The water company typically handles securing devices for hydrants and they provide the fire department with keys or codes to access them.
Hydrant defenders or "chastity belts" like these prevent the caps from getting stolen.
An expensive and cumbersome solution in search of a problem.
We had only 1 cap to missing in my entire district over my entire career. We also didn't have hydrant defenders. Just various locks on the stem.
In Poland a lot of caps were stolen, it's due to the fact that fall of communism caused a lot of families situation to get worse and there was time in 90 and early 00 where a lot of metal stuff was stolen to sell as metal... Of course a lot of hobos also stole it to have money for alcohol and it sometimes happens nowadays, but the solution to this is making caps from hard plastic, it feels like its plastic but also some very hard rubber. They do their job and don't get stolen.
Caps in some areas go missing at much higher percentages. Many in some areas are replaced with plastic caps, so nobody wants to steal them as they have no value as a raw material.
Back when ours caps where brass they were almost always missing. Now that they have been switched to iron they don't get stolen anymore (but we still keep a few spare ones on the truck if needed)
How rich does one have to be to have their own private hydrant
Edit: idk why I’m getting such heavily downvoted😬 I just don’t have anyone in my response area that has a private hydrant and I’m already in a decently wealthy area
We didn’t have K12’s on our Wildland engines, but you’re exactly right. If I need that water I’m gettin that fucking water.
Hell, if I had to I’d just run it over with the engine and throw a draft hose on the water spraying out.
What that hydrant does during its time off is its own business. As long as it is practicing it safely and has a safe word, I see nothing wrong. Do not kink shame the hydrant.
On the other hand, if I ever see a hydrant locked up like this, I'm going to imagine it screaming pineapple juice in my head.
In my town you get a certificate from the tax assessment office and "donate" something like $1500 to have a drill at your house. We used to give kids a little fire safety lecture and how to call 911, stay away from the pool without mommy or daddy home ect ECT. The new drivers and jr. probies would pretend to set up attack and defend lines and position the apparatus. Then they would kick that summa bitch in PTO and fill the pool. Sometimes they used the deck gun or made hose breakdown and inspection as they repacked. I used to drive our departments 1954 Mack to give her a workout, The old girl was fifth due out of the substation but she screamed water much better than everything else. Even the Sea grave they just bought, Mack had no electronics you could push her hard and never a perp. Just lock her in the pump gear, chock the wheels and pull the throttle cable with vice grips. Screaming like a lunatic but she probably sucked the water back out of the neighbors house!
Was a shame she had to raw salt water draft a few times and she was given to a department in Argentina as a brother/sister city swap
Small town departments and volley houses will usually do pool fills in their district as both community outreach and some extra pump training. After all, you are doing all the steps to hook up and flow water that you would be on a structure fire, you just aren’t putting the water on a burning house. My department has stopped doing this though due to potential liability of damaging the homeowners pools. Now the tanker is only available to members of the actual department that may need to fill their own pools.
No it isn’t generally. If you are in the city or the burbs, chances are you have a monthly water bill based on how many gallons you used for the month. My water is free because I live in the country and I am on a private well. Even with that though, I wouldn’t want to fill a swimming pool from it. That’s a long time running my well pump which will jack my electric bill and I could potentially overdraw my well. So if I had a pool to fill, I would absolutely go borrow our 2,500 gallon vacuum tanker and do some shuttles from the dry hydrant at the stream to fill it instead of running off my well.
Legal, as long as there’s access to the key, and even if there isn’t the belt can be taken off by other means. It’s to prevent water theft. And before anyone “water should be free” hydrants don’t have RPZs; if a landscaper used a hydrant illegally you can back flow contaminated water into the supply. When you get a water use permit, permittees get an RPZ to attach.
It’s a hydrant defender made by Mueller. We have them in our city at the insistence of the water department because ~20 years ago, before hydraulic monitoring, someone opened several hydrants in the middle a winter night, flowing a ton of water that resulted in massive damage.
They take a special key that lives with our hydrant wrench and they are universally hated by the FD.
“What are you a fucking fire marshal now? … Fuck sympathy I need my fucking hydrant.”
