Why Apparatus Weight Matters?

Bruce Quick and Jason Witmier discuss why fire apparatus weight matters beyond OEM specs, emphasizing liability after crashes, vehicle longevity, and handling safety. They explain how NFPA requires OEMs to weigh the finished truck with full fluids and account for fixed items, personnel (250 lbs per seat), and estimated equipment by storage volume, but not the real-world variability of loaded compartments and hose choices. They highlight how exceeding planned hose loads—especially five-inch supply hose—can quickly add hundreds of pounds, and why users must communicate actual intended loads to the OEM. They recommend using FEMA’s Apparatus Cube Calculator to estimate equipment weight/volume and plan distribution left-to-right and front-to-back to avoid skating, longer stopping distances, and rollover risk, especially on aerials, rescues, tankers, and mini pumpers. They note ROM roll-up doors can reduce overall weight, warn that being underweight can hurt ride/braking, and close with takeaways: be transparent with OEMs, weigh trucks in service (and recheck over time), and replace tires after seven years per date code.

Chapter Markers: 

00:00 Liability When Overweight

01:30 Show Intro Housekeeping

02:13 Why Apparatus Weight Matters

04:27 NFPA Weighing Basics

07:46 Hose Loads Can Surprise

09:49 Planning Tools Cube Calculator

13:22 Balancing Weight For Safety

15:57 Which Rigs Are Most At Risk

18:13 Roll Up Doors Weight Savings

20:04 Underweight And Mini Pumpers

23:22 Three Takeaways And Wrap Up

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So they're never judging what is that actual in-service weight versus that gross vehicle weight rating.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

When it really comes into play is when tragedy strikes. You know, you have an accident, you're involved in a a bad incident, hope and pray nobody loses their life, but if someone does lose their life, lawyers are immediately gonna want to know what did that truck weigh, did it meet the ratings, and if not, someone's in a lot of trouble. In fact, several people are probably in a lot of trouble at that point. So it really does matter from that standpoint, from a liability, but it it also matters for the longevity of the rig, making sure that it's being handled properly, how things are gonna wear.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

And before we get started on today's episode, let's go over some housekeeping items. Make sure you follow us on social media. You can find us at Rig Recon on Facebook and Instagram. Make sure you visit our website, rigrecon.com, for all the latest apparatus information. We're getting some new content up there right now as we speak. The site's going uh through a little bit of some navigational changes to make it easier for you guys as well to find all the stuff you need. And we just uploaded new videos on our camera systems as well. So again, you got to check that daily. New content coming out all the time. And then most importantly, you can get this podcast wherever you get your podcast, including YouTube. And if you're not subscribed, you definitely should be. So, Jason, just you and I today on a on an episode, we wanted to talk about apparatus weights. And I know um, again, uh typically on this episode we do stuff that's even outside of our our brands or portfolio products, and and this would fall into that category. But I think it's something important for the users to know and something that we need to talk about. So um on the topic of apparatus weights, you know, and why why is it important for the end user to know this? Isn't this something that the OEM just takes care of, and and we're just concerned about the color of red that that comes out of that paint booth.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

