The secret world of municipal water flow data

[ContractorDave]

Regarding the following, what is your situation in the States (and other parts of the world for those interested in sharing)?

This all started because I have found it increasingly difficult to obtain water flow data from the municipalities and / or fire departments.

I decided to look into the whole affair, but what at first appeared to be a simple research project has turned into something more puzzling. Here is the gist of it: a municipality provides water for it's constituents. There seems to be a fair amount of concern and a dearth of information, programs and councils when it comes to water quality. But when I have gone in search of who is responsible for keeping water performance or flow information, I've been met with a veritable black hole. It's seems equally incumbent upon the municipalities to ensure their infrastructure and the customers they serve have adequate water supplies as well as healthy drinking water. I understand that there is possibly a liability issue, but if you have a proper ITM program in place there should be no qualms in disseminating test results.

Thoughts? Is this legislated in some places?

 

[MGXFP]

Every water district is different. We call the fire department and ask if they have recent data; if not we ask if they want to be present during the test. Most fire departments want the data sent to them.

Remember, the fire department are the ones wanting fire flows. As a sprinkler contractor I have performed flow tests for civil engineers, fire protection engineers and out of state sprinkler contractors.

For water quality, the EPA requires them to disseminate the data to all interested parties. This data should be available via the EPA's website.

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html

It has been rare in my experience to have a fire department send us data. My rule is to always be willing to perform the test yourself or to have it performed for you by another contractor or agent.

 

[ContractorDave]

Thx Newton

I have no qualms whatsoever about flowing hydrants ourselves. I prefer it actually. We offer this as an ITM program for the mines up here. I'm just somewhat puzzled by the reticence I'm encountering from some of the municipalities, and from the lack of any sort of legislation or bylaw mandating any sort of requirements.

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

I'm with lightecho on this one depending on where the job is sometimes, depending on the job, I insist on doing it myself with the fire department representitive as a witness.

If the fire department doesn't want me to do a flow test fine... give it to me in writing on fire department letterhead and I will somehow work that into the contract documents.

It's my job, my responsibility.

I can make a lot of mistakes. I can run into beams, miss a measurement by transposing numbers and I'll even run into ductwork. These are mistakes we all make and it's never that big deal unless you array your mistake.

Design an Extra Hazard I system to 70 static, 55 residual flowing 1,200 gpm only to find out you had 80 static, 40 residual flowing 900 gpm? Now you got a real problem.

Without exception every job I've ever lost sleep over has revolved around the adequacy of the public water supply. I am sure we can all share stories on this.

Next time you're out with a fire department check out the condition of their gauges. I've actually seen fire departments use the gauges we put on sprinkler system risers.

My gauges are high quality test gauges that are calibrated annually and I have the paperwork to prove it.

Note to Sprinkler Man: Without water you are nothing.

 

[MGXFP]

Purely as an aside, I can relate a story with an important moral.

Years ago we bid an ESFR job based on the fire department's flow data. The water curve was insufficient to provide for an ESFR system so pumps, tanks and associated products were included.

The owner shelved the project for three years for being too expensive and when we returned to it, we performed the flow test. I remember the FD's data was 1300 GPM. This is because the FD's equipment stopped at 1300. The real flow was about 2200 GPM. None of the special fire equipment was required to work the ESRF system after all and we won the job just for doing the flow test ourselves.

 

[ContractorDave]

Lol SD2
New catch phrase

I am with WATER!!

D

 

[chicopee]

In my town, I went to the water department for hydrant flow data in a particular location.
May be you should do your own test but contact both water and fire department for permission.

 

[ContractorDave]

Again, I have no problem doing flow tests, but to me this is akin to doing street repairs or replacing bulbs on city light poles. The infrastructure belongs to the city and we pay taxes to ensure these things are done. The municipality provides water to sprinklered buildings and hydrants. If they don't know or can't provide the data (based on up to date ITM programs) how do they know that the water supplies are going to be there when called upon? It's contributing to a false sense of security and it's a law suit waiting to happen IMHO.

D

 

[chicopee]

In all likelyhood, property developers or architectural firms involved in the construction of sprinklered facilities in your area of interest, had the hydrant flow test conducted to evaluate adequacy of water to sprinklered buildings.

Hydrant flow test is no big deal. Preferably you need two hydants, a pitot tube, a calibration chart for type of hydrant nozzle, one person for each hydrant,reading of static pressure with no hydrant flowing, static pressure while the other hydrant is flowing, and flow pressure at the flowing hydrant, and plot results on hydraulic graph paper.

 

[ContractorDave]

Chicopee

No disrespect intended but please read the post and replies. Your response is very similar to the many "official" replies that I've received when I've gone looking for the answer to the question I am actually positing; it skirts the real question by giving me an answer to something else with the insinuation that I'm obviously a bit slow for my not being aware of it. (Which I'm pretty sure you did not intend).