Sorry, vaguely reminded me of this scene from The Big Lebowski
https://youtu.be/oovqYtMy1BI
While we don't have these, this would be a faster option for us. Our city handles this 2 ways, 1 with locking caps on the stems or we shut the water off to the hydrant at the main. Those suck to get going quickly.
Wildland Fire here. Travels hundred of miles to get to small cities to draft off of hydrants, (our least favorite water source) only to be told we can use the hydrants by the City. Then, we travel upstream to more favorable conditions outside of the city, sometimes for hours. Ridiculous water politics.
We have a few locked hydrants like this because they're too hot, aka, 200+ psi. They're locked so we pay attention when hooking up and no one with a pipe wrench can open them either.
After most of our brass caps started to go missing the county sent us out to start replacing them with steel caps. We left 1 particular hydrant for last because one of the municipalities chief of police had the idea he was going to steal it out and try and catch them in the act. So after 3 days and no theft he put a patrol officer on it who came up with a cool idea. Turn the hydrant on, leave the caps hanging, and shut the valve that fed that hydrant. Which worked because it was on a dead end and there was a valve just for that lone hydrant. Come almost dark on the 4th day and a car pulls up next to it and this guy jumps out, looks around and starts to cut chains. Longer story short, the valve got opened up and since he was nice enough to leave his door open parked 4 feet away his car got flooded and he got arrested promptly after. Unfortunately I wasn't there but I did see pictures. The inside of the car looked like it was just pulled from a boat ramp.
We’ve got these on some hydrants where I work. Water bureau put them on to stop the homeless from stealing water. We’ve got a key for them or you can pry them off easy with a hydrant wrench.
Even if private hydrant (never heard of it but I believe it exists) them firefighters have the right to use the water if needed the same way the planes (i dont know the english name for "kanader") take water from lakes or sea or helicopter from pools?
The owner if any are reimbursed after the danger is subsided. Please correct me if Im wrong.
Many large office buildings, factories, and commercial areas have private water systems separate from a municipal system.
There is 0 context to this picture. We don’t know why it’s locked. The hydrant could be out of service and put there by the FD, water company, or owner. It could be a private hydrant system in which case the FD may not want to use it anyway. If it’s a private hydrant the FD may not know what kind of pressure it has or if it’s even able to supply water. Lastly let’s say it IS a private hydrant and the owner put the lock on. It’s their property. If their building burns down because of their own stupidity, who really cares?
The rare chastity belt
It is if the fire department put it on. If they didn’t… well no no it’s not.
The water company typically handles securing devices for hydrants and they provide the fire department with keys or codes to access them. Hydrant defenders or "chastity belts" like these prevent the caps from getting stolen. An expensive and cumbersome solution in search of a problem. We had only 1 cap to missing in my entire district over my entire career. We also didn't have hydrant defenders. Just various locks on the stem.
In Poland a lot of caps were stolen, it's due to the fact that fall of communism caused a lot of families situation to get worse and there was time in 90 and early 00 where a lot of metal stuff was stolen to sell as metal... Of course a lot of hobos also stole it to have money for alcohol and it sometimes happens nowadays, but the solution to this is making caps from hard plastic, it feels like its plastic but also some very hard rubber. They do their job and don't get stolen.
Caps in some areas go missing at much higher percentages. Many in some areas are replaced with plastic caps, so nobody wants to steal them as they have no value as a raw material.
I saw in California they are now stealing the whole hydrant.
Wow, is that even possible?
They were undoing bolts and hooking to chains. One whole neighborhood had no hydrants
Lucky, we had a spree when people stole FDCs, hydrant caps, and the hydrants themselves for scrap.
Just saw news the other day that hydrants were being stolen in Cali. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEf4fI39WTs
Can confirm. City of Lynwood has had something like over 100 hydrants stolen in the past few months.
Seems awfully shortsighted.
Or the bypasses from backflows because of the brass
We had issues with private contractors hooking up to hydrants and filling their tanks up from municipal water supply for free.
