Our District just received a $ 51,000.oo grant, where about 40K will be dedicated to new extracation equipment. We are currently using Hurst and are overall pleased but open to suggestions. I would love to hear pros and cons on other manufacturers and experiences, both good and bad. Tip, tricks and "cant live without it" tool ideas are all welcome.
As always, Stay Safe!
Mike
Sorry- I'm a massive Holmatro fan! (I'm a bit biased as I used to work for the Australian distributor and have done loads and loads with 'em!)
I love them for the weight, ease of use, range, deadman's handle, etc. I haven't used it as yet, but they now have the new CORE hoses which is a single hose- I beleive it's a hose inside a hose??)
Be wary when speccing. Make sure you spec for your response area. ie: if you have a lot of heavy rigs, then spec tools that can cope with that. They have a good range.
Hey Brother we here in St.Albans WV we love our T N T tools and Rescue Jacks these tools allow us to spread with the whole arm not just the tip like Hurst does we use to use Hurst but seen how well TNT out performed Hurst 5 to 1 plus the Rescue Jacks we got along with our tools we have benifited from having them and our Extracation times have shortened drastically and we are back in service quicker check out their web site ?
We use amacus. Have not had any problems with them. We checked with other local departments to make sure of compatibility. If more than one department on scene and problem arises we can swap out.
I will agree on the Amkus tools they are great very user friendly HURST in my opion is a thing of the past i have personly seen two of the gold series break in the line of duty although the dept i am with now has always used Phoneix tools yea they are shit to another tool company i would try as well would be RES-Q-TECH they are supposed to have some great stuff on the market
i am on two department, one has Hurst and the other has Halmatro. honestly i would take the halmatro over the hurst any day. they are a lot lighter and a bit smaller but can still do the same amount of work as the hurst.
ok, I'm with lutan1 on this one. all of our hydrolic tools are holmatro (both my FD and my EMS-Rescue company). they are lighter than hurst, and they have more cutting power than hurst. my FD just bought new parrot cutters, and they are absolutely fabulous. they have this new technology (exact name doesn't come to mind at this moment, but it's on their website); it allows for less torque than the older models when you're cutting. they also have this little added feature of LED lights on the handle so you can actually see what you're cutting at night. like i said, they're awesome. i haven't really come across any problems with them yet, and i have seen other companys' cutters fail on a scene (they weren't holmatro, i don't know what they were). that's just my 2 sense. and we couldn't get the CORE hoses because then we would have to switch all of our hydraulic hoses, and that would just be a pain and cost too much, but i have seen them. my EMS-Rescue company has them, and as far as i know they work pretty well. we also use quick connects on our hose lines. anybody else have those? they're relatively new i believe (at least in my area they are).
Mike, we use Amkus and I agree with the other Amkus users, I wouldn't use anything else. We sampled all the available brands, at the time Amkus was the best. Easy to use, lightweight and many, many options to build on. Holmatro would of been our 2nd choice but I find them to be a little more awkward to use. I would call all your area reps and have them give your dept. a demo and then you can make the best choice.
USE ANYTHING BUT TNT!!!!!!!!!!!! JUNK JUNK JUNK. THIS IS A VERY CHEAP TOOL. THE DEPUTY CHIEF THAT BOUGHT THIS JUNK LIKED IT BECAUSE THE SALESMAN SAID "AREN'T THEY COOL" THEY ARE A CHEAP MADE TOOL. LIKE I SAID BEFORE JUNK JUNK JUNK.
My volunteer dept also has a set of amkus tools and we love them. at my paid department they swear by Resq-tec. I know some people that have 3 brand new sets of Pheonix tools and they hate them, they stay in the shop for repairs more than on the truck. Shop around those sales men love to come out and demos.
RES-Q-TEC. LIGHTER THAN HURST, JUST AS FAST, AND EQUAL OR GREATER CUTTING. MY DEPARTMENT HAS HAD RES-Q-TEC IN THE PAST AND WITH OUR NEW GRANT RES-Q-TEC AGIAN. AIR BAGS THE WHOLE WORKS! THEY'RE THE BEST!
PREVIOUSLY A DIVISION OF HURST COMPANY
WHEN SPEC. NEW TOOLS WE CHECKED OUR, HURST, AMKUS.
AMKUS AND RES-Q-TEC WERE USED SIDE BY SIDE BY 4 DIFFERENT RESCUE CREWS ON OUR DEPARTMENT ON FOUR FOUR DIFFERENT CARS (2 FOR AMKUS, 2 RES-Q-TEC)
2 CREWS 1 ON EACH RIP THROUGH ONE SIDE, THEN SWICHED RES-Q-TEC OUT CUT OUT PREFORMED EVERY TIME! CHECK THEM OUT!
Tnt tools are compareable to holmatro in performance. Any high pressure system your going to buy is going to be better than the old hursts. The best thing to do is try them all and if you can do it at the same time! Every body has some thing that makes them the best. You can't go wrong with hurst (high pressure), tnt, rescue tech, holmatro, or amkus. As far as the others I have never been around em. One other thing with the new tools come new techniques! Don't use 20 year old techniques with new tools! Good luck