I have a pair of Custom Dioramics European fire hydrants, but they don't say what color to paint them. Red, yellow, or varies according to country/municipailty/era/color coded according to which water line it is attached to (like in the US)? Thanks.

Hi Tom

Maybe you'll find what you're looking for here :
http://firehydrant.org/links/

PS : in France they're red (my dog can confirm this )

HTH

Frenchy

Thank you so much. I tried searching myself but for some reason I couldn't find what I wanted.

I assumed red is the traditional color, but I wondered if the color coding system I mentioned earlier has been adopted elsewhere. My village newsletter has in fact printed warnings that it is illegal to paint fire hydrants.

Kind of......



The color system in the US is driven by the ISO which is an insurance organization. There is no mandate on the barrell color, but the tops and caps are color coded according to how much water each hyrdrant flows.

Red-less than 500
Orange-between 500 and 999
Green-between 1000 and 1499
Blue-more than 1500

This system is not mandatory, but does help a city or fire district get points all in an effor to lower it's ISO rating. The lower the ISO rating, the less home owners have to pay for insurance.

Patrick

Hi there

In Scotland the fire hydrant pipe work is located on the street in a brick or concrete chamber and tends to be blue in colour now. The hydrant signs are a yellow square plate with the number of meters from the sign to the hydrant written in black with the size in mm diameter of the fitting for the hose connection in black below with a line between the two figures.

The plate can be fixed to a sign post, lamp post, wall or other permanent fixture in easy view of the road or access.
The cast iron road cover plate over the hydrant has either FH or Fire Hydrant and usually painted yellow too.

A dry riser into a building tends to be red pipework with a sign on a red box cover with white writing "Dry Riser Inlet".

Hope this helps

Nige