Introducing the CLEARWAY Fire Hydrant - AVK UK Ltd have for over two decades been the market leaders and main innovators around the subject of fire hydrants.  

In September 2009, AVK business development director Kieran Fitzpatrick hosted a seminar on the future of the fire hydrant for the water utilities and fire and rescue services.  As operators and end users, their input into understanding the requirements and any future policies going forward was vital.

Held at Aqua-Gas Manufacturing in Corby, the AVK Group Competence Centre for small gate valves and hydrants manufactured and tested to British Standards, the seminar followed the results of a comprehensive questionnaire that indentified key issues on the current and future of the fire hydrant.

The seminar’s objective was to prioritise the key issues from the survey, brainstorm each issue and formulate a plan to incorporate the results in either the current or an entirely new design.

The key issues were: standards, flow, security of the asset, maintenance, true life cost and future strategic requirements.

The resultant brain-storming session, which Kieran was quoting as saying...
“....was the most proactive, interesting and informed brain-storming session...”
that he had ever been involved in, concluded in the creation of an entirely new hydrant complete with a set of design criteria which included standards and performance requirements.

This new product idea became the
                 AVK CLEARWAY.

The CLEARWAY hydrant was based on a rough concept design resulting from a number of independent requests to AVK from three major water undertakings, who wanted similar product features for different reasons where no existing product addressed all the requirements.  The seminar gave AVK clear guidelines of the operational requirements and the minimum standards which all the stakeholders required. In summary the hydrant should be-

•    Kite Marked to BS750
•    WRAS approved
•    Safe to install and operate
•    Same operation as the existing product to minimise staff retraining.
•    Similar dimension to current products for ease of installation.
•    A full straight bore - improving flow for low pressure areas and strategic initiatives and allowing the introduction and retrieval of measuring, monitoring, repair and flow stopping equipment
•    Cost effective
•    Designed to protect the network and the asset in mind.

Kieran was delighted that all key criteria were fully met and was particularly pleased that the CLEARWAY hydrant had passed all of it’s Kite Mark trials, he stated-
“It is a very strong ethos within the AVK Group that we fulfil the requirements of our customers especially in products that are as critical to operator and public safety and are strategically vital as the Fire Hydrant......a very clear message from the seminar...... reinforced latterly from very senior personnel within the fire service that they will not accept the handover of a fire hydrant that does not carry a Kite Mark, this remit includes full bore units”

The CLEARWAY’s full straight bore achieves the BS750 statutory minimum of 2000 ltr/minute flow at just 0.5 bar (standards require hydrants to meet this at 1.7 bar). This helps in areas where pressure reduction, due to leakage management or topography, has brought the hydrant flow capability below the legal requirement and therefore straining the relationship between water utilities and fire service.

The enhanced design significantly increases the capability at the higher end where flow has been measured at over 4500 litres/ minute at 1.7 bar. This has allowed dialogue regarding strategic initiatives with the water and fire services as performance to this level is as yet unprecedented and therefore the full potential not realised.

Additionally, security and protection is fundamental and a security device is being launched in parallel. Phase 2 of the CLEARWAY will be designed to prevent backflow, as with the traditional loose stopper hydrant, with many other operationally enhancing features.

Kieran stated...
“The CLEARWAY is such a huge innovation in hydrant technology; it truly reaffirms AVK as being right at the forefront of hydrant technology. We may have not been the first to market with a product like this, but Kite Marking and WRAS approval inevitably takes time. But we are absolutely sure that the product fully meets the requirements of the people involved in its day to day use, we know that because we involved them in the process right from the inception, I don’t know of any other way to deliver the products that people want”

With Kite Mark and WRAS approval, AVK are now accepting orders for this exciting new product.  

AVK UK is currently presenting the CLEARWAY  to the water and fire Industries and will be delighted to present the product to anybody who has a potential requirement.
For more information call sales on : AVK Ireland : + 353 (0) 86 0497234 | AVK UK : +44 (0)1604 601188       

For more information please see our 29/90 Product page & Datasheet

.PDF files and other resources

• AVK Clearway Advert [1.15MB]