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L.D.H. "Love It, or Hate It"
I am wanting to start using LDH in our dept. and am wondering if I can convince the majority into changing their thought process. Let me add that we are in a rural area, and no departments that might provide aid uses LDH. Should we make the switch?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on
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Another trick for alleviating the air from getting into the hose during reloading is to put a Stortz cap on the end as you reload. We for example walk our hose out to drain it then roll it and the take it to the engine usually in a pickup. Loading the hose can be done at the scene or back at quarters. We do not load hose while the truck is in motion and guys are in the hose bed or behind the truck even with spotters. Not Safe!
At the engine house we have a turntable that we put the rolled hose on. It works like a lazy susan for your kitchen table. When we put the hose on the turn table we then put the cap on to keep air from entering the section and then load it with all couplings to the front of the bed.
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To answer your question Diamond Chief. You will find that if you do get CAFS on your engine and use it effectively on all your fires you will be able to supply that engine with a 2 1/2 " line. Unless you are running CAFS through A ladder pipe. We use our LDH mostly on mutual aid calls.
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Permalink Reply by HAZMATCAP on
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LDH is a very smart mindset. It's all about volume. 100' lengths with 25' "jumpers' for the close hydrant...right on! We also have one 50' as the first out section for when 25' is not enough and 100' is too much. We also attach a hydrant bag to that first 50' section. Good luck changing some of the old, archaic attitudes. And be sure to coordinate with your sister dept's. if and when they purchase to assure compatability. We have a neighbor with 4" while everyone else has 5" so it's just one more adaptor to carry.
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Permalink Reply by Diamond Chief on
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Like the hydrant bag idea. I discussed LDH with our water supt.( a former firefighter I might add), and he more or less questioned why it had even crossed my mind. I explained to him about getting the volume and lack of friction loss,but I was wasting my breath. This is the same one I asked if the FD could paint the hydrants according to flow rates: His answer was it would take too long. Change is so tough for some.
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Good point Asst.29. We just got our first cafs unit on a brush truck, but would love to retro our engines someday.
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Permalink Reply by Chris on
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We use the 100' sections 5'' with a total load of 1000' on our engines and 500' on our ladders. Its not really that difficult to load.
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1000' is what we had in mind on engines and service company(no aerial yet)!
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Actually it is 1 gallon per foot, but right on the 1000 gallons for 1000 feet.
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Permalink Reply by Capt7453 on
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We use 4 inch hose for rural water shuttles. At 150 psi it will flow 500 gpm to 1000 ft, in my experience this meets any expected water flow requirements. Any tender shuttle I have seen would not be able to supply much more than a continuous 500 gpm flow anyway.
A 100 ft. section of 4-inch LDH alone weighs about 70 pounds and a 5-inch piece weighs about 100 pounds; filled with water, the respective weights are 616 and 953 pounds.
The four inch is a lot easier to move and load as well. As far as LDH suction we switched to 4 inch hard suction on our 1,250 pumpers. Our rural water will be drafted from a fold a tank filled from tender shuttles. The 4 inch suction hose will supply 900 gpm which is more than we can shuttle contentiously
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The LDH equipment we carry includes:
5 inch Storz to 2 1/2 female for connection to pump discharge or steamerless hydrants
5 inch to 4 inch Storz for adapting to other departments' LDH
LDH spanners to help get stubborn couplings apart
5" - 2 1/2 inch gated wye
5" to 2 1/2 inch siamese
5" to 6" steamer adapter
silicone lubricant to spray on coupling ends before re-coupling
As was mentioned earlier, the gallon/foot of water capacity cannot be overlooked in rural operations. We were at the scene end of a 1000+ foot lay and the radio traffic went something like this:
"Engine 111 to 1412, charge that line."
"1412 (pumper with 1000 gallon tank) OK."
a few minutes later: "111 to 1412, charge the line!"
"111, we did! We just gave you our tank and we're empty!"
Not so funny with the house freely burning and everyone looking down at their boots as the homeowners watched their possessions go up in smoke. Thankfully we were on mutual aid to another department, but still...
LDH is great for moving water, though. We started in 1994 with 1000 feet and are up to about 2800 feet total for our three pumpers.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Lupkowski on
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We have been using 5" hose for over 30 years with great results. All of our engines carry a split load of 1000 feet of both 3" and 5". We utilize the modified "Z" load with all of the couplings in the front of the hose bed. It really maximizes the amount of hose that you can carry. Between all of our pieces, including the aerials, we carry over one mile of hose, but generally only lay one to two thousand feet at a time. Everyone is right, it's an effort to pick up but "many hands make light work and we rarely have any air in the hose issues after rolling the lengths and then reloading at the station.
The uses are as varied as any hose including from portable pumps, tankers, and in relays.
The appliances are as simple or complex as you want with 2.5 to 5 elbows, and "portable hydrants" we have found that the hose is the limiting factor in water movement and not the size of the discharge. Can you tell I'm hooked?
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