Hydrant system fails

Hydrant system fails

It\’s never good to find that a hydrant system fails and doesn\’t perform as it is required to. But you certainly don\’t want to wait to find out in a genuine fire event – a life or death emergency.

Fire hydrant systems are designed for a long life and are sufficiently robust that performance checks are not as frequent as many of the other routine service checks.

Hydrant testing – part of routine service

We do plenty of routine service checks on your different types of fire protection equipment over the months and years. We often see gradual deterioration in your equipment as can be expected.The aim is to give timely advice on repair or replace, so you are not caught without reliable equipment. Sometimes we find that a recent change or an unrelated event has damaged a piece of your system. Again we identify these and get your gear back on track as soon as practical.

However, we have seen an increase in new customers who are seeking only the specific annual or 5 yearly hydrant system tests. The word has got out about our capabilities in these tests. 🙂

Surprisingly we find a number of tests we\’ve conducted recently have failed in one way or another. Our clients have told us that the test hasn\’t been done \”since we moved in here\” 10 or maybe 15 years ago. What has prompted them to request a test that hasn\’t been on their maintenance program before? – we can\’t be sure. Perhaps insurance premium renewal time has identify the gap in test data?

For sure – a failure in this equipment is not something you want to be discovering in the event of a fire at your premises.

What sort of failures?

Fail type 1

– Failure of mains pressure. It looks like you have pressure in the line but as soon as you open the valves a dribble falls out – insufficient water and not able to be applied at any distance. The requirement is 600 litre/min whilst maintaining a residual pressure of 650 kPa. If your local supply pressure can\’t achieve this, it might be time to contact your water supplier or your council.

From This shows a flow rate of only 500 LPM, no residual pressure

Fail type 2

– Static pressure test fail in the piping which feeds your various hydrants. The test pressure requirement is 1700 kPa, for which we run our small jockey pump.  With all the hydrants closed the piping must hold for 90 minutes without pressure drop. Leaking valves will prevent a successful test – it won\’t be possible to reach the required pressure, even briefly. This means getting the plumber in, yours or ours., to refurbish the valves. We can then attempt the pressure test again.

Fail type 3

– Failure to hold for the duration of the pressure test. This can happen if the piping has some weakness, perhaps due to internal rust, which can give way during the 90 minutes at the test pressure. We will see the test pressure hold at the start of the test but then the pressure drops, perhaps slowly, or quite rapidly.  This will only rarely be a dramatic failure, however sensible safety precautions are taken.

With this type of failure we will generally shutdown the pump straight away, though we may keep the pump running briefly to help locate the leak. Leak detection however is not always an easy process and we may require leak detection equipment and specialists. It\’s not a good plan to continue pumping into a leaking system since the water will be collecting some where you don\’t want it.

So what?

Each of these types of failure indicate that the fire protection equipment would not able to perform as intended in a fire emergency. Periodic testing is essential for you to have the certainty you and your tenants need. It is also a regulatory requirement that the fire equipment mandated at your particular facility is periodically tested. This is essential to confirm its ongoing reliability for use during an emergency event.

Each of the failures mentioned has some required follow-up investigation or repair work, by us or by other service providers, as the owner\’s choose.

How can we help.

Call us 1300 134 971 if you require pressure, flow or boost testing on your hydrant system.

 

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