Hose is tested on a rig that fills it and holds it at pressure, and each length is measured before it goes on the rig and after, because a length that stretches is a length that fails. Length 214 measures twenty five metres laid out and twenty nine on the rig, the rig's own tape agrees, and the appliance's hose reel counter records four metres more coming off than went on.
I am the station's hose tester, which is a rig in the yard and a book.
How hose is tested.
Each length has a number stencilled on it. It is laid out and measured with the yard tape, coupled to the rig, filled, and held at test pressure for the time the book says, and measured again under pressure, because hose that stretches under pressure is hose that has lost its liner. Then it is drained, rolled, and the result is written against the number.
Twenty five metre lengths measure twenty five, dry and wet, give or take a hand's width.
Length 214 measures twenty five metres dry on the yard tape.
On the rig, under pressure, it measures twenty nine.
Drained and laid out again, twenty five.
Four metres is not stretch. Hose does not do that, and a length that stretched four metres would burst. It is four more metres of hose, in the run, while it is charged, that are not there when it is dry.
What has been checked.
The tape. Two tapes, one of them the surveyor's, and the rig's own graduated bed, which is painted on the concrete.
The hose. It is a normal length, of a normal make, with a normal liner, and the manufacturer's inspector came out because I asked, and stood beside the rig while it was charged and measured twenty nine with his own tape and asked to take it away, and I said no, because it is on our inventory.
The couplings. There are two, one at each end, and under pressure there are still two, and they are four metres further apart.
The reel.
Hose on the appliance is on a reel with a counter that logs metres paid out and recovered, for the report. When 214 is on the reel and charged on a job, the counter records four metres more paid out than the reel holds, and four metres more recovered, and the reel is full at the end, with a twenty five metre length on it.
I have looked at the middle of a charged 214, on a job, in the light of the appliance, where the extra would be. It is hose. It is our hose, with the stencil, and the stencil on a length is at the ends and on a charged 214 the stencil is also in the middle, a third one, with a number that is not 214.
It is a number two below it. We have never had a 212. The inventory starts at 213, because that is where the previous station's numbering ended when the stations merged, and the previous station's 212 was the length that a crew was working on a job that is on the plaque by the door, and it was cut away, and it was never recovered.
What is done about it.
Length 214 passes its test. It holds pressure, it does not leak, it does not burst, and a length that is longer under pressure is not a failure the book has a box for.
It is on the appliance. It works. It is four metres longer than it should be when it matters, which on a job is a good thing, and the crews know it, and they call for 214 when they are short.
What I do.
I test hose.
The one thing I have changed is that I do not roll 214 myself after a test.
Rolling a length is done by walking it, hand over hand, from one coupling to the other, and I have done that with 214 dry, at twenty five metres, many times.
Once, in the summer, I rolled it while it was still draining, which you do not do, because it is heavy, and in the middle, where the third stencil is when it is charged, the hose was warm, and full, and when I pressed it, it pressed back, and I laid it down and let it drain and rolled it the next morning, and it was twenty five metres, and cold.