Silly question about application

[Catch22]

OK, I know this is probably going to be a silly question, but my brain is utterly fried after the last week. I've been finishing researching and working on narratives for two grants for us, 3 others for regionals, and had to bury one of our brothers who passed away this week. But, deadlines are deadlines and I've got to get them kicked out.

I'm working on my "water supply" application, which includes LDH, intake valves, adapters, etc. Do I have to fill out each seperate item or can I just lump then and put in an average cost? For instance, on the adapters and wyes, I've got a LDH to 2 1/2" wye for each truck and various adapters to adapt 2 1/2" threaded to 4" Storz to 5" Storz to each other. If I list each one seperately it's going to be a bear.

I'm also having some issues finding a good spot for our intake valves, hard suction and strainers.

I'm sure I'm going to have the same issues with the regional for attack hose and nozzles.

[hdavid66]

I did a similar grant for this year and I got quotes on each item and separated everything out, both in the narrative and on the budget on the application.

I ended up with like 30 line items in the budget section. The suction hose and appliances ended up going in as "other equipment" for lack of a better place to put them. It took awhile to put them all in.... but for sake of clarity in the application, I thought it was worth the time spent. I didn't what anyone that reads in during peer review to have the impression that I was trying to bury something in the application.

I started with a general over all "This is what is wrong, the big picture." statement. Then, I conveyed what was wrong with each thing I was requesting / replacing.

In the project description portion of the narrative I did it like this:

PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING EQUIPMENT:

Existing hose, nozzles, monitor and portable pump equipment is old and unserviceable or not existent. Most of the equipment we do have is so old that it doesn’t meet the respective NFPA 1962, 1964 or 1965 standards.

Hose:
1.Most all of our current hose was purchased in 1995 or before, making all at least 12 years old. Some of the hose in services was purchased in 1974 making that hose 34 years old.
2.With the hose currently in service we cannot meet the fire flows necessary to attack a large working fire in the six critical infrastructures and high fire risk facilities.
3.The safety of current hose in service is questionable; the district has noted an increase in hose jacket failures, particularly failures near couplings. We believe this is due to the age of the hose.

Suction:
4.One of our trucks does not have sufficient suction hose or suction appliances.
5.We don’t have adaptors on all trucks necessary to connect to our dry hydrants.
6.Our other trucks have some suction appliances that have smaller connections on them than the suction hose carried. This means we have to use sizing adaptors and they can be confusing and take time to setup. Also, available water flows are reduced because of the undersized appliances.
7.Without more jet siphons it is impossible to setup more then one portable pond during incidents with high fire flows.
BLAH... BLAH... BLAH

In the budget portion on the narrative i listed stuff like this:

BUDGET:

Our request includes:

Hose:
10 - 100' - 5" LDH Hose w/ Stortz Couplings @ $605.00 each = $6,050.00
20 - 50' - 1 3/4" Hose w/ 1 1/2" Couplings @ $125.00 each = $2,500.00
8 - 50' - 2 1/2" hose @ $140.00 each = $1,120.00

Suction:
1 - 4 1/2" to 6" Double Female Long Handle @ $170.00
1 - 6" Suction Low Level Strainer @ $405.00
1 - 6" Suction Floating Strainer @ $605.00
2 - 6” Barrel Strainers @ $120.00 each = $240.00
2 - 6" Jet Siphon @ $195.00 each = $390.00
2 - 12' - Hard Suction 6" @ $625.00 each = $1,250.00
BLAH... BLAH... BLAH

[Pelican631]

Lump them. Calling out the cost of every adapter needed for every truck (especially in a regional app) could take days. Put a good description of what the items are for (adapters to equip all trucks with 5" storz outlet, for example) and take the average cost so that it evens out with the quantity you need. You can spell out each item in detail in the narrative if you want, but in the budget portion of the application it would take days to put every single adapter in there because of the way the web-based application works.

Andy

[rbh1957]

I would lump them the best you can, hose, fittings, etc. You think it is hard now, wait till you get the award and you have to ask for the funds for each item plus keep all the bids and invoices for a future visit from DHS. I had 10 line items on our first grant and it took a lot of time after we were awarded. Dont get me wrong, I am very grateful for the grant and it was worth every hour of my time. But any time you can reduce the work load the better. In my case no one else wants to help with the grants.

Just my thoughts, good luck

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Package as much as possible. Peer review doesn't care about model #'s, sizes, or anything else. It's the concept not necessarily the individual line items.

[Fighting41NY]

I did this same type of application last year and funded round 3.

If the sum of all the fittings you need is less then $5,000, I would not include any of them and just bump the price of the big ticket items a little to generate the needed excess funds.

I think having all these little items looks like a laundry list and each one probably gets averaged together somehow into a final computer score. I asked for (3) items, LDH, deluge gun, and hose tester. I bought all the fittings we needed with the excess funds. Another thing we did is leave everything on the truck as 4" and buy the 4" to 5" storz couplings. We have some neighbors who have not caught up to 5" so we can still be interoperable.

Makes closeout easier as well.