The Daily Yardman Thread

[willys55]

Re: Where is everybody?

Now you have me interested.
Are you a regular , back -up or volunteer firey ?
Our regs stay in the station all night , till they get called out to a job and extra men come from the surrounding stations 1 appliance each.
The next stations out send an appliance to replace the one sent to back up the ones at the incident, thus extra men & machines are always no more than one station away.
Only the volunteers get called out from home but on a major incident the regs can end up pulling a double as it is more efficient to have those who were there from the start stay past shift change than to fully brief a fresh crew before hand over.

The penny pinchers are trying to bring in stay at home crews because it is cheaper to provide parking than running the station all night.

it may sound like it's better to keep a crew into seconds shifts, but really it is not, the stress and fatigue of the job requires taking breaks and pacing things out. I'm a volunteer and I go out on all calls, 24/7 no days off........I live a mile from the firehouse, and even in the dead of night can be up, dressed and at the squad house in 5 minutes or less.......I keep a full set of clothes to jump into at the back door for the calls that come in while I'm asleep, and jump into my turn out at the firehouse.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Re: Where is everybody?

it may sound like it's better to keep a crew into seconds shifts, but really it is not, the stress and fatigue of the job requires taking breaks and pacing things out. I'm a volunteer and I go out on all calls, 24/7 no days off........I live a mile from the firehouse, and even in the dead of night can be up, dressed and at the squad house in 5 minutes or less.......I keep a full set of clothes to jump into at the back door for the calls that come in while I'm asleep, and jump into my turn out at the firehouse.

In that case, hats off to you good sir.
Don here there was a big stuff up with the allocation of road collision contract with the Katoomba Volunteers & the regulars both being on call so there was quite a bit of rivalry between the two crews to see who could turn out first.
The volunteers get allocated appliances according to how may jobs they do and a you know you can never have too many available appliances.
The regulars have crews assigned to a station according to how many call outs they do and again , you can never have too many crews available.
Again the HO penny pinchers are always shuffeling crews & appliances around so now days most stations send every appliance to every call out to justify keeping them so the system to "save" money ends up costing more.
When we had a monorail in Sydney, they bought 2 special snorkel trucks to get over the rail.
These were so difficult to drive through the narrow Sydney streets, then find enough clear space to position the stabilizers, they rarely left the two stations, so the bean counters decided the appliances were not being used enough and scheduled both to be reallocated to suburban stations that primarily covered single storey dwellings.
So much for "efficiently" running the department on a spread sheet.

From memory our blokes can only work the fire face for one continous hour, might be 45 minutes, before they get relieved by a member of the same crew, been a while since I used to deliver to fire stations.
I did attempt to sign up with the local bush fire crew when we moved to the mountains but was considered medically unfit as with the fractured ankle I can not run, although I do occasionally put in a shift in the catering van on really big bushfires.

 

[willys55]

Re: Where is everybody?

In that case, hats off to you good sir.
Don here there was a big stuff up with the allocation of road collision contract with the Katoomba Volunteers & the regulars both being on call so there was quite a bit of rivalry between the two crews to see who could turn out first.
The volunteers get allocated appliances according to how may jobs they do and a you know you can never have too many available appliances.
The regulars have crews assigned to a station according to how many call outs they do and again , you can never have too many crews available.
Again the HO penny pinchers are always shuffeling crews & appliances around so now days most stations send every appliance to every call out to justify keeping them so the system to "save" money ends up costing more.
When we had a monorail in Sydney, they bought 2 special snorkel trucks to get over the rail.
These were so difficult to drive through the narrow Sydney streets, then find enough clear space to position the stabilizers, they rarely left the two stations, so the bean counters decided the appliances were not being used enough and scheduled both to be reallocated to suburban stations that primarily covered single storey dwellings.
So much for "efficiently" running the department on a spread sheet.

From memory our blokes can only work the fire face for one continous hour, might be 45 minutes, before they get relieved by a member of the same crew, been a while since I used to deliver to fire stations.
I did attempt to sign up with the local bush fire crew when we moved to the mountains but was considered medically unfit as with the fractured ankle I can not run, although I do occasionally put in a shift in the catering van on really big bushfires.

when on the big fire calls, the biggest heroes are the members of the auxiliary that brings water, coffee and sandwiches to us so we can stay fit during the job, hats off to you for that Bert.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Re: Where is everybody?

when on the big fire calls, the biggest heroes are the members of the auxiliary that brings water, coffee and sandwiches to us so we can stay fit during the job, hats off to you for that Bert.

You sir are way way too modest.

I get called out about once a year and even then I fairly well know when I will be needed.
I am on the Z team so they have to be really desperate before I get called , usually when a bushfire is big enough to call in crews from interstate.
Lions Club usually do the initial call out but after a day or two a departments vans takes over as they are dedicated to fire & have department radios fitted.
The departments vans are fully fitted out with big fridges, rapid chillers & freezers. The boys can go through anunbelievable amount of chilled water
However we can only heat & serve food that has been supplied is sealed packages, OH & S requirement to prevent the crews being poisoned.
So it is a bummer when some nice person comes up with a big pie , or a box of fresh bread rolls & you have to tell them to take it back home.
OTOH I have gotten really good at flipping burgers, 100 at a time :laughing:
SWMBO does disaster data entry for the SES ( State Emergency Services ) who handle all of the non fire face stuff like trees on the road/ railways and checking all fire men & residents are accounted for.
She gets called out about 5 times more than me but the coms van get set up in some really weird places and never anywhere near the fire front.

All city fire fighters are regs, no volunteers allowed any where near one and strictly speaking the country volunteers are "bush fire" crews.
But the local station only has 3 appliances for 150,000 houses and the nearest regular stations are 25 to 45 minutes away which as you know is too long for anything else other than mopping up.

 

[Boobala]

Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild

Good Morning Chuck,

....... Hope you're warmer than me !

 

[Boobala]

Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild

As Usual, Good Morning Gang !!

OHHH Boy the heat strips are really kicked in this morning, but it's toasty inside, left a small bucket of water outside, and checked it at 11:00 last night OH YEAH we have a bucket of ice, ready for cold drinks !! IF it ever warms up enough for that !

 

[BlazNT]

Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild

Posts: 4,065
Views: 185,252

 

[BlazNT]

Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild

28 here. Can almost go without a coat. It is going to get to shorts weather today 42.

 

[Roger B]

Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild

I am down in the back. No going to work today.

What's the matter Chuck? Nothing serious I hope! Back injuries can be REAL serious!!

Rog

 

[Roger B]

Re: Where is everybody?

it may sound like it's better to keep a crew into seconds shifts, but really it is not, the stress and fatigue of the job requires taking breaks and pacing things out. I'm a volunteer and I go out on all calls, 24/7 no days off........I live a mile from the firehouse, and even in the dead of night can be up, dressed and at the squad house in 5 minutes or less.......I keep a full set of clothes to jump into at the back door for the calls that come in while I'm asleep, and jump into my turn out at the firehouse.

Good on you Doc! Back home most fire departments are volunteer except in the larger cities. Everyone in my family was either a volunteer or a professional fire fighter. My Dad was a volunteer for 37 years, even Becky's mother was the secretary for the local VFD for 35 years... I was the black sheep in the family and never got involved. However, I was the emergency electrician for three towns that got called by those Fire Departments anytime they needed something done electrically.

Roger