IF WE DID IT AGAIN:

(Advice to those who go next )

So where do we start? We basically copied Fallon, Nevada's rigs and used the same designer, Larry H. Stevens www.isoslayer@aol.com and one upped them in a few places.
Since then, we've seen Annaville, Texas come out and copy our rigs. And in some ways they did a better job and in others we have a better product for our needs.
Pump and roll was on the Fallon and Rattlesnake rigs, not on Annaville where a 3500 gpm pump was spec'd for example.

All in all the rigs are a 98 out of 100 for a fire truck. To even make the rigs better we'd suggest the following. If you did nothing you'd still have a 98! But, our old demo rigs a Pierce and a Smeal were 40 out of 100.

We need all wheel drive we get more snow fall than 99% of the towns and cities in the U.S. We wouldn’t own HME’s. HME was the only show in town at the time. Too many issues maintenance wise with the chassis. The one big mistake on the truck. The cab tilt hinges all broke. The command cab concept is awesome. But adding one puts a huge load on the air conditioner. Make sure to use a package unit not an integral A/C unless it is an E-One which has a huge system in their Houston A/C package as does Pierce with a southern air conditioning setup. Spartan cabs would have been a better choice than HME, maybe HME has fixed their issues, but I doubt it.

The poly body should be stainless steel in the future. The wide range of hot and cold temperatures in the area resulted in broken fasteners, screws that pulled out of the poly and doors that wouldn't line up. 2nd largest problem on the rig. One side would contract being hot while the other non-sun side would be cold and expand. Compartment doors, swing steel type didn't work well in that environment, the builder suggested rollups from day one. So, listen to your builder. Also, smaller rigs don't have the issues, like conventional pumpers, because they don't have as much surface area, and Colorado' 80 degree temperature swings in a given day are a bit unique. Darley more than stood up for their product and funded all repairs. No doubt being early in new technology has a cost, the trucks work well. They just might work a bit better with common high end stainless. Minor issues:

The engine, we went big block with big tranny but low horsepower, at our altitude, 7000 feet we needed more than 350 hp, but we also knew a majority of the roads all but two week mud or gravel and we controlled speed with motor, in retrospect we might have gone 500 hp if we did it again for an additional cost of $5000. The mix of your drivers skill, the type of roads and weather you have to deal with all have to match the power to the wheels or you'll end up in a ditch, being conservative in this case was probably a good idea, but not one you might want to emulate. One warning though that would put an even greater load on the A/C due to the engines heat rejection into the cab.

The bumper guns would be Akron’s with osolating capabilities with water and CAF. plumbing to each, dual nozzles per gun, like Annaville, TX see:

Provide a 5" turbo draft preconnect for drafting out to 400 feet and 40 feet of lift using soft hose. A rear preconnect of 5 inch double loaded with a like amount of 3 inch hose. The 3 inch should be hooked to a rear discharge and the 5 inch to a 5 inch rear clappered fill line without a valve. That would give 640 gpm using soft hose from a cistern or pond. In Rattlesnake's case they have the ideal for their situation, if you have lots of static water supplies the Turbo Draft would be the way to go.

Split the supply bed to hold 1500 feet of 3 inch and 1500 feet of 5 inch hose. 5 inch would be handy in our new areas expected to get hydrants and mutual aid areas and the 3 inch is perfect for driveway lays. If we had one or 2 mile hydrant spacing we'd be all 5 inch and no 3 inch.

A 5 inch direct fill with check valve to replace the 3 inch. Would allow faster water transfer from hydrants and for turbo draft use and no need to open a valve.

Place one Hallide 1000 watt fixed flood per side replacing one 1500 watt quartz. It will provide 4 times the light as a 1500 watt quartz but if you turn it off then back on could take 5 minutes to light up again. So a mix of halide and quartz are ideal is ideal.

Eliminate the light tower. Not needed in the flat land area covered. The high mounted fixed floods are plenty and would save $17,000 - $20,000 per rig.

Have water level lights on four sides. With the light tower gone it would be the perfect solution. Four LEDS or quartz lamps would be ideal kinda like Annaville.

Smaller coffee maker. The one on the rig is huge, but will last forever. A single or dual pot aircraft style maker would be ideal.

Potty inside the cab. Chief's suggestion.

Possibly consider a bomb proof St Louis style cab. All diamond plate interior.

Bigger plasma display in cab for the imager and rear vision camera. It would just make things easier to see.

Hinged and sealed weather tight diamond plate covers over the donut roll beds, extrication tools and reels. The tarps were a mistake. Annaville has a better idea on the covers.

Stainless steel plumbing. It will hold up better than black pipe and has become an industry standard with quality builders, not available when we bought.

Remote control top deck gun with electric valve and remote control tether and control in cab. Gun would be just above cab height. To allow pump and roll use and keep people off the top of the rig. Heck a pair on the bumper would have been cool.