And and there are there are several hundred colors of red paint booth. That's right. Uh for you know, for the most part, an OEM does have responsibility for the weight of the apparatus. I mean, they're certifying what that apparatus can weigh. Uh, they're they're certifying what that gross vehicle weight rating is. And for a lot of your end users, it it's kind of one of them out of sight, out of mind. If I'm a truck driver and I have a CDL, no, I've got to stop at weigh stations. Does my fire truck have to stop at a weigh station? Uh no, especially when it's on the way to an emergency incident. Right. Uh am I gonna do an annual inspection on my fire truck? Well, well, hopefully, hopefully I'm doing inspections even more than annually, but a lot of states aren't gonna require an annual inspection. And even if they do, the odds are they're not putting it on a scale. So they're never judging what is that actual in-service weight versus that gross vehicle weight rating. Right. When it really comes into play is when tragedy strikes. You know, you have an accident, you're involved in a bad incident. Hope and pray nobody loses their life. But if someone does lose their life, lawyers are immediately going to want to know what did that truck weigh? Did it meet the ratings? And if not, someone's in a lot of trouble. In fact, several people are probably in a lot of trouble at that point. So it really does matter from that standpoint, from a liability, but it it also matters for the longevity of the rig, making sure that it's being handled properly, how things are going to wear. It really comes into play in a lot more places than you would think about. And that's what we really wanted to talk to people about today.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Right. And would and because I don't even know. When you're talking about the OEM, you know, knows the gross weight of the apparatus. Does that include the equipment they're putting on it or not include that?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So that that's that is probably the big one unknown of the whole thing, or I shouldn't say unknown, but the mystery in the fire service. How much weight, how much equipment am I going to carry? The OEM by NFPA code is responsible for weighing that truck when they're finished building it. Of course, there's no equipment on it at that point. So they're worried about what does the chassis weigh? What do all the components weigh? Uh, they have to take into consideration they have to have all the fluids full. So, you know, in theory, the the fuel tank has to be full, the oil tank has to be full, even something as simple as the washer fluid reservoir has to be full. The big thing, the water tank has to be full. So they're capturing all of the permanent things, things like portable ladders. Well, if they're coming with the truck, they're gonna already be on it. So the OEM already is accounting for all of that stuff. Where it gets messy is all them compartments are empty, the hose beds are empty. So NFPA has guidelines and they have codes. And uh, you know, a great example would be if I've got a pumper and I have over 250 cubic feet of storage capacity, then the OEM has to allow for 2,500 pounds of equipment weight. From less than 250 cubic feet, they only have to allow for 2,000 pounds of equipment weight. Rescues get a little crazy because we can store a lot on those, so there's a whole bunch of categories for cubic footage of storage versus equipment weight. But when you look at that equipment weight, 2,500 pounds, I could exceed that really fast if I really load a truck up with a lot of equipment. Right. The other thing is the OEM, when they do the truck, when they build it and when they test it, they're not gonna load the equipment. So they don't have to physically load the equipments with weight, they can do that by a calculation. Well, they're gonna evenly distribute that weight between each compartment. So if there's six compartments and it's 2,500 pounds, they're basically gonna divide that by six and evenly distribute the weight in each compartment. There's there's forms formulas they use in a spreadsheet to figure all that out. The other thing is your personnel. How many does that cab see? Six-man cab, for example, by NFPA code, they have to allow for 250 pounds per person. Uh that that doesn't include gear, that doesn't include it's it's just the personnel weight. Right. Sure, you've got some guys that are over 250. I'm sure you've got some that are under. But that that all comes into factor when you when you weigh this apparatus.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Well, it's good points there, and I and I don't want to skip over the you know, you touched on the points in the next two questions, but I want to give you a chance to reiterate anything that we haven't included. So, you know, we talked about that it doesn't include or NFPA includes the weight ratings, um, but the OAM doesn't necessarily have to account for that on the loose equipment. And then we talked about the difference between the attack hose and the supply hose being carried on the rig, and that they do have to account for the hose bed and all that, but maybe not necessarily the weight of that hose. So anything else you want to touch on to the those two points.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

So the weight the way the coat reads, if I if I as a builder of the truck, if I've given you a cross leg that can hold 200 foot uh bench and three-quarter attack hose, I have to account for the weight as the builder. I have to account for the weight of 200 feet of attack hose. Now, every hose is different, uh, different brands of hose are gonna weigh different weights. Uh, with the way hose changes these days, the size can change. So while they built it and you said you were gonna put 200 feet of inch and three quarters in there, there might be just enough room to fit two inch in there. So now I put 200 feet of two inch in there. Well, that weighs more. The the supply hose is where it really can get crazy. Five inch supply hose can weigh a lot. Uh, a hundred-foot section can easily weigh a hundred pounds. They're gonna build that hose bed to a depth that you've asked for. Let's say you wanted to carry a thousand feet of hose, and let's say you gave them a certain overall height for the rig, and now they've got their tank size, they're gonna end up with a certain depth for that hose bed. So let's say, for example, that hose bed's 15 inches deep.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Your OEM could have done the math, and they've got calculations that tell them based on the length and the width and the depth, here's how much hose fits. So if you said I'm gonna carry a thousand feet of hose and that fits in there, that's what they're gonna allow for. Now you take delivery of the truck and you start packing it, and you find, wow, I've got a lot more room in this hose bed than I thought. I I did my homework, I I laid that hose out, I got every ounce of air out of it, and oh man, we got a bonus. I can fit 1,500 feet of five-inch.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

