Fire Sprinkler Wrenches

[Aunt Phil]

Quit screwing around with the light stuff Chili.  Find me some decent water motor bells that haven't busted from freezing and ship em to me.  Every one I started to borrow for the last 20 years was split.

Most of the old sprinkler towers in Rochester have been knocked down, seems when they started to collapse people got nervous.  They were primarily connected to the Holly System which was steam pumped until the 1980s.  Good job for an Operating Engineer, 8 hours paid sleep as long as he woke up fast when the flow bell rang & started pumping like hell to compensate for the tower dumping.  Today all sprinklers are on the "potable" water system, and the Holly only serves downtown hydrants.  It is fun watching young firemen trying to understand a duplicate hydrant system.

[rusty]

My hose won't fit on this hydrant?

You don't want your hose connected to >that< hydrant.

why?

Cause you will look funny flying around the street when 1000 gallons per minute come out at 180 psi ;P

Oh...

[Aunt Phil]

My hose won't fit on this hydrant?

You don't want your hose connected to >that< hydrant.

why?

Cause you will look funny flying around the street when 1000 gallons per minute come out at 180 psi ;P

Oh...

You were the guy with the camera and clipboard, weren't you Rusty.

I loved your lecture on why more gallons will go through a 5 than twin 2 1/2s.

[Chillylulu]

You were the guy with the camera and clipboard, weren't you Rusty.

I loved your lecture on why more gallons will go through a 5 than twin 2 1/2s.

Why was there s question? Do people think that there are as many board feet of lumber in 2 pcs of 2×2 as there is in one piece of 4×4, all equal lengths?

I had a hard time explaining how a 2" exhauster was equal to 26 sprinklers at 1/2" each.

Common sense isn't so common anymore, even on the kinda trick question ones.

Chilly

[Chillylulu]

Quit screwing around with the light stuff Chili.  Find me some decent water motor bells that haven't busted from freezing and ship em to me.  Every one I started to borrow for the last 20 years was split.

Most of the old sprinkler towers in Rochester have been knocked down, seems when they started to collapse people got nervous.  They were primarily connected to the Holly System which was steam pumped until the 1980s.  Good job for an Operating Engineer, 8 hours paid sleep as long as he woke up fast when the flow bell rang & started pumping like hell to compensate for the tower dumping.  Today all sprinklers are on the "potable" water system, and the Holly only serves downtown hydrants.  It is fun watching young firemen trying to understand a duplicate hydrant system.

Water motor gongs are nothing for big - I have fire pumps I pulled out. We keep one  in the shop for training. We have fully functioning training centers at many of our branches. Here in Denver we have fire pumps, jockey pumos, res pumps, about 25 or 30 fully functional valve assemblies, many donated by manufacturers.  A couple of years ago we became accredited with different groups, building engineers, fire deoartments, etc. People can come in and train on whatever they need to.

We never had many water moyor gongs in Denver. I have only had two or three on my jobs in 32 yrs. Many more back east.

I am sending sprinkler wrenches, sprinkler heads that match, and other related paraphenelia to a member here, maybe they will show their it after awhile...

Chilly

[Chillylulu]

Sprinklers aren't the only fire sprinkler products that use special wrenches. The Viking dry valve comes with a special resetting tool - a steel bar, about 3/4" × 16" or so long.  They are never there.  Somebody goes into the valve room, sees the steel bar and doesn't know why it is there and tosses it.

Now they have a "special wrench"  an ell shaped bar with a 15/16" socket on the end.  The socket loosens the cover bolts and the plain end resets the latch.

See them in action here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIziP9Gh5bg

All our tamper and flow switches have tamper resistant screws.  Now they are pretty standardized, but in the day they had all kinds.  I have a box with my collection.

[Chillylulu]

My hose won't fit on this hydrant?

You don't want your hose connected to >that< hydrant.

why?

Cause you will look funny flying around the street when 1000 gallons per minute come out at 180 psi ;P

Oh...

Here in Denver we don't use pressure reducing valves until the pressure exceeds 175 PSI.  Denver firemen are tough hombres. Many of them are very good golfers, also.

Chilly

[rusty]

There are still high pressure hydrants scattered around here. Most went in after the great boston fire, when the city discovered that connecting all your pumpers to hydrants at the same time in the same place had a rather annoying little side effect..

Some of them will bite you, they are connected to standby boosters that only start up after you let some of the water out...

Have been to Denver, really nice city.

[Chillylulu]

There are still high pressure hydrants scattered around here. Most went in after the great boston fire, when the city discovered that connecting all your pumpers to hydrants at the same time in the same place had a rather annoying little side effect..

Some of them will bite you, they are connected to standby boosters that only start up after you let some of the water out...

Have been to Denver, really nice city.

Really scary pressure on mains in the mountains. In Vail we put a 175  psi pressure reducing valve on every line into a building just in case. Quick elevation changes do that.