The city of Austin, Texas has extended its contract with Wachs Water Services to perform fire hydrant maintenance, assessment and repair services.
The program involves maintenance of more than 8,000 hydrants per year including condition assessment, routine maintenance, collection of critical items of “attribute data” that describe the operational status of each hydrant and lead valve including manufacturer, model, installation date, pumper nozzle size, repair history, static pressure, ease of operation, direction of open and depth of bury.
An accurate GPS position is also captured on every hydrant and lead valve and all the data collected is entered into Austin Water Utilities’ GIS for system-wide retrieval and analysis.
Austin Water Utility has taken measures to increase customer service and safety. Since the beginning of the program, Austin Water Utility has successfully reduced the out of service fire hydrants to well below 1% at any given time.
Source: Wachs Water Services