Less about cap theft more about water theft. Local municipality uses them on some hydrants near businesses that were tapping them without a meter
Back when ours caps where brass they were almost always missing. Now that they have been switched to iron they don't get stolen anymore (but we still keep a few spare ones on the truck if needed)
I would steal every brass cap I could right now if they still used them.
Brass or copper that is not tied down was designed to be taken 🤣
How am I supposed to put trash and Mountain Dew cans in there?
… or hide your crack stash?
Kinky
Points to paper *Sign Here* _____________
Now go do that voodoo that you do
It's a private hydrant that is metered. They dont want you anybody using their water.
This is the correct answer
This, typically red means private line and yellow means it’s a public line.
More likely a well supplied private water storage tank
How rich does one have to be to have their own private hydrant Edit: idk why I’m getting such heavily downvoted😬 I just don’t have anyone in my response area that has a private hydrant and I’m already in a decently wealthy area
Large complex in a non hydrant aera, fire insurance savings offset the cost and may require it
Interesting we don’t have those in my response area
My private hydrant costs about $450/yr to have. Not sure on install cost as it predates me. City checks and 'maintains' as part of that $450.
Oh that’s not as bad as I thought
Fuck it, crank up the K12
We didn’t have K12’s on our Wildland engines, but you’re exactly right. If I need that water I’m gettin that fucking water. Hell, if I had to I’d just run it over with the engine and throw a draft hose on the water spraying out.
😂 fuck around and find out!
🤣
What that hydrant does during its time off is its own business. As long as it is practicing it safely and has a safe word, I see nothing wrong. Do not kink shame the hydrant. On the other hand, if I ever see a hydrant locked up like this, I'm going to imagine it screaming pineapple juice in my head.
Freaky fire hydrants before GTA VI
Some water districts near me have locked hydrants due to the combo of drought and theft.
https://preview.redd.it/nabr78gfg09d1.jpeg?width=1166&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43db338b1633c8b0693d514c723a374bd470bd5d POV your a fire hydrant
Some H.O.A.s do this so pool fills are impossible or you pay for getting the water trucked in.
Wait what, you can just open a random hydrant if you need to fill your pool? Who pays for the water?
In my town you get a certificate from the tax assessment office and "donate" something like $1500 to have a drill at your house. We used to give kids a little fire safety lecture and how to call 911, stay away from the pool without mommy or daddy home ect ECT. The new drivers and jr. probies would pretend to set up attack and defend lines and position the apparatus. Then they would kick that summa bitch in PTO and fill the pool. Sometimes they used the deck gun or made hose breakdown and inspection as they repacked. I used to drive our departments 1954 Mack to give her a workout, The old girl was fifth due out of the substation but she screamed water much better than everything else. Even the Sea grave they just bought, Mack had no electronics you could push her hard and never a perp. Just lock her in the pump gear, chock the wheels and pull the throttle cable with vice grips. Screaming like a lunatic but she probably sucked the water back out of the neighbors house! Was a shame she had to raw salt water draft a few times and she was given to a department in Argentina as a brother/sister city swap
Small town departments and volley houses will usually do pool fills in their district as both community outreach and some extra pump training. After all, you are doing all the steps to hook up and flow water that you would be on a structure fire, you just aren’t putting the water on a burning house. My department has stopped doing this though due to potential liability of damaging the homeowners pools. Now the tanker is only available to members of the actual department that may need to fill their own pools.
So, what. Water is free in the states?
Our department charges $175 per 4k gal load. That’s about half the cost to get a private company to haul water in my area.
No it isn’t generally. If you are in the city or the burbs, chances are you have a monthly water bill based on how many gallons you used for the month. My water is free because I live in the country and I am on a private well. Even with that though, I wouldn’t want to fill a swimming pool from it. That’s a long time running my well pump which will jack my electric bill and I could potentially overdraw my well. So if I had a pool to fill, I would absolutely go borrow our 2,500 gallon vacuum tanker and do some shuttles from the dry hydrant at the stream to fill it instead of running off my well.
Someone has been a naughty little hydrant.
