Do you drain your pumps?

[jsdobson]

Being the northern most responder to the thread (so far), we keep our pumps wet all year. As others have written, if we are out in below freezing weather for a sustained amount of time, we engage the pump and circulate the booster tank water. We get our share of frozen drain lines but so far no problems with a pump freezing.

[TriTownship600]

I always drain the pumps in freezing weather. Drain the intakes, discharges, blow the booster reels with air, and don?t forget the lines to the your panel gauges. If your valves seep as most do, leave your drains open. They make great vents to let that air out when you pull the tank to pump.

I see the logic in a pump filled with water would take longer to cool. How do you freeze a dry pump?

[Resq14]

Originally posted by TriTownship600
How do you freeze a dry pump?

It's never completely dry. Even if you drain it, there will still be some residual water inside. It and the water vapor can condense and freeze much faster than 40ish gallons of water can. No, it won't be one big block of ice if it's drained, but valves and the innards of the pump could indeed freeze.

The fact that departments in Alaska leave them wet and don't have problems is enough evidence for me.

[don120]

Yes up here in Montreal Canada pumps are
kept dry during the winter. Yes they will
freeze if not in use at a fire. Like everything else, cold is a relative thing.
I saw some posts say they have never seen
a pump freeze.It is common up here during the coldest months of the winter normally
January and February.
After draining just the pump(not the tank)
all is left to dry then a pull on the primer to oil everything up and close
all valves and drains.
At -30 degrees drains will freeze-up
on route to the call.If you have to draft
with drains frozen open good luck!

I guess this isn't a problem in Florida.

[hwoods]

We do not drain our pumps. Why? Because I am the Chief and I said so. Well, that is not exactly the reason, but I've always wanted to say that. We don't drain pumps on a regular basis, but, if something is going out for service, we drain the whole system,tank, lines, and pump, and blow the lines out with air where possible. Booster reels aren't a problem, there is a 3/4 line on the brush rig and thats the only one. We haven't spec'd a reel on an engine since 1965. If a unit is caught out on a run for an extended time we run the pump to circulate water thru the pump and tank. Stay Safe....

[truckie245]

We used to...but now we don't (finally!)

Here was our rationale:

1. Our bays are heated.

2. If we're on scene, and we DON'T need the pump, we simply put it into gear and let it churn for as long as we're outside.

3. We HAVE had problems (when we used to drain the pump) with the DRAIN freezing open, and then we couldn't get it closed again to prime the pump!!

4. Simple physics. It's harder for a pump full of water to totally freeze up than it is for an empty pump with a little residual water to freeze.

[fireman_1]

We don't drain our pumps(anymore), but we do drain the lines(discharges and intakes).

[Smoke286]

It is dept policy to keep pumps drained during the winter months. I have never heard of a pump freezing, but have seen piping freeze on numerous occasions. it would be nice to do as some of you and drain only the outlets, but due to insufficent maitenence our pumps leak, so the outlets would only fill again eventually anyhow, besides some water in an outlet is worse then a full one anyhow as it can freeze, preventing gates from opening or closing

[firefighterox]

yes we drain our pumps because our pumper goes on runs that arent directly fire related (accidents, mutual aid with tanker and man power) so we drain discharges and intakes and pumps. in older trucks we put antifreeze in the pumps just to be safe we also put antifreeze on the threads so they dont freeze together.