DRY FIRE HYDRANT

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Located at the junction of Allard Rd. and Sandpiper St. Laurent's first Dry Fire Hydrant draws water from the local pond.  In rural areas where municipal water systems are not available, dry hydrants are used to supply water for our fire department.  Our Dry Hydrant is an non-pressurized, permanently installed pipe that has one end below the water level of the pond.  Ours is approximately 8ft under the water, below the frost line.  If the water rises to within the frost line at the discharge end the unit is pressurized with air to fill the cavity and keep the water below freezing so it may be accessed in the dead of winter.  Several successive tests have been made in the fall and during the winter.  The large six inch pipe makes it now more efficient to draw water even faster increasing fill rates into our tankers so for example a 20 minute fill time has now dropped to 7.  Our 3500 gallon tank can now fill in 9 min 45 seconds compared to almost 50 minutes at the old arena site.  Before implementing the system we had looked into large gravity filling stations and all aspects proved far too expensive within the 80 to $100,000.00 range.  One dry hydrant system costs approximately $5000.00 saving thousands of tax dollars.  We now have our sights set on Oak Point and another positioned out East to triangulate the municipality for greater coverage and protection.  Eventually more will be considered to further protect the municipality.