That's at least 500 more pounds. And a lot of people aren't calculating that in. If you know you're gonna fill that hose bed to the maximum capacity, it's important to tell that OEM up front, we're gonna carry whatever it'll fit. So, so max it out and put that into the calculation and calculate that in when you're factoring in how much you're gonna carry on that rig at the end.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Right. And so basically, what I'm hearing is the equipment storage really falls back on the customer, and it might be very confusing. So maybe talk through how to navigate this, how to pre-plan for it, some steps you can take so you have at least an accurate number or an idea of where you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

There, there's a couple of ways to do it. I I've seen people take every ounce of equipment they have, and uh maybe maybe they have an existing rig. So they put that rig on a scale and then they strip it, they take all the equipment off, and now they weigh it again. What's gonna give them a really good estimate of how much their equipment weighs? Right. Well, let's face the facts. When you buy a new rig, a lot of times you're getting some new equipment too, and you're gonna use up every ounce of space you have. You really want to plan ahead. They put so much homework in, you know, we talked about the color red. Right. They put so much homework into how many warning lights, how many scene lights, what color is it gonna be? What exact stitch is going into the seat? Right. Put that kind of homework into the actual equipment you're gonna carry. Am I suggesting you mock up storage spaces in your firehouse and put all the equipment in? I mean, if you got a lot of time on your hands, that's fun. Go ahead. Have at it. But an amazing tool you can use on the FEMA website, there's a thing called the apparatus cube calculator. So that cube calculator has at least 3,000 cells in it with every piece of equipment you can think of: a halligan, an axe, different hoses where you can type into that and say, okay, in the front compartment, I'm gonna carry an axe, a halligan, uh, I'm gonna carry a donut rule of three-inch hose. It may say, okay, is it double jacket cotton? Is it synthetic? It'll give you all the estimated weights for those things. It'll give you the actual cubic footage that they take up as well, so that you could feed into that calculator and then it'll spit out and say, okay, the front compartment is carrying 600 pounds, and it worked out to 4B cubic feet of equipment in this space. You may then ask your OEM, how much space do I have in that compartment? And they say, Well, it's it's only a 25 cubic foot compartment. It's not gonna hold it.

unknown 12:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Or what's that compartment rated for? A lot of compartments, the floor is rated for 500. Well, if we're gonna pile up 650 pounds of equipment there, that could be a problem. Right. So feeding everything into that cube calculator gives you the benefit of being able to see what you're gonna carry and planning for the future. The other thing it gives you is the ability to look at splits. So, how am I breaking that weight up? Left to right matters, front to back matters. Uh, left to right is is kind of obvious. Front to back is much more critical on the way it works. But uh looking looking at everything you're gonna carry and and making sure you're covering all your bases. If you think the 2,500 pounds is more than enough and you're not gonna exceed that, you're fine. I've seen people that are carrying four or five thousand pounds worth of equipment. Wow. If you think you're gonna exceed it that far, it is absolutely critical that you let your OEM know that ahead of time so they can factor that in.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, no, great points there, Jason. And and like you mentioned, there's tools on FEMA that you can use to help you. We did an episode uh breaking down FEMA and all that they offer. You definitely should check that out if you haven't. Um but as we sort of move on here, and you sort of alluded to it, where you're gonna put that equipment, how you're gonna distribute that weight. You know, in a lot of cases, there's a lot of apparatus where one side can be a lot heavier than the other, or or vice versa, however that goes. But maybe talk about how you should think about where you're gonna distribute the equipment. Obviously, you have to do it strategically to your fire attack plan or your response plan, but but um when you don't distribute it in a in a great way, what are some of the things that might happen to that apparatus? Yeah, yeah. Crash.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah, yeah, roll over. Yeah, exactly. I mean, a lot of people will put a rescue compartment together. So that may have all your rescue tools. Let's face the facts, those are heavy. Now, if I'm also carrying something like airbags, I might want to try and get them airbags on the other side of the vehicle. Sometimes logistically, when I'm looking at the operation, I want all that stuff in one spot. But if I get that vehicle really off balance where it's much heavier on one side than the other, that's gonna affect my handling of my vehicle. When I corner, that's gonna make the vehicle want to tip and lean. Uh, we did a webinar on suspensions. If I load one side of the suspension down and I don't load the other side of it down, that's gonna mess up my vehicle handling. Right. When I look at front to back, that's where it really gets critical. Uh, if you've got a split like, you know, they always said at least 70-30 is where you want to be. If I've got 80% of my weight on the rear axle and 20% on the front axle, I've got a problem.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Uh when you drive down the road, your front end's gonna do what they call skating. You're you're gonna turn them front wheels and they're barely touching the ground at this point. So now when I turn them front wheels, it's not as responsive. I almost have to brake a little bit to shift the weight to have them uh wheels catch the ground and now pull me into a turn. Stopping distance. You know, you've got brakes in the front and rear. When you stop, you want all four, or depending if you're a tandem axle, all of the wheels doing the work. You don't want just the rear wheel stopping while the front wheels are skating across the ground. So making sure you're balanced from front to back is critical. This is something that your OEM will take into consideration, but if you didn't tell them that you were loading an extra 500 feet of hose and your rear step compartment in the back of the truck had all your heavy rescue tools, that could be an issue.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Right. No, and I think that's great points there as my mic takes a drop in the middle of the show, but that's okay. Um, anyways, are there certain vehicles that are more susceptible to these weight problems than others?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Sure. I mean, right away everyone thinks of uh of an aerial device. If I've got a big platform aerial, I'm obviously gonna be a little bit top heavy. In fact, to some extent, the equipment you put in the compartment helps you in that situation. Rescues are all over the board. Uh, rescue is a massive toolbox on wheels, and a lot of times there's no water tank on that rescue. A lot of times that water tank can help you because that's putting a nice load right in the middle of the vehicle that's helping hold it down.

