Drafting Tip #18 - 100 feet of Suction Hose - 998 gpm
By President Mark Davis
September 26, 2019
Back in 2012 we did some performance testing on the Trident Auto Prime. One of the tests involved drafting through 100-feet of 6-inch suction hose connected to a dry fire hydrant. Using Engine 142, a 1500 gpm QMax pumper from the Winfield Community VFD, a flow of 998 gpm was obtained...once again showing that lift is the "killer" in drafting operations....not the horizontal run of suction hose. Rural pumpers need to carry more than 20-feet of suction hose. Most every department can find a way to at least get one more section of suction hose on their pumpers.
Drafting through 100-ft of 6-inch suction hose, a Kochek suction head, 40-feet of 6-inch Sch 40 PVC pipe and a 6-inch horizontal barrel strainer produced a flow of 998 gpm. The lift was 4-ft.