Electric or air rewind on the cord and hydraulic hose reel in the dunnage area. One less reason to climb up on the rig. However it is hard to beat the cost of manual reels and it really isn't that tough.

Kohler versus Stream light hand lights. More candle power than the current lights for the same size, better technology, not available at the time.

One additional, palm size thermal imager (not available at the time) with transmitter. To allow more people to see. A helmet mounted, new style lightweight imager for the officer.

Spring stainless door over dump chutes. To hide the funky hole.

All LED water level, running, brake, pump panel, cab and compartment lights. Simply better technology, never need to replace bulbs and less draw by a factor of 10 than typical lights, reduce alternator size and its replacement cost when it eventually goes out.

Bring dunnage area out so it is flush with the running boards and even with the cab oof height except where the ladder access is located. Offers more foam can storage, larger area for more storage and cleaner lines.

One amber revolving light rear. Would make the rig even more visible.

Angle or lift the rear over hand at least 6 inches. Better angle of departure. Like Annaville TX
Add heated wiper blades. Better solution for snow and ice.

When parking brake is set have under door lights light up. They don't light up now unless the door is open.

Meyers quick drop automatic hose lay device. That device would eliminate the need to stop to lay a supply line. By pushing a button a 25 foot roll of hose in a skid attached to the supply bed would drop laying the line for us.

Use carts with wheels and snow skis for carrying things like blowers, cribbing, power unit, salvage gear, and other heavy stuff. Saves firefighters backs.

Real life experience show the long 5 inch suctions deploy so well there is no reason for the 3 inch hard suction. Who'd of figured? Ideally one long 24 foot 6 inch hard suction with 5 inch fittings would be ideal with two 16 foot spares per side box. The hard suction troughs needed rounded edges so they wouldn't cut the suction hose. Carry four 5 inch strainers, two low lift and two floating for maximum flexibility.

You really can't have too much cord on the cord reels or too many reels and portable flood lights. There turned out to be enough space to allow a 300 foot reel for each tripod light and that would be a good thing. Color coding the cord would have been a great idea, but unthought of at the time. If the dunnage area above the pump was utilized better a few more 300 foot reels with flood lights attached could have been carried on the passenger side.

A hopper style overhead fill chute would have been better than the standard fire service type. Say 2 feet by 2 feet with the over flow, 6 inch having and elbow on it so water dumped over the top would not over flow. Plus a helicopter with a bambi bucket could top us off. Use a better looking look down light on the back of the cab to light up the dunnage area. A flush mount fixture with an LED lamp would be ideal.

Plumb the fuel tank with dual fillers, so one fill connection is on each side for convenience.

Carry a TFT Blitz Fire monitor for portable gun use (not available at the time.

Double the number of spare bottles carried.

Carry a second smoke ejector.

In cab panel:

The compressor engage switch often does not work. To solve the problem, we'd simply not have an engagement switch. When the pump was engaged the compressor would be hot wired. In other words the rig would always be in CAFS. An on/off switch would be buried under the panel for those times it has to be off. That is the 3rd biggest problem on the rig.

Use a Fire Research Edge governor on the in cab pump panel. It would eliminate the need for the Fire Commander and take up a lot less space, would eliminate the digital suction and and discharge pressure gauges as well.

Get rid of the star wars water level gauge and just use four tiny leds in the cab for foam and water.

Use just one switch to extend/retract and open/close the dump valves and chutes. Eliminates two switches and allows for a smaller panel.

Delete the wet dry controls and the six little lights. Changing tip size with the Rattlesnake tips will do the same thing with one less control. Fallon, Rattlesnake and Annaville have the simplest CAFS systems ever built. The ability to operate a 2 inch smoothbore tip at 190 psi for 22 minutes off tank water is pretty impressive.

The above would reduce the pump panel controls and instruments from 23 to 17. The panel would be half the size with a much smaller foot print on the engine cover. It would be much simpler and work better. Fewer steps, less to learn and the job would still get done!

Use any make of extrication tools but Phoenix. American Genesis tools are the lightest weight of any make, a full size cutter and spreader would have fit on the front bumper. Do like Seabrook TX and route a couple more reels from the dunnage area to feed out the front, store the rams up front ready to go, the air chisel, and a couple sawzalls.

Central tire inflation is just awesome for cross country use as are the super singles, if you really want to go anywhere that is the combo with all wheel drive to make it happen.

Overall the rigs are butt simple, carry lots of stuff, are great water movers (and have the ISO Class 5 to prove it), perfect hose layers, make drafting quicker than using a hydrant and are all around jack of all trade swiss army knife rigs.

If you have any questions about anything we've done, or want to suggest a better way please let us know

www.isoslayer@aol.com Email me.


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