There is a reason that quarterly inspections and annual flow tests are recommended for all dry fire hydrant installations...that reason is "reliability." During some recent work in North Carolina we found a dry fire hydrant installation that looked great for accessing water from a fast moving mountain stream. However, upon closer examination it looked like the dry fire hydrant would not "work so well." While we do not know how this problem came to be, we do know that the fix is not easy. The bigger problem is that we can see a pumper crew wasting valuable time trying to draft from the dry fire hydrant while trying to overcome an air leak. Without being able to see the suction strainer, the crew could waste several minutes trying to hunt down a leaking fitting...thus, the importance of quarterly inspections.