LDH hose reels

[BIG PAULIE]

I am intrested in talking to anyone who is using LDH hose reels for there supply hose. What I would really like to know is how the brake system works for the free wheeling of the reel once the pumper stops. Also how fast can you lay a line.

[dday05]

I am intrested in talking to anyone who is using LDH hose reels for there supply hose. What I would really like to know is how the brake system works for the free wheeling of the reel once the pumper stops. Also how fast can you lay a line.

I private messaged a person on here from a fd in Wis. They have a truck with a reel and they carry somewhere around 4,000 of LDH on it. Go to www.sblgfd.com and go to the apparatus section and you will see a picture of the truck with this on it. The person on the forums from that department has a name of SBLGFD, try to private message him if you want. I'm sure he would help you out.

[BlitzfireSolo]

Paulie - My department just replaced our 1986 pumper which had 3,400 feet of 4" on a reel. We chose to go with a standard, large-capacity hosebed on our new rig, as you can see in the pictures below.

We did away with the reel for a number of reasons:
- Limited hoselay and "bed" configurations
- Another system on the rig to break and fix
- Takes up a lot of space, and certainly wouldn't have allowed for the rearmount pump we have now.
- Hose on reel always sagged after a few days, unless it was perfectly loaded - this meant couplings hitting walls the next time it would lay out.
- Limited laying speed.
- Requires somebody to ride on the tailboard, or a second person in the cab (if you have rear vision cameras and remotes) when you're laying a line - freewheel usually didn't work too well.

On top of all this, we found it was just as easy (or easier) and almost as fast (sometimes faster) to load our bed, once you drain the hose, etc. Our reel truck certainly could have used some better technology to improve its operation, but we still felt that a big bed was a better option. In certain situations - like with short-wheelbase/OAL, single role water supply/source trucks, I think that there is still an application for them - when done correctly. Sister Bay, WI is certainly an example of one of these.

Here's our new bed - 4,400' of 5" LDH:

[dday05]

Hey BlitzfireSolo, your hosebed looks nice and in good working order. Nice job.

[jtstoney]

Blitzfiresolo was right on the money.

The wasted space of a reel is tremendous. From experience, sticking a round reel in a square hole causes 25% waste, at the least.

It typically requires that the water tank be shortened in the truck also, or raised to a higher level to contain the same water.

Freewheeling the reel to deploy works, but at extremely slow speeds. At slow speeds, I mean no faster than walking speeds.

If the truck has been driven for any length of time while hose is stowed, the hose shifts on the reel and developes loops, some of them fairly long. If this happens, its a bi*ch to lay the hose out.

But, it's a sweet deal when it comes to reloading LDH.

JT

[SWLAFireDawg]

We mutual aid with a local refinery who uses a hose reel with 10" supply hose mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. They can freewheel for the offload at about walking speed, or use the hydraulics to unspool, but they use hydraulics for spooling back up. Of course we don't lay 10" hose very often, and when done it is very thought out and deliberate so time is not of the greates priority.

Moving a charged 10" supply hose without big equipment is near impossible.

[dday05]

We mutual aid with a local refinery who uses a hose reel with 10" supply hose mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. They can freewheel for the offload at about walking speed, or use the hydraulics to unspool, but they use hydraulics for spooling back up. Of course we don't lay 10" hose very often, and when done it is very thought out and deliberate so time is not of the greates priority.

Moving a charged 10" supply hose without big equipment is near impossible.

What about adapters? Do you have adapters to hook intoo this stuff? A 10" supply line would be impressive to see in action...

[SWLAFireDawg]

What about adapters? Do you have adapters to hook intoo this stuff? A 10" supply line would be impressive to see in action...

We do not have them, but the owner of the hose does, and they are Storz if I remember correctly. We have only seen it a couple of times, and they usually have personnel to lay it out. This hose, classified as a mobile pipeline for inspection and testing purposes since it requires less, is only deployed for large petroleum or gasoline tank fires above 300 feet in diameter. Water flows on these can easily exceed 6000 gpm, with foam, and the supply can be a considerable distance away. The 10" has an extremely low friction loss coefficient. Like I said, almost impossible to move once charged.

We generally run 5" supply hose, but we are looking into 10". We just do not have the right hydrants currently to make good use of these, and the 5" will do what we need.

[dday05]

We do not have them, but the owner of the hose does, and they are Storz if I remember correctly. We have only seen it a couple of times, and they usually have personnel to lay it out. This hose, classified as a mobile pipeline for inspection and testing purposes since it requires less, is only deployed for large petroleum or gasoline tank fires above 300 feet in diameter. Water flows on these can easily exceed 6000 gpm, with foam, and the supply can be a considerable distance away. The 10" has an extremely low friction loss coefficient. Like I said, almost impossible to move once charged.

We generally run 5" supply hose, but we are looking into 10". We just do not have the right hydrants currently to make good use of these, and the 5" will do what we need.

Sounds neat, I should hope the 10" is for your industrial fd though. Thanks for the info.

[SWLAFireDawg]

Sounds neat, I should hope the 10" is for your industrial fd though. Thanks for the info.

Yes. Big fire needs big water. We flow those rates (3000 to 10000 gpm) for a minimum of one hour.