UNDERWRITER FIRE PUMPS.
The Insurance Companies have issued detailed specifications for the construction of fire pumps to be known as Underwriter Fire Pumps. They have agreed that such pumps with their specified attachments be recognized as the approved type, and that pumps built and fitted up less perfectly be not approved in future installments.
The wide experience and systematic methodsof the Insurance Companies place them in position to give valuable suggestions as a result of their observation and experiment, and these are embodied in carefully drawn regulations issued by their Engineering Department.
The specifications are very exacting in every particular, entering intothe design, material, and workmanship in minute detail. They call for a number of fittings and attachments not usually furnished, and a most rigid test at the factory before shipping, and by the Inspecting Engineers of the Insurance Companies after the pump is installed, which secures for the purchaser the certainty of having a machine which beyond any reasonable doubt can be relied upon to do its full duty when emergency arises calling for its use.
There are a few quite important features not found in pumps of usual construction. The pumps are composition fitted throughout, the water cylinder bushings and plungers and linings to stuffing-boxes are of composition, the piston and valve rods, made unusually heavy, are of Tobin bronze. The mixture of the copper and tin composing the plungers and bushings varies for the two so as to prevent their cutting. Owing to the very high speed at which these pumps are liable to be run during a fire, all the working parts are made excessively strong, and the valve area and water passages are larger than usual. The interior of each Underwriter pump is treated with a rust-proof coating, and every precaution taken so that the pump will start instantly after an indefinite period of disuse.
Figs. 307and308exhibit two somewhat varying but acceptable forms of the duplex steam pump.
Among the attachments included in an outfitfor the underwriter pump may be mentioned: an elbow or tee for the suction connection with a large suction air chamber, a set of brass priming pipes with special gate and check valves for the same, an automatic water pressure relief valve fitted to a cone and overflow pipe, a steam gauge and a special water gauge with duplex spring, each of which in the Underwriter Pump is mounted on an ornamental plate rigidly attached to the machine.
Fig. 308.
Fig. 308.
Straightway hose valves for the proper number of streams are placed in the neck to a very large discharge chamber, and there is also a large discharge opening for connection to the system of hydrants and sprinklers.
A stroke pointer is attached which travels between graduations marked on the yoke, indicating the length of stroke which pump travels, a one-point sight feed cylinder lubricator, a capacity plate with enamelled face giving instructions for operating, etc., is attached to each machine.