About a year ago I was interested to find out what kind of nozzles were out on the market and can they perform better than the nozzles that my station was using. I wanted a nozzle that would give me maximum GPM with reduced nozzle reaction.  You see my department runs with only 3 on an engine, this includes the driver.  unfortunately  most companies in the U.S. are short staffed like this, some even worse.  At that present time we were using the TFT break away nozzle.  I was never a big fan of a nozzle that will give you  50 to 350 GPM I wanted a nozzle that would give me X and only X.  I called my local fire equipment dealer and he suggested I call Nelson Miller from Elk Heart Brass.  I talked to Nelson for about an hour and he educated me about nozzles, not just nozzles from his companies but all nozzles.  He told me that most of the time the TFT nozzles are not maintained like they should be and that there will be reduced GPM due to the internal parts not moving like they should. The nozzles need to be cleaned and lubed after each use, or at a min. of once a month.  as far as I know this was never done.   After my conversation with Nelson I did some more digging.  I called Capt. Joe Bruni from the St. Petersburg Fire Dept. He had done extensive nozzle test in the past so I wanted to get his opinion. He told me most of what Nelson had told me, so now I knew I was on the right track. I shared my findings with my Captain and he agreed we need to rethink our nozzles. I was back on the phone with Nelson to arrange a demo with the Elk Heart low pressure nozzles.  we decided that we wanted to go with the 150GPM at 75lbs nozzle pressure.

Test day

Nelson came to my station for the demo I invited every station in our county 7 stations out of 19 showed up. To start the test we used a class "A" pumper with 200 feet of 1 3/4 inch hose no elevation. we hooked the TFT nozzle up to a flow meter and charged the attack line to 160psi this should give us 150GPM (30psi FL per 100 ft. plus 100psi for the nozzle) my suspicions were correct we were only getting 80 GPM from our TFT.  we changed to a different TFT nozzle and the result was the same.    We switched nozzles to the Elk Heart low pressure nozzle we charged the line to 135psi to get 150 GPM (30psi FL per 100 ft. plus 75 for the nozzle) the flow meter hit 150 GPM.  I will admit the the nozzle reaction seemed a bit more with the low pressure nozzles. I ask Nelson why was this? he told me that we were only getting 80 to 90 GPM from the TFT, and when we got the GPM we were supposed to get, of course there is more nozzle reaction.  there was more GPM!

Bottom line

We decided to go with the Elk Heart low pressure nozzle (150 GPM at 75lbs nozzle psi) I wanted to have a minimum fire ground GPM for my company we decided to go with 150 GPM, but I also wanted the capability to get more water with out having to pull a second line.  I decided to have a smooth bore slug tip permanently  mounted on the break away portion. We went with the 15/16", this gave us 180 GPM at 50 psi. this added a little more in the nozzle reaction but it is something the average firefighter can handle.  After playing with the nozzle we found that we can pump the engine at 140psi through 200 ft 1 3/4 inch hose and leave it there for the low pressure fog or the smooth bore (the fog will be 160 GPM and the smooth bore will be 180 GPM)  I now feel comfortable going in with our new nozzles knowing that the guys will get the correct GPM.  I prefer the smooth bore portion it is very ease to unscrew the fog and go in and make the attack.

Low pressure nozzle (150 GPM @75lbs nozzle psi)   Same nozzle broken down on the left is the15/16" slug tip

If you have any question please e-mail me. Fireman340@aol.com

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