By Bill Adkins

When building your apparatus, one believes we hit on everything before we send it to the manufacturer to spec out. Going bumper to bumper and double-checking everything just isn’t enough. For us to understand if everything is perfect, we must field-test it. We all know that we can’t test our particular build unless it’s already built. Most demo trucks are somewhat basic, and if you are ordering custom options you will have to wait until your apparatus is built before you know if it will work perfectly for you.

As mentioned in a previous article, building a relationship with the manufacturer you decide to go with may help you. Many times, a manufacture representative will be able to guide you in the right direction. Keep in mind that you will still want the custom design that meets your needs; however, if they have tried something in the past and it didn’t work they may have another solution.

Today I will be referring to one of my most recent apparatus I helped spec out (Tanker 85). As a committee we have spent many hours setting this truck up to work for us and we are extremely happy with the results we received. I will admit that this “Nurse Tanker” will make you feel guilty when operating on a fire scene—watching everyone on the fire ground working so hard and you are barely breaking a sweat. There are a few things, however, I would change if I had it to do over again. When it comes time to either replace or add another tanker to our fleet, these are some of the changes I will propose and would be things I would recommend to another department looking to build a similar tanker/tender.

Rear Intake

We wanted a rear intake due to drafting off the rear of the apparatus. We like to use the “single lane” method when setting up our dump tanks. Having a rear intake allows us to use only one section of hard suction instead of the need for connecting two sections to reach the side intake. Threading two sections of hard suction hose together takes longer to set up and most importantly can prove difficult for an operator when working by themselves. I know what some may be thinking: “I do it all the time and I don’t have a problem,” and I don’t doubt that you can. However, there are a lot of operators throughout the country that will have a hard time with it.

The problem is not the rear suction itself; it is the location of the rear suction. When looking at spec sheets we see what we wanted and did not put into perspective that the dump valve may be in the way when connecting our hard suction to the rear intake. On the rear of Tanker 85 we have an intake, a dump valve, and a tank direct fill. We use the rear intake far more often than our direct tank fill. We should have switched the locations of the direct fill and rear intake so our dump valve would not be in the way when connecting the hard suction hose. This is a very minor problem, but, as stated before, we are trying to improve our next build.