Problem or Not? Hydrant Location

No problem hitting this plug but what would happen during your typical car vs. hydrant?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on May 2, 2011 at 11:13pm

Simple, the hydrant is OOS. With dry barrel hydrants here, it is possible to hit a hydrant without creating a geyser, but most likely a geyser ensues. We have the water dept shut down the line and they will replace the hydrant.

If a hydrant is needed, then the next hydrant over is secured. Hydrant spacing is about 500' here.

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Permalink Reply by Greenman on May 2, 2011 at 11:18pm

This is a Wet Barrel Hydrant, as you can tell by the fact that there is a valve-stem for each outlet, so this would probably produce the classic geyser if struck by a car with any real speed, since there is water stored all the way to the top of the barrel when the valves are closed. These are mostly found in very Southern climates, like Florida and Southern California (except in the mountains). We don't even have them in Southern Georgia, we have all Dry Barrel Hydrants.

Also, each hydrant has a shut-off valve at the main and located about 12" in front of the hydrant, so only that plug is shut off until it can be repaired and returned to service.

Greenman

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Permalink Reply by 55 TRUCK on May 3, 2011 at 10:19am

Is a hydrant ever realy blocked? We don't let a little thing like a vehicle keep us from a plug.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on May 3, 2011 at 10:34am

Would the bolts sheer off if this hydrant was hit since they are buried in the sidewalk?

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Permalink Reply by Andy Turnham on May 3, 2011 at 11:32am

Our hydrants are all underground (in the UK), lift a cast iron plate on the sidewalk and plug in a standpipe. We rarely have problems with them being obstructed, even parked cars are not a problem. It's only when some A@#hole jumps the curb and parks over the top of one, this sometimes happens with delivery trucks in narrow streets, but we even have short standpipes and can often crawl under the truck, open the hydrant and plug in without moving the truck.
It's not illegal to obstruct a hydrant but we rarely have problems.

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Permalink Reply by Michael A on May 3, 2011 at 12:09pm

Where I'm from we don't have that problem. We don't have hydrants. We have a river and ponds to draft water from. We use tanker shuttles for our water.

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Permalink Reply by Gage pitt on May 3, 2011 at 12:23pm

We have the same system in Australia, all of our hydrants are underground as well and also have the cast iron plate...

haha obstruction of the hydrants is a pain in the a** especially when people don;t give a crap...

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Permalink Reply by Joshua-Paul Gardner on May 4, 2011 at 6:43am

There's a reason why our hydrants are below ground...

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Permalink Reply by Joshua-Paul Gardner on May 4, 2011 at 6:44am

Nothing like passing the hose through the windows of the car mate, hahaha...

I'm surprised to read that it isn't illegal to obstruct a hydrant in the UK!!!

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Permalink Reply by Andy Turnham on May 4, 2011 at 10:23am

I guess the reasoning behind this is that the only way you can obstruct a hydrant is to place something directly on top of it and that would be obstructing the footpath whic IS illegal. Therefore there is no need to make a special case for hydrants.
The hydrants are usualy set far enough back from the curb that parked vehicles are not a great concern. Being underground they cause no restriction of the footpath and they are protected from damage. The down side is that if it snows heavily you have to dig then out (But also, they rarely freeze).

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Permalink Reply by Joshua-Paul Gardner on May 4, 2011 at 5:30pm

Ahhh yeah, fair enough then. It's a bit different here.

I have an underground hydrant on the front lawn of my house, which is quite common here. You see people parking on top of them all the time because people just don't take any notice of them. All you see is a small, white lid in the middle of the verge (there's also a painted white H and at most locations a blue reflector on the road).

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Permalink Reply by Eduardo Flores on May 4, 2011 at 9:11pm

We had a problem once when a nice Jaguar parked on the side of the hydrant and we though about it, but we punch the windows and pass the hose inside the car, it was fun cause the owner of the jag was a laywer. lol btw. the inside of the car was soaked with water lol.

XD