Public Fire Hydrants Servicing

[Chris Houston]

I do property surveys for clients.  I always check that there is a supply of water for fire fighting nearby.  I occassionally see that the nearest public hydrant is not marked up - i.e. it has no marking plate.  

When I see this, I consider that while the local brigade might know where the hydrant is, a brigade that were called in might not, likewise would the military if a fire occued while fire fighters were striking.

I always ask for my client to request that the brigade mark up the hydrant.

My question is, do brigades also check these things?  Are they likely to possitivly respond to my clients when they ask the FRS to mark up a hydrant?  In reality how often are hydrants inspected by the fire service?

[Mike Buckley]

Chris,

Working from past experience which may be out of date but doubtless we'll be told. It comes down to money again, fire hydrants are provided at he request of the Fire Service and they have to pay for them. At the end of a water main the WA fits a flushing valve, which is a hydrant under a differnet name, if the FS marks it they accept it and have to pay. Hence flushing valves are not marked.

[Pip]

In my area the servicing etc is carried out by technicians enmployed by the Fire service.Firefighters no longer carry out the routine maintenance,and therefore don't get to know their hydrants so well.this has been going on for the last 10 years,and even before then it was a 4 year testing cycle,which had been trimmed down from an annual one.Once it went to 4 yearly you could hardly argue that the FF were getting to see many of them(hydrants split between 4 watches,therefore only see a quarter of them every four years,even less again on two pump stations etc.) so why have them check them at all?(Brigades view)-so employ the technicians to do it(cheaper and FF can go and fit SD's.)

[nearlythere]

Do hydrants in public areas not belong to the relevant water authority?

[Dinnertime Dave]

Do hydrants in public areas not belong to the relevant water authority?

No nearlythere, they are mainained by Fire Authority. My brigade similar situation to Pip

[Chris Houston]

Thanks for the comments so far.

Do people think that a request from a business to properly mark up a fire hydrant would be successful?

[Pip]

It should be-it is in everybody's interest,and may be that the Fire authority are unaware that the sign is missing/obscure etc.

[kurnal]

I find the cities are the worst for missing plates but its less critical where there there are so many hydrants. I very often add such a clause to a fire risk assessment- in view of a lack of hydrants or access problems that clients should contact the local brigade in order to formulate their operational plan. Not many follow it up though.

Newhall Street Birmingham this afternoon counted 9 hydrant lids within 200 m of the block I was visiting  bit only one plate on a lamp post outside no 144  fixed with plastic tie wraps and facing the wrong direction

[Midland Retty]

You tend to find most Metropolitan brigades now have information about nearest hydrant locations to any incident they attend on the turn out sheet.

[John Webb]

Chris,
Recent story in my locality. I noticed a number of new and refurbished hydrant signs around the area I live in. Included replacement of a couple of missing signs, change to metric dimensions on a cast sign attached to a (wooden) shop-front  and the addition of reference numbers to the top of the plates.

But the hydrant in my cul-de-sac was untouched - cast plate on concrete post still with Imperial units and very tatty paintwork. So I rang up the local FRS and was put through to the lady handling the records of hydrant inspections at HQ. In response to my inquiry I was told that yes, the hydrant was checked on 31st May and "We no longer paint hydrant signs." No explanation as to why they had stopped doing this or why they hadn't fitted a new enamelled sign to replace the old cast one to make the hydrant stand out a bit more.

By the way, the flushing valves refered to by Mike Buckley are usually fitted with a lid saying 'WO' which I understand means 'Water Outlet'. The local water company recently relaid a bit of mains near me and two of these, identical to screw-down hydrants were fitted; but the lids were clearly marked with WO when the road surface was reinstated. So I think that if the lid says 'FH' and there's no H-plate then the local FRS should be told.

[Pip]

I think 'WO' stands for 'Wash out' as it is usually the last outlet in the main and thus used for flushing  purposes.It is not unusual to find hydrant covers marked 'WO' and vice versa-maybe just depends on what the water board had on the back of the truck at the time!

[Mike Buckley]

The ones I remember were marked SFV. I assume it means something like Service Flush Valve.

[MonkeyBoy]

As we all like to refer to British Standards when discussing "fire safety" issues  i.e. If something is "installed, tested & maintained to the BS then it will be ok" perhaps we should refer to the BS for hydrants - BS650 - which recommends that hydrants are inspected on a six-monthly basis!

I suspect that the vast majority of Brigades look at hydrants no more than once a year but the trend is definately going towards longer timescales.

Perhaps this is because the appliances that turn up to premises are now more modern & the crews can use less water (high pressure hosereels rather then 1" main jets) to extinguish fires and are, consequently, less reliant on the hydrants?
Brigades also have the locations of their hydrants logged on the GIS mapping systems and can, literally, talk a crew towards the nearest (hopefully) available hydrant.

Regarding the painting of posts - the Brigade has probably ended up spraying somebodies wall / car as well as a post in the past and had to pay for the damage!

[Pip]

see link for interesting cooments on hydrants at the Newquay fire:
http://www.fbu.org.uk/newspress/ebulletin/113.php

[Dinnertime Dave]

As we all like to refer to British Standards when discussing "fire safety" issues  i.e. If something is "installed, tested & maintained to the BS then it will be ok" perhaps we should refer to the BS for hydrants - BS650 - which recommends that hydrants are inspected on a six-monthly basis!

I thought it was BS 750 every recruit had to make a list of 10 features of a hydrant and its chamber. Has it now changed?