Who tests your hose'?

Quick show of hands, how many departments out there test their own hose and how many rely on outside vendors?

We test our own at our small, primarily vollie, department. Last night we tested our LDH(semi-annual testing), and a coupling failed. 4" @ 250 psi can make quite a wet spot! No body got hurt, but the potential is always there.

So, test it yourself, or pay somebody to do it?

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Permalink Reply by Patrick on April 22, 2009 at 11:52pm

We test all hose ourselves.

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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on April 23, 2009 at 12:15am

We pay a company by the name of National Hose Testers to test our hose once a year. We used to do our own testing over two weekends. More cost effective for us to have it done now.

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Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on April 23, 2009 at 12:36am

we do our own.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Lintz on April 23, 2009 at 1:31am

We do our on as well

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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on April 23, 2009 at 5:00am

We do our own. It can be a pain but it saves money if you just get some guys down at the station and get it done.

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Permalink Reply by Sune Schønnemann on April 23, 2009 at 5:30am

Normal hoses we do our self, high-pressure we don't have the equipment to do.

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Permalink Reply by Trainer on April 23, 2009 at 7:27am

We test our own with a testing machine, 1500ft at one time, anyone using their truck to do this is a …….well a fool. I believe our testing machine was around $500 and the price to rebuild a pump??? You guess.

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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on April 23, 2009 at 8:17am

We test our own hose annually.

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Permalink Reply by FETC on April 23, 2009 at 8:54am

Reg,

Are you using a commercial hose tester or are you beating up your engine? The reason why I ask is I have seen hose fail using fire apparatus as the source for PSI and the explosion/whip of the hose is very dangerous. Plus
adding very uneccessary wear on an expensive fire pump.

Commercial hose testers have a one way check valve that once you reach the desired testing PSI, you shut the unit down and the likelihood of having a hose whip is far far less dangerous because there is no semi un-controlled source pumping. You still have a serious fragment hazard for sure but much safer.

TCSS
FETC

My department tests our own, my company offers hose testing... so the answer is both.