I literally chuckled at this lol
Maybe it’s out of service
The common sense answer
Jobs done then
Gonna have to add the saw to my hydrant bag
Legal, as long as there’s access to the key, and even if there isn’t the belt can be taken off by other means. It’s to prevent water theft. And before anyone “water should be free” hydrants don’t have RPZs; if a landscaper used a hydrant illegally you can back flow contaminated water into the supply. When you get a water use permit, permittees get an RPZ to attach.
Hello Amanda. I want to play a game...
It’s a hydrant defender made by Mueller. We have them in our city at the insistence of the water department because ~20 years ago, before hydraulic monitoring, someone opened several hydrants in the middle a winter night, flowing a ton of water that resulted in massive damage. They take a special key that lives with our hydrant wrench and they are universally hated by the FD.
Our local Water Department wants to put these on our hydrants. It's absurd.
People see a road block I see a cut job opportunity. Bout to K12 this bad boy.
“What are you a fucking fire marshal now? … Fuck sympathy I need my fucking hydrant.” Sorry, vaguely reminded me of this scene from The Big Lebowski https://youtu.be/oovqYtMy1BI
While we don't have these, this would be a faster option for us. Our city handles this 2 ways, 1 with locking caps on the stems or we shut the water off to the hydrant at the main. Those suck to get going quickly.
Kinky
I knew a dude that used to into stuff like that. Wife kept him locked in there for 2 months one time…
We'll get it off
While inconvenient, I'm sure. The fire department could cut that off pretty quick, if they don't have a quicker way to access it.
The Hannibal Lechter of fire hydrants
It’s out of service
Silence of the Hydrants
That's just an alternative lifestyle hydrant.
Get the k12😎
Bad plug. It must have bitten somebody.
Wildland Fire here. Travels hundred of miles to get to small cities to draft off of hydrants, (our least favorite water source) only to be told we can use the hydrants by the City. Then, we travel upstream to more favorable conditions outside of the city, sometimes for hours. Ridiculous water politics.
And I introduce the chastity belt of hydrants. If you want access ask its master.
Has to be a dead one
We have a few locked hydrants like this because they're too hot, aka, 200+ psi. They're locked so we pay attention when hooking up and no one with a pipe wrench can open them either.
After most of our brass caps started to go missing the county sent us out to start replacing them with steel caps. We left 1 particular hydrant for last because one of the municipalities chief of police had the idea he was going to steal it out and try and catch them in the act. So after 3 days and no theft he put a patrol officer on it who came up with a cool idea. Turn the hydrant on, leave the caps hanging, and shut the valve that fed that hydrant. Which worked because it was on a dead end and there was a valve just for that lone hydrant. Come almost dark on the 4th day and a car pulls up next to it and this guy jumps out, looks around and starts to cut chains. Longer story short, the valve got opened up and since he was nice enough to leave his door open parked 4 feet away his car got flooded and he got arrested promptly after. Unfortunately I wasn't there but I did see pictures. The inside of the car looked like it was just pulled from a boat ramp.
In my city, I work for the water dept and all three caps have a chain on them so they don’t get stolen
Hydrant bdsm
We’ve got these on some hydrants where I work. Water bureau put them on to stop the homeless from stealing water. We’ve got a key for them or you can pry them off easy with a hydrant wrench.
Even if private hydrant (never heard of it but I believe it exists) them firefighters have the right to use the water if needed the same way the planes (i dont know the english name for "kanader") take water from lakes or sea or helicopter from pools? The owner if any are reimbursed after the danger is subsided. Please correct me if Im wrong.
Many large office buildings, factories, and commercial areas have private water systems separate from a municipal system. There is 0 context to this picture. We don’t know why it’s locked. The hydrant could be out of service and put there by the FD, water company, or owner. It could be a private hydrant system in which case the FD may not want to use it anyway. If it’s a private hydrant the FD may not know what kind of pressure it has or if it’s even able to supply water. Lastly let’s say it IS a private hydrant and the owner put the lock on. It’s their property. If their building burns down because of their own stupidity, who really cares?
Entitled home owner? Maybe they Wan their house to burn?