Hydrant Water Flow Test 2

[JCianfarra]

thread184-235867

Hello Members, I remember being told by a sprinkler company owner about 30 years ago that the first thing you do when either designing or estimating a sprinkler job is call and ask for the wate flow data. He said it could take as much as two weeks to get the information from the water company! Well, the two weeks has turned into several weeks or even 6 months depending on the water company. I even had a rural PA town give this responcibility over to a third party enginner who wanted $1500 to "plug in" the hydrant flow data. However, the worst case senerio is when the water company does the flow test for free and they ignore your calls or emails. How can we get a job on Monday and be expected to turn over the design on Wednesday when the construction office makes us get water data from private companies who can be have no interest in helping us? Is there some kind of State regulations requiring this data be available in a some reasonable time period? If you flow the hydrant yourself you can get charged with theft. We do work in PA & NJ but any experience would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[cdafd]

Since whoever you are working for is going to bring revenue to that city, talk to whoever and as high as you have to go about the problem

To include you will be glad to do it yourself

 

[JCianfarra]

I am feeling the water to determine if townships, cities, counties or states have any influence on these mostly privately owned companies.

 

[cdafd]

One more time??

Checking water flows for each city and who gets the info???

 

[Oremus]

Getting the info varies w/ locality. A lot of jurisdictions want you to do the test and they will witness it (usually for a minimal fee). Some larger cities may do the test themselves - again for a fee; about $100 or less. If you're not equipped to do the test yourself then expect to fork out about $500 for a private company to do this for you. For that amount you could pretty much buy a testing kit yourself w/ a handheld pito guage, hydrant wrench, and cap w/ guage.

Are you dealing w/ the right people? Tell them you need to perform a hydrant flow test and ask what the procedure is. Sure you could ask the water company but chances are they may think you're wanting to know pressures based upon their computer model - then they pass you over to their engineer who sits on it. Let them you know exactly what you want - a physical, hands on flow test,

 

[MGXFP]

Call the fire department. Often fire departments have data on record which they will share with you. They are more interested in your fire suppression system anyways.

Buy the equipment and offer to give them (water purveyor/fire department) a free demonstration of a water flow test.

 

[JCianfarra]

In Philadelphia the Water Department is actually the most pleasurable department in the City to deal with. You call for water data and they are more than willing to help, and if you need a new test done you just send in the check for a couple hundred bucks and you gets your results soon enough - Not bad for a city bureaucracy. Some of the small towns are just difficult to get the personel to call you back for weeks sometimes, however the real issue is with some private water companies. Even when you get in touch with the correct person, it's like pulling teeth to get the data. Sure sometimes we do have the option of running a test ourselves, however sending out two guys to run a test isn't always covered by a small job. And yes many township officials are requiring calculations for the smallest of modifications. I just don't see how we can be forced to get water data from various water companies that don't have a requirement to help us. I understand that it isn't the water company's fault that the fire sprinkler company is the last contactor to be called, however we are the ones that need to coordinate, pre-fabricate, calculate hydraulically, and get a PE review by Monday for a job we got on Friday. Computer modeling may eventually be the answer to this problem. From what I understand the results are actually better than a from test in some regards since they are based on highly accurate base line tests made by skilled staff with quality equipment.

 

[Oremus]

Seems like this is just a matter of foresight. You knew the localities take their time yet you took the job and the required deadline. This type of thing should be in the proposal qualifications and your client should have been made known that obtaining the required flow information will take weeks not days.

If they can't wait weeks then tell them for additional money you can do the test yourself. Hopefully you excluded the flow test in your contract so you have a leg to stand on otherwise they may decide to make you pay for it.