Gaskets for storz suction inlets

[taskforce16]

My department is in the process of changing over our hard suction hose to the new light weight PVC style with 5.0" storz fittings on both ends. We currently use 5.0" LDH as well. We are thinking of changing all of our 6.0" inlets (main pump inlets and a front suction) to a 6.0" NSTF x 5.0" storz adapter.

Since we would use these inlets in either a suction/drafting mode or from a hydrant/pressure mode, what type of gaskets would we need to use? I know some of the vendors that supply adapters, hard suction hose, etc say to "specifiy of the type of storz gasket, pressure or suction".

Has any body heard of this? How did your department handle this and what changes if any would you recommend to the above set-ups? Thanks in advance.

[Scottsfire]

Taskforce,
Hmmmm....not sure I'm familiar with the product your talking about but make sure that the company advises using it for hydrant/pressure and drafting/vacuum. I know that most of the products out there that I'm familiar with don't advise using hard suction on a hydrant because its design intent is for negative pressure (vacuum) only.
But it wouldn't surprise me if they have some new miracle intake hose that does both!
Sorry I wasn't much help....
Your in luck though cause there is a lot of informative people in this forums.

[Rayr49]

We have been using 4" LDH for about 15 years with Storz couplings. We did put adapters on the pump inlets so we can hook directly to the Storz. We also have about 60% of our district that has no hydrants.

You need to use the "vacuum gaskets" on the hard suction and the inlet adapters. The Storz fittings will not maintain the vacuum with the standard "pressure" gasket.

You can use the regular "pressure" gaskets on the 5" LDH. It will hook to the inlet with the "vacuum" gasket installed without a problem.

Make sure you place a pair of LDH spanner wrenches near each inlet. The Storz with the vacuum gaskets can be a bit hard to turn bare handed.

The gaskets can be bought separately and are easy to install. You basically pop out the old and push in the new. No special tools are required. Make sure any spare gaskets are well marked as pressure or vacuum. It is virtually impossible to tell the difference with the naked eye especially at 2 AM.

Stay Safe
IACOJ

[MG3610]

Just curious if you are converting from 6" thread to 5" storz. if so, there is water reduction (friction loss) from doing such a switch since your hose couplings have 1" less opening diameter. I've seen this alot on newer rigs. When you pump test your rigs, I'd be curious how they perform for the full capacity test with the 5" storz couplings.

Check out the April or May issue of Fire-Rescue Magazine for an article about friction loss and drafting due to appliances and such.

[Rayr49]

Most manufacturers do not make a 6" NST x 6" Storz or at least one at a price most departments are willing to pay.

The friction loss and flow reduction will not seriously affect your pump capacity when using LDH unless you are using a really large GPM pump.

You will lose some gpm from draft but you can still flow 1000 GPM or better. We remove the adapters for pump testing and go straight into the intakes.

Stay Safe
IACOJ

[SpartanGuy]

Originally posted by MG3610
Just curious if you are converting from 6" thread to 5" storz. if so, there is water reduction (friction loss) from doing such a switch since your hose couplings have 1" less opening diameter. I've seen this alot on newer rigs. When you pump test your rigs, I'd be curious how they perform for the full capacity test with the 5" storz couplings.

Check out the April or May issue of Fire-Rescue Magazine for an article about friction loss and drafting due to appliances and such.

Whenever ours are tested, the jaffrey intake valves on the sides are removed and we hook the hard suction directly to the unadapted intake after removing the storz adaptors on the hose...

[taskforce16]

Thanks for the information. Based on everyones comments, I just to confirm the following:

We use 5.0" LDH
We are thinking of switching to 6.0" x 10' sections of hard hose with 5.0" storz couplings.
We only draft from portable tanks, lakes, ponds, etc
When we use a hydrant, we only use the 5.0" LDH

Thanks again for your help.

[PFD2212]

I'm an Asst. Chief with my Dept. Our town has dry hydrants with both 6" threaded and 5" storz connections, our "source pumper" is set up to connect to both. We use drafting gaskets on the 5" storz connections, 1 on the hydrant and 1 on the hard suction, this seems to work fine. (be sure to have large spanner wrenches handy the storz couplings are tough to secure with the drafting gaskets in place. I hope this will help you out-stay safe