The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
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
-
Permalink Reply by Asst Chief Tim Cook on
-
Or straddle the hose while driving forward and load from behind.
-
-
We made ours.
-
Permalink Reply by roy yoder on
-
i will say this chief and that is it is your responsibility to be prepared for the call before it comes in. said this when a officer says they burnt down a house because of lack of water they haven't prepared. that says alot but without going into class, see if you understand this. 55 gal drum of fire and beside it is a 55 gal drum of water. you have a choice of a thimble, an eight ounce cup or a gallon jug. with the thimble you can empty the water and still have fire, but with the gallon jug you have water left and the fire out. think of friction loss as distance between the two barrels and you see why the importance of LDH. it works the same way form the engine to the fire. its all about btu's and the absorbtion of the same. let's set a few parameters and use this for an example and place your numbers into it and you will see if you need LDH 1. 600 feet from the hydrant to the fire. 2. 400 gpm needed fire flow. 3. one engine 4. 30 psi residual flow at 400 gpm at hydrant. lets do a little history and in the 30's we used booster lines at 35 gpm x 2=70 and we were fighting wood and paper and the 2.5 inch supply line did the job. in the 70's we started to burn plastic and wood and we moved to 1.5 inch and 125 gpm x 2=250 and we found that 2.5 inch didn't work anymore so we started to put 3 inch and again we were able to move the water. we now have hotter fires requiring more btu's to be absorbed. we have moved to 1.75 and 2 inch attack lines with 200 gpm x 2=400 gpm and we see that 3 inch supply will not work anymore. if you look at 4 inch it will but lets look at history and see the progression so why spend the money for 4 inch when there is liifference in price and you see depts on here that have bought 4 inch and went back and bought 5 inch. more on this if requested
-
Permalink Reply by Glen Garland on
-
It weighs about 100-140 # per 100' section depending on manufacturer, hose material and coupling choice. We use 100' sections on our engines and 150' sections on our reel truck. Usually not an issue as a whole length is seldom picked up completely. Before purchasing check weights, max operating pressure, and friction loss. Believe it or not there can be a big difference between various manufacturers on all of these points. I also have at least a 25' and 50' length on each engine for hydt, feeding other engines and/or sprinkler hookups.
-
-
Adapters do work. We are switching from 4", which all our mutual aid depts use , to 5". When done converting we will be able to use either 4" or 5". We have some larger buildings than most of our mutual aid depts and I'm not going to not have the appropriate equipment for our town because they have a need for something else. Our community's needs must be met first and then help w/ mutual aid depts second. Don't get me wrong I love working w/ our surrounding towns but we do have different fire exposures and I must meet my community's needs first. We do work together and a few adapter does the trick easily.
-
Permalink Reply by Diamond Chief on
-
I agree, my community comes first. We can't let aiding departments overshadow what we need on first out companies. We can carry adapters for anybody else from other towns around us. You never know, maybe if we go to five inch we'll start a trend.
-
Permalink Reply by Lt. Ballinger on
-
Chief, As for rural application I can't really say for sure how well it would work. I'm on a city dept and all of our engines and our rescue pumper carry 5". I have been on mutual aid calls where porta tanks were used and the engine at the tanks was pumping LDH up the driveway to another engine. That engine had 2-3 1 3/4 handlines and a ground monitor being supplied by twin 3" lines and they were keeping up nicely by using LDH. We to a mutual aid fire with our truck company that they had 60 tankers for 4 porta tanks. Three ladders were set up and each ladder was supplied by an engine off a porta tank. Ours was the only one out fitted for 5" so they paired us with an engine outfitted from another town so we could maximize out 1500 gpm pump and we were pumping 1600- 1700 gpm for well over 90 min. with no problems out of the bucket from tanker shuttles. For hydranted areas the water flow increase we got going from (2) 3" lines for supply to (1) 5" was more than we expected. Very little friction loss. We were one of the first dept's to get 5" LDH in our area so we got looked at the surrounding dept's to see what size discharges and intakes they had and bought some adapters that would go from 3" to 5" Storz and 4" to 5"Storz so we could use it with our neighbors. If you are thinking of going to it, I would look at your water supply to be sure your hydrants( if you have any) can handle that much volume or if you can supply tanker water fast enough to make use of the extra volume you would gain. No use in spending the money on the hose if you can't keep enough water flowing through it to make it worth while. We used to have a section of town we couldn't use it because there wasn't enough water. We kept pulling a suction on the hydrant with just a couple of handlines out. Hopefully this helps you some.
-
-
Forgot to mention about the air in the line. What we do is we leave all the sections connected and we have a bar with a big roller on it we put under the hose once it is connected to the bed again. We have a couple of FF's walk it off to drain all the water out. The hose should suck flat against itsself as you go. When you get to the end we flip the coupleing over a couple of times so the inside stays sealed off. Our hose stays flat and a lot easier to manage while reloading.
-
Permalink Reply by Rob on
-
I have only worked for one department taht was totally hydranted and they used 5". Most places I have been were partially hydranted (and some of the hydrants stunk). Those all used 4". Before you jump in to the land of 4" ask yourself this, if no other departments carry 4" will I be able to lay down the longest lane in my coverage area without mutual aid companies finishing the lay? If the answer is no, you might want to rethink this. If it is yes then I would say go for it. Just remember that just to fill, not presurize, 4" it is roughly 1 gallon per foot. You will kill 1000 gallons to fill 1000 feet of 4". Depending on the availability of tankers in your area this may be a serious factor to think about. Also if you have hydrants, can they supply a decent volume, and do any of them have 4" or larger connections? If not you are looking at adapters you may not already have and you might be kidding yourself on the volume of water you would get.
Personally, I love having 4". Like I said though all my neighbors carry 4" (some even carry 5", and we have adapters) and we have 4 sq. mi. of our 27 sq. mi. that is hydranted and plenty of tankers between what we roll out with and what the neighbors bring to the party so 4" works well.
-
Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on
-
I'm a fan of ldh. The majority of depts. use ldh in our responce area. We have 1500ft of 5 inch on both of our engines. Total of 3000ft. that has bin on the street a couple of times. Being a rural area its the only way to go for us. Its a pain in the arse reloading it but its just like anything else you adapt. We use 50' sections. There is a 10ft. section of filler hose in each engine as well.
-
Permalink Reply by Pete on
-
We carry a simple roller (scissor lever with roller on top and bottom of LDH to pull along it's length)to push the air out of our LDH. The secret is too not disconnect the sections once we break it down from use. It will drain itself flat, if it is broken down into sections, it picks up way too much air. Best to have a hosebed cover over the truck to keep the LDH from catching the wind and self unloading enroute to a call. Has happened several times to different companies in this county.
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
