Routine Check-Ups For Fire Hose? Here's How
Firefighters spend their "off-hours" shopping for the firehouse, cleaning the dorms and common areas and checking and rechecking the fire equipment. Among the things that absolutely have to be checked before and after every fire are the fire hoses. If you have fire hoses in your building (behind a glass case) as part of your security system, you should be checking these too. Here is how the firefighters do it, so you can repeat the process to check the hose you have onsite and make sure it will function properly if your building is ever on fire.
Visual Check
The first thing you will want to do is pull the hose out of the cabinet and do a visual check. Rodents love to chew on fire hose, and there may be lots of holes in the hose. Look for anything that looks suspicious, and definitely look for small holes that may be chew-marks or puncture marks. If there are ANY holes present, you may have to replace the fire hose entirely. The reason behind a full replacement is because duct tape will not be able to withstand the water pressure that comes through the hose once it is fully inflated and streaming water for the fire. (Duct tape will also not expand with the hose's materials, which may cause other problems during an emergency.)
Leak Check
The leak check is every bit as important as the visual check, if not more so. This is a little more difficult to do when your fire hose is attached to a wall cabinet, since the release of water will mean that you have to have the hose expel water to the outside or into a massive container in order to keep everything dry and check for leaks. Once you have figured out where the water will go, turn the water release valve inside the hose cabinet.
As the hose expands and fills with water, walk the length of it and look for any areas of leakage, including the nozzle and wall connections. Again, if there are any leaks, the hose is at the end of its life and needs to go or it will not perform correctly when you have a real fire. It may be helpful to have a fire inspection chief on hand when you do these hose checks to make sure your hoses are defunct and need to be replaced.