They are flushing the fire hydrants in my work car park this morning, something they do once a year.

An impressive sight to be sure, but quite what its supposed to achieve I'm not sure. They open them for 5 minutes or so, then move on to the next one. Every hydrant in town gets the treatment. Lord knows how much water is used this way.

Is this just a local thing, or do they do this all across Canada?

Never seen or heard of anything like it in the UK, but I stand to be corrected....

I've seen that around here and also seen the fire engines spraying huge arcs of water into the lake for 30 minutes or more. Don't know the point of that one either!

We have a fire hydrant on our front lawn and yes they come every year and flush it.

They were here last week, my 17month old grandson was mucho impressed.

Our hedge is in a U shape around said hydrant (as per picture) and does take a few days to recover from the flushing.

They did the one outside our house at 2.00am the other week...NOT impressed!

Steve_p what a lovely home the colours on the trees are beautiful...i'm soooo jealous

Of course it only happens if you're on municipal water.

A picture of you strategically posed in front of the flush would have been very impressive !

As a FF in the UK all our hydrants are flushed as well. summer months only it should be once every year but cut backs mean that it sometimes misses a year.

Cheers for that. I guess I had never noticed...

Then again, You can walk within 6 feet of a hydrant over there and not know its there.

Is it the same sort of spectacular water plume effect, or something more modest?

I am just suprised they run them for as long as they do here

I am afraid ours are not that spectacular as they are in the ground and we only flush them until the lovely brown water goes clear. If we let them off that much H&S would have a heart attack and someone would sue for damp feet

Hi


Water has sediment, sediment settles into pipes, fire, hook to hydrant, sediment goes through pumper, clogs pump, ergo, flush hydrant yearly, sediment gone, everyone happy.

Not just in Canada but here in the US too.

Isnt it the same principle when it comes to flushing toilets??

and yes I do flush more than once a year

Just seems odd that they flush looooooooong past the point any sediment is gone here.

Heres a nice pic I came across yesterday to illustrate why they do it...and I think this is the same water people drink in the city!

I thought it was orange juice coming out of our tap in T.O.

As far as I know, the hydrant in my front yard has only been flushed once in four years.

One advantage of having the thing is that the city comes round during the winter to clear the snow from around it and take it somewhere else.

I only found out recently that I don't actually own the five feet of yard closest to the street. The city does. I just mow it for them.