One of my best friends, both personally and in the fire sprinkler industry, passed away last April and what he did every couple of years was put on a fire pump acceptance test for local fire marshals and anyone who wanted to attend from the Ohio State Fire Marshals office.

Course were free and would go on for three days covering with one full day in the classroom and two to three days after running around one of the campuses at Ohio State University conducting annual tests of their fire pumps.

They hit everything; electric fire pumps, diesel fire pumps, multi-stage fire pumps, automatic transfer switches and everything in between. Every make and model pump was was tested some being installed the last two or three years and other pumps over 50 years old.

These inspectors saw it all and everything they did was hands on. They learned it all, it was a cram course where it was the students who took all the pitot and electrical voltage readings. As a contractor up there it worked out well for me because all of the inspectors we dealt with knew exactly what they were doing and many would attend these courses year after year. It was nothing to have 20 students and there was enough in the way of pumps they could break into small batches of four or five students per pump so everyone got their turn.

Little things like the first question was always "Where is the paperwork showing your gauges have been calibrated by a certified lab in the past 12 months" and things like that. If you did exactly what you were supposed to do you never had a problem but if you didn't know you were supposed to use calibrated gauges on a fire pump acceptance test you soon discovered you had a big problem and could come back later once you had the proper gauges and certificates.

Ron always gave me the CD he used in the classroom and hopefully it downloads.

http://www.filedropper.com/millersburgstatefireschool2011

It's going to take a while to download because it is a pretty big pdf file with hundreds of slides and pictures. Enjoy.