Dry Fire Hydrant Design #83 - It Finally Broke!
 
By President Mark Davis
December 4, 2025
 

After 19 years of service, one of our earliest bridge-mount dry fire hydrant designs and installations finally gave up and called it quits! Back when we got started we used some lighter weight steel to make our parts and we did not have a good feel for how long they would last out in the elements. This past summer, the cradle arm on one of our 2006 installations finally failed due to corrosion. In 2009 we switched to using 1/4" hot rolled steel for all our components. The cradle arm that failed was made of much thinner material; but still impressive to last 19 years with its original spray paint coating.

This was our first system component to fail due to corrosion, which is actually very good from the design perspective because all of our new designs use steel twice the size in thickness from that original work! The new components should be good for 25+ years!

Many thanks to Greg Dods who was instrumental in the original design of these systems. His work was outstanding and his design helped forge the way forward to what we install today!
 
The cradle finally gave in to corrosion.
The cradle finally gave in to corrosion.
The old and the new. All of our installations since 2009 use 1/4-inch steel for component design.
The old and the new. All of our installations since 2009 use 1/4-inch steel for component design.
 
The old and the new swivel. Greg Dods was instrumental in the original design of these systems and installed quite a few for us during the early years.
The old and the new swivel. Greg Dods was instrumental in the original design of these systems and installed quite a few for us during the early years.