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Cement Trucks for Water Transport?
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Haulin’ Water: Cement trucks are another option for transporting water
Story & Photos by Jeff Riechmann
Many fire departments use a variety of unique vehicles to haul water to support tanker shuttle operations. For volunteer fire departments, these vehicles often include Federal Excess Property Program fuel tenders. I’ve even seen some private companies working for railroads that are required to use a special water-tender railcar with water cannons to support any operations that have the potential of starting fire along the railroad right-of-way.
No matter where you live, there’s always the potential for that once-in-a-career fire that’s so significant that department apparatus, and even mutual-aid apparatus, may not be able to provide water fast enough to maintain 250 gpm for the duration of the fire. With this in mind, departments should preplan what other water-hauling resources are available within their response area.
Some sources that you may consider for acquiring water tenders in an emergency include rental equipment yards and construction sites. Additionally, there’s another source that is often overlooked: cement trucks. Find out where the nearest cement plant is. Also, you can find cement trucks traveling to and from construction sites, making deliveries.
All cement trucks have a 125-gallon water tank mounted to them for the purpose of hosing down the truck prior to returning to public roads after delivering their load. This tank is filled every time the truck is loaded and then pressurized by air from the vehicle’s airbrake system. There have been many instances where this tank has been used to knock down a fire prior to the fire department’s arrival.
The truck’s drum can hold 2,000 gallons of water. Depending on the location of the incident, the drum can be filled using the loading system at the ready-mix facility. They can also be loaded from a fire hydrant or other water source; however, this requires someone to climb the ladder on the truck and discharge the water stream into the drum from a hose. (Note: Prior to being reloaded, the trucks are hosed out. If there’s any gravel left in the tank, it will just sink to the bottom.)
To off-load the water, the drum is sent spinning. The inside of the drum is configured like a screw. When spinning in one direction, it mixes the concrete. When spinning in the opposite direction, it off-loads the concrete. So once the truck arrives at the scene of the incident, the drum is spun in the off-load direction, and the engine is throttled up to maximum rpm. At high speed, the entire load of water could be off-loaded in approximately 1 minute. The water is discharged down the chute, just like cement.
If you’re going to use a cement truck to haul water, you’re going to need a portable tank into which the water can be off-loaded and from which an engine can draft.
One consideration with these trucks: Even though they’re designed to be used at construction sites, they don’t like to go off-road, so you’ll need a fairly good access route. In other words, stick to the same type of route your engine would use.
Once at the dump site, the tank that will be receiving the water must be within 22 feet of the rear of the truck or within 13 feet of the side of the truck to off-load.
During a major firefighting operation, cement trucks can be a very valuable tool for hauling water. With a little bit of preplanning and some familiarization training, this vehicle can be another tool to place in your tool box.
Jeff Riechmann is a retired Kern County (Calif.) firefighter and Air Force Reserve deputy fire chief. He is currently the lead fire science instructor at Antelope Valley Medical College in Lancaster, Calif., and he can be reached at JeffAVMC@yahoo.com.
Haulin’ Water: Cement trucks are another option for transporting water
Story & Photos by Jeff Riechmann
Many fire departments use a variety of unique vehicles to haul water to support tanker shuttle operations. For volunteer fire departments, these vehicles often include Federal Excess Property Program fuel tenders. I’ve even seen some private companies working for railroads that are required to use a special water-tender railcar with water cannons to support any operations that have the potential of starting fire along the railroad right-of-way.
No matter where you live, there’s always the potential for that once-in-a-career fire that’s so significant that department apparatus, and even mutual-aid apparatus, may not be able to provide water fast enough to maintain 250 gpm for the duration of the fire. With this in mind, departments should preplan what other water-hauling resources are available within their response area.
Some sources that you may consider for acquiring water tenders in an emergency include rental equipment yards and construction sites. Additionally, there’s another source that is often overlooked: cement trucks. Find out where the nearest cement plant is. Also, you can find cement trucks traveling to and from construction sites, making deliveries.
All cement trucks have a 125-gallon water tank mounted to them for the purpose of hosing down the truck prior to returning to public roads after delivering their load. This tank is filled every time the truck is loaded and then pressurized by air from the vehicle’s airbrake system. There have been many instances where this tank has been used to knock down a fire prior to the fire department’s arrival.
The truck’s drum can hold 2,000 gallons of water. Depending on the location of the incident, the drum can be filled using the loading system at the ready-mix facility. They can also be loaded from a fire hydrant or other water source; however, this requires someone to climb the ladder on the truck and discharge the water stream into the drum from a hose. (Note: Prior to being reloaded, the trucks are hosed out. If there’s any gravel left in the tank, it will just sink to the bottom.)
To off-load the water, the drum is sent spinning. The inside of the drum is configured like a screw. When spinning in one direction, it mixes the concrete. When spinning in the opposite direction, it off-loads the concrete. So once the truck arrives at the scene of the incident, the drum is spun in the off-load direction, and the engine is throttled up to maximum rpm. At high speed, the entire load of water could be off-loaded in approximately 1 minute. The water is discharged down the chute, just like cement.
If you’re going to use a cement truck to haul water, you’re going to need a portable tank into which the water can be off-loaded and from which an engine can draft.
One consideration with these trucks: Even though they’re designed to be used at construction sites, they don’t like to go off-road, so you’ll need a fairly good access route. In other words, stick to the same type of route your engine would use.
Once at the dump site, the tank that will be receiving the water must be within 22 feet of the rear of the truck or within 13 feet of the side of the truck to off-load.
During a major firefighting operation, cement trucks can be a very valuable tool for hauling water. With a little bit of preplanning and some familiarization training, this vehicle can be another tool to place in your tool box.
