatus. We do have better quality control of the record keeping with all of the hose being tested at one station. However we are not able to test every stick of hose every year and we don't try to. This is the one disadvantage of doing all of the testing at one station vs. every station being responsible for testing there own hose. The system that we use will probable work well only with small departments or else you will be doing hose testing daily instead of once or twice a week. There are some state of the art record keeping systems out there that use scanners and bar codes that you may want to investigate. I do not enforce bunker gear during the testing (helmet, safety glasses only). I do however keep personnel to a minimum during the testing and I have my own set of traffic cones to try to limit access to the are by ffs coming in or the general public. A ff was killed once when a coupling or appliance blew off and hit him in the head. According to NFPA-2003 fire hose should be tested according to the manufactures recommendation that is stenciled on each section of hose. One area that I am very interested in getting some feed back is service life for fire hose. What policies or SOGs are fire departments setting for determining the service life of fire hose?
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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my department does all of our hose every year and if we ever have a hose ran over we rest it before it goes back on the truck
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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My day job does the same thing (residential fire hose), along with extinguishers, emergency/exit lights, hood systems, first aid, fire training, etc.
My F.D. does hose testing annually. Each engine company does it's own testing with the hose testing machine. We used to use the engine itself as the hose tester, but we stopped that a few years ago.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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my station is the hose testing and repair station for our department
- hose is tested annually,
- hose is tested at a specific pressure for a specific amount of time,
- colors to paint a stripe on the one end of the hose coupling are determined years in advance,
- logistics makes sure that all the stations are provided with the paint and Q-tips,
- some stations have hose manifolds so you can test several sticks at the same time
- some station have nice custom built hose towers for hanging the hose to dry
- most stations use their Type III Heavy Brush for conducting the testing
- most stations use the engine and several discharges for the test
- we always wear our structural fire helmets when doing the testing, hose can break...
- we always assign someone to monitor the station radio and phones because of high noise
- I consider it an absolute pain in the ass when we are sent damaged rat nested hose...
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Permalink Reply by Walter on
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we test our hose yearly. testing is done by who ever is their for training that night. it use to take us two days to tes our lines but this year we had enough people to were we nocked out a truck a night. thast was a challenge doing all the testing and re loading every thing with in thre
hours. we tested
-1500' of five inch
-three cross lays
-trash line
-pre connected 2 1/2" off the back of the truck
- two high rise packs
-and an extra load of 2 1/2" stored in a verticle section next to the 5"
our lines are marked but the numbers have faded or been scratched so you have to look hard to get them
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Permalink Reply by mike chappell on
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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WOW! Mike I'm surprised you test with an engine, do you know what kind of stress you put on the pump during this operation. Our current testing unit cost around $600 and does 1200ft, I'll guess you know an engine pump is a lot more then that.
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Permalink Reply by Wade Seely on
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We just got done testing our hose for the year, we test our own and log and track it. We also test hose for are local refinery which brings us a nice little donation every year.
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