HEALTH AND SANITATION 29
Ellars was heartened by the broad response the state review received from its initial questionnaire, which intended to see if uniform inspection best practices existed across the multiple utilities. Ellars and his peers spoke with municipal agencies, fire marshalls, and volunteer and paid fire fighters. When asked if fire hydrant failure was systemic, Ellars unequivocally asserted,“ I wouldn’ t say systemic, no,” but he did report that of the utilities with which he spoke, only 42 % had a written inspection procedure in place while 73 % reported an annual inspection plan. Fire hydrants, he found, had a 68-year replacement cycle, meaning that West Virginia had“ some very old hydrants.”
Age isn’ t the only vulnerability. Kodur noted that more than 300 hydrants were stolen in 2024.
How do you keep up with thousands of hydrants?“ The problem is how to proactively ensure the good working order of a system that needs to be mechanically tested. NFPA gives pretty specific guidance on annually inspecting hydrants,” Zevotek says.
Ellars concurs, reporting that,“ Our solution in our rules was to establish annual inspections and periodic flow testing and marking them.”
However, with drought conditions becoming an increasing concern in many parts of the country, it is harder to defend the idea that the only way to properly inspect a hydrant is flowing water through it to see if the stem, bolts and caps are all in place with proper lubrication. Because of the tension between the value of inspecting hydrants and the hazard of wasting water, Zevotek has seen multiple municipalities put the hydrants on a testing schedule, with redundancy backup plans in place that call for a second truck to approach from a fresh angle, adjacent to a slightly farther second hydrant.
“ We need to rethink our strategies,” Kodur says. He believes that AI, machine learning and drone technologies could greatly facilitate the work of visual inspections, helping municipalities with scarce resources prioritise an inspection schedule and more quickly fixing faulty hydrants that have been damaged or stolen.
Mueller markets a potential time and money saving solution. Product manager Asha Budhlall says that their Echologic’ s monitoring technology helps utilities find leaks in the system, using acoustic technology to listen to the lines at the quietest times of day – more specifically the middle of the night, around 02:00.
“ You don’ t have to send field operators out to survey until there is a scientifically qualified potential leak. The system is listening while you’ re sleeping,” says Budhlall.
The technology can locate hydrant leaks, or other critical leaks, such as an underground leak that might never be visible on the surface but carries detrimental impacts ranging from water loss, inefficiency of the hydrant, and wasting water that’ s already been treated, essentially wasting the prowess of the utility’ s water treatment.
The product is built into nozzle caps for ease of installation. Asha cites a number of factors – lower head counts at utilities, reduced budgets, inflationary pressures resulting in fewer resources – where this adaptation can have a critical benefit.
While not the primary intention of the Echologics system, it can help a utility more quickly identify hydrants that have been stolen or tampered with, flagging some units primed for inspection because they may have been opened or closed inappropriately. While the monitoring devices do not provide condition assessment, Mueller continues to develop ways to extract deeper insights from their emergent technology.
It remains to be seen how much human touch can be subtracted from the process. When asked how much of those inspections could be automated or whether a technological solution could be employed, Ellars was skeptical.“ You’ ve got to have people on the ground,” he says.“ You’ ve got to go out and do it at the hydrant.” PA
March 2026 Volume 32 I Number 01 www. plumbingafrica. co. za