Jeff Riechmann is a retired Kern County (Calif.) firefighter and Air Force Reserve deputy fire chief. He is currently the lead fire science instructor at Antelope Valley Medical College in Lancaster, Calif., and he can be reached at JeffAVMC@yahoo.com.
Add a Comment
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Comment by John Van Coillie on March 12, 2009 at 2:22am
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First off, been a ff for 23 yrs and redimix driver for 34 yrs so I kinda know both worlds. What you see in the pic is a truck that is in the process of being washed out. A truck that has been completely washed out, the water comes out clear. I drive a front discharge truck with an aggitator capacity of 15 cyds with a load capacity of 12 cyds. Legal haul capacity is 9 cyds of concrete on a 5 axle truck due to the weight of 1 cyd of concrete (3900lbs.) I have hauled just water before in my mixer to a job site. The most water you would want to haul is about 8 cyds worth, which would be roughly 1600 gals. due to it sloshing out the front when you go to stop. Point I want to make is that they can be used in a pinch if needed. The trucks are more than capable of hauling the water as far as weight goes. (1 cyd of water will weigh about 1682 lbs vs 3900 lbs for 1 cyd of concrete) Using a front discharge truck, all the driver has to do is pull up to a drop tank, swing his chute & dump without even having to get out of the truck , back away and go for another load. If you have ever seen mixers having to supply a concrete pump truck, you would know that there would not be any problem with coordinating at a drop site. All in all what I am trying to say is , don't be afraid to use mixer trucks if you had to use them. If your using a strainer on the end of your hard suction in the drop tank, it would be no diffrent than water you would draft out of a pond or other static water source. Being able to dump 1600 gals of water in 1 min or less and then leave without even having to get out of the truck would be a valuable tool that you can use if needed.
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Comment by Mark Klaene on March 10, 2009 at 10:23pm
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Jeff, in your "plan B " use of these who would be driving ? I would assume it would the mixer's company drivers since having FFs driving their trucks sounds like a legal mess. Is the mixer company insurance coverage still enforce ? some issues I could see that might crop up and should be addresses before are:
No lights, no radio so can you get them to the scene and have it coordinated?
You would be dealing with untrained drivers, often dumpsites require a good deal of coordination and can be congested and hazardous places so untrained drivers could be a liability.
For me I would consider a construction and rental water haulers first. The dump time is slower for sure but many I know here have 300-400 gpm pumps during dumping and plumbing for direct fill.
Portatank operations flow rate is affected by water volume hauled, dump time, refill time, and setup at dump and fill sites and travel time. Improvement in any one of these adds delivered GPM and can make up for large dump rates.
just some thoughts to consider ,
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Comment by FETC on March 10, 2009 at 2:32pm
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I find it hard to believe we are in such dire straits that we must turn to cement mixers for mutual aid?
Besides, mixers are a "for profit" business, they use them to make money. Usually on a strict schedule for their building contractors. The last time I saw one of these up close was when I built my last house and due to the lack of cleaning, or mis-scheduling of deliveries these are known to be very contaminated with old, dried on cement.
Drop loading a mixer from a fire hose is for one -SLOW as hell. Great it can off load in a minute or so but the load time is whatever you expect little johnny to hold onto a hose... can we say dangerous?
The reason you see brown water is they can't get clean water out of them 100% unless they are brand new. Dirty jobs did a segment of guys having to climb in a jackhammer out old cement.
I for one wouldn't put a firefighter on a line that may have the chance of being obstructed. Not to mention possible damage to the big dollar pumps.
If plan-b is to call the redi-mix plant to see if they are available, I suspect that whatever you are trying to save is pretty much lost at that point anyway.
Let's pre-focus on real tankers, quick loading / dumping AND pumping that will bring the required amount of water needed to afford the brothers a chance to make a stop, or inform the public that your capabilites are limited due to budget constraints.
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Comment by Peter Lupkowski on March 10, 2009 at 1:26pm
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Fire Author Larry Davis used to touch on this concept in his books and classes. If it appears more efficient than things we do now maybe we need to rethink how we do things. It never hurts to get a different perspective. Nice job Jeff and FRM.
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Comment by Jeff Riechmann on March 10, 2009 at 8:18am
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I enjoyed reading the comments! First. let me explain, that the intent of using the cement truck to haul water is not to replace water tenders. Many departments are small rural departments and may not have the budget to purchase water tenders. This is a Plan B. Regarding the color of the water in the photo, this picture was taken when the truck was being cleaned out, thus the color. Which leads to a response regarding rocks and gravel in the drum. After each load, the drum is completely cleaned out. Again, I certainly hope that a Chief out there will not say, "why buy a water tender when we can commandeer a cement truck!" Remember...everyone goes home!
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on the surface I certainly would say this is a less than desired solution to hauling water. I can see lots of issues , many that have been previously mentioned. I will simply add: Water Tenders are the most dangerous fire apparatus on the road. For decades the fire service has used surplus military trucks, gasoline tankers , and just about anything else we could put a tank on to carry water. My Recommendation --lets not go back to these days. There are a lot of competent fire builders out there that can build a water hauler on a commercial chassis and the price is quite reasonable.
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Comment by Oldman on March 9, 2009 at 7:11pm
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Ya ought to see some of the ponds we have drafted from. Looks about as bad and smells even worse. But it is thinking outside the box. Probably not something I would have thought of.
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I guess if it were a choice of having water, or not having water. I know several times in West Texas many years ago, there were times we would have hauled water in a wheelbarrow if one had been available.
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Comment by anne potter on March 9, 2009 at 5:45pm
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imagine no room for fixing on this..spelling always stinks make me wonder how I got my High school degree...lol
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I have to say very interresting hummmmmmm.. Imaine that thing coming down the road Light and siren..Wholly cow....
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