[SvilleKid]

Originally Posted by ninjavanish

Yeah, I finally get a second to stop and read some posts...

I am an Eagle Scout.

For my Eagle Project, I set out to color code and paint approximately 250 fire hydrants in and around my hometown (color coded so the firemen know how many gallons per minute they can pull from the hydrant... handy information to have) Not only that but we have to cement new blue reflectors in the road where hydrants were loacted so firemen could find them easier.

Turned out to be more like 400-450 hydrants... many of which had not been painted in over a decade at LEAST... so their color code was RUST.

Learned some little factoids along the way:

1) The cement they use on the blue reflectors will adhere strong enough... that if you put it down wrong and have to pull it up with a claw hammer (which is apparently the firemans preferred tool for this job)... it will probably pull up the asphalt along with the reflector.

2) Oil based paint gets on everything. And is impossible to completely clean off of a black plastic pick up truck bedliner.

3) In my home town:
Red Cap Hydrant = 0-499 gpm (The one closest to my house was red)
Orange Cap Hydrant = 500-999 gpm
Green Cap Hydrant = 1000-1499 gpm
Blue Cap Hydrant = 1500+ gpm

4) Scottboro, Alabama is apparently the Fire Hydrant Manufacturing capitol of the US.

The difference in numbers turned out to be, in large part, because the fire department had no idea what they really had in terms of fire hydrants. So, the project also included an inventory on what and where ALL hydrants were located, as well as a data base the FD could use to keep up with what they had!