A municipality is much like a business. They collect money (taxes) and provide services (garbage collection, street cleaning, etc.). One of the services / products they provide, and we pay extra for based upon our consumption, is water. As everyone here is aware, there are several qualities to water that need to be kept at minimum standards when being provided by a municipality for consumption by it's constituents. Water is not only provided for drinking, but to the point of this post, it's provided for fire sprinkler systems and hydrants. If you build a multi million dollar hi rise that is required by local codes to have a sprinkler system, said sprinkler system is hydraulically designed based on the water flows taken during the design - build phase of the building. In a downtown core there may very well be several billion dollars worth of infrastructure protected by sprinkler systems designed this way. My first question is, who is responsible for maintaining the adequacy of the water supplies? On the face of it, it's obvious that the municipality providing the water is responsible. My main question(s) as stated are then: why is it so difficult to obtain up to date data from the municipality, and why is there no legislation regarding this type of thing? I am as close to being a Libertarian as you can come with my desires to limit how the governments of the world interfere with us by legislating us to death. But considering some of the things that ARE on the books that are trivial to the extreme, I find this a rather stupendous oversight.

D

 

[chicopee]

We all pay taxes and many services that we think that we deserve from bureaucrats will not be available so take the bull by the horns and do what is necessary.

 

[colfire]

After reading all of the posts I have a question for the forum. What are you to do when the local water municipality refuses to do an up to date flow test? We had a project where the existing water data was about 15 years old. The water municipality said, "the water data has not changed in years and we will not perform a new flow test." We were fortunate enough to have another project within a few thousand feet that had private hydrants on them so we conducted our own flow test to confirm the 15 year old test. Water was actually better than it was 15 years prior, but what are we to do when you don't have the option of having another project right down the street? Also btw, tried to get the water dept. to write me a letter stating that they would not do a new flow test and to guarantee that their 15 year old results were accurate. I think they are still laughing at me.

 

[ContractorDave]

Colfire

There seems to be a culture of providing as little information as possible so as to limit the amount of liability they are 'personally' exposed to. In this new litigation crazy world you can see their point sometimes.

The water 'belongs' to the municipality. You can no more go up to a hydrant and flow the water for test purposes than you can hook up to it to irrigate your lawn.

A little off topic but, in your scenario above where there are private hydrants, how does the municipality monitor water usage?

Regards
D

 

[colfire]

Well, that's the crazy thing. In our area hydrants are painted yellow (which means they belong to the county and we can not touch them) or they are painted red (which means they are private and we can flow all the water we want). As far as water usage goes, they don't seem to care. I've been scratching my head on this one for years.

 

[MGXFP]

I have to side with lightecho. One good lawsuit is a business-busting venture so I understand why they want to limit their liability by not giving information.

Some areas that were finished 10 years ago today have a significantly lower curve than that to which their suppression systems were designed to. Handing out data like that would be like giving a lawyer a juicy steak.

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

I've never operated a public hydrant instead demanding someone from the city do it and to witness the test while I am at it. If the stem breaks I want them to be the ones to break it. While they are out there I get whoever is there to witness the test which they do on the Flow Test Summary Report I made up a while back:

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6048/fieldsummary.jpg

My personal preference is to attach two play-pipes directly to the hydrant as shown here:

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6014/flowtestplapipes.jpg

With a Coefficient of discharge of 0.97 I know my flow test is as accurate as I can get it. Unless it is light hazard I usually use two play-pipes taking a reading on each then combining the flow. By using two I can oftentimes get more out of two 1 3/4" play-pipes than a single 2 1/2" hydrant butt.

For years now I have been in the habit of taking still photos but for the past year I've been taking video of my flow tests not to nail anyone just to demonstrate I used due diligence and those were the results obtained at that given date and time at that given location.

I think I suffer from paranoia.

Without a single exception in over 33 years every single time I've been really deep in the hot water for a project it's had its geneses in my mistake of not exercising due deligence in obtaining a water supply. Usually I was lazy opting to take someones (fire department) word for it and on the worst project I ever had I didn't want to spend the four ours hooking up a a flow from the flange and spigot to obtain a flow test. This one we got out of by the skin of our teeth but it could have came close to taking the company out which I could never forgiven myself for. It could have happened but I just got lucky is all.

Last time this happened, decades ago, I was like Scarlette O'Hara in Gone With The Wind standing in front of wrecked Tara swearing to God she would never be hungry again. Only I was swearing I would never get lazy with flow tests again. It is my single biggest pet peeve.

I don't care how good you are without the water you are nothing.

 

[ContractorDave]

The field of fire protection in general breeds paranoia.

I'm working on an out of town project where there are no recent figures. I have harangued the town and have been met with everything from indifference to hostility to nothing at all. I happen to have a few connections there so I finally managed to get a town employee to go do the flow testing which was witnessed by a local mechanical contractor. I was given the figures verbally over the phone. When I asked for those figures on a town letterhead, they wouldn't do it. My engineer has designed a system and we have qualified it by stating our source of information was the town but that they have refused to sign off on it. I'm pretty sure this will get hung up during the design review. Actually I'm going to 'take the bull by the horns' as chicopee mentioned and ensure it gets hung up until the town provides proper water flow rates.

Regards
D

 

[ContractorDave]

Oh.... and I AM WITH WATER!!

 

[ContractorDave]

I see I used "dearth" incorrectly in my initial post. Sorry about any confusion that likely caused

Regards
D