unknown 16:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

If I've got a big open box of a rescue, say it's a walk around with a lot of transverse compartments, I really want to concentrate on where I'm putting equipment, not just for function on the fire ground, but to balance the load on that vehicle.

unknown 16:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

The one that probably comes into mind the most, and I saved it for last, is your tanker. Uh, if you read some of the studies out there, tankers, of course, are prone to be in the most rollover incidents. Right. A lot of people think, oh, that's because of the water sloshing around. If you look at the code for how we build a water tank, there is so much baffling inside that water tank, you're not getting a tremendous amount of sloshing of the water. Take something like a milk delivery truck that can't have baffles inside of it because those baffles would grab bacteria and cause us to all be sick from drinking that milk. Right. So if they're driving with half a load, when they make a turn, the water is sloshing, or I'm sorry, the milk is sloshing in that tank and causing it to push the vehicle one way or the other. On a tanker, because I'm baffled so heavily, the water's not doing that as much. However, a lot of times a majority of my weight on a tanker is on the rear axle. So now if I've got equipment and I'm loading up that back end, and if I'm carrying like a port of tank, maybe I've got a swivel dump on the back end, that's even more weight. I don't want to get into that 75% of the weight on the rear axle, 80% of the weight on the rear axle. That's really going to cause me handling problems on the front of that be.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Good points there. And I do, before we sort of finish out on the last few questions, I do want to bring one of our companies into the equation here, ROM, right? So they make the roll-up doors. And if you haven't checked out either ROM's page or Rake Recon's page, we just released a whole series of sort of nuggets or factual information about roll-up doors and some of the key questions. And one of them was um, how does ROM's roll-up door specifically influence the weight of the apparatus? And I think you did a great job explaining, so I'll let you take take it from there.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

So we we put a lot of work into the door at ROM, into the engineering to get the right thickness. Obviously, if my roll-up door is too thin, it's gonna bow. It's gonna have a tendency to give when I flex the body and get a bend in it. If equipment slams up against it, it could potentially come through, which I don't want. At the same time, if I make the door way too rigid, now it becomes a problem where as that body flexes going down the road, the door can't flex with it and it wants to crack. But the other thing is the weight that makes a heavier door. We put a lot of work into making just the exact right thickness on our slats. So on average, our doors are lighter than our competitors. Now, if I take a mini pumper with four doors on it, not a big deal. Right. But take a tractor-drawn aerial with 14 compartments on it, I could be talking three, four hundred pounds difference over the whole body of the truck that I've saved with the roll-up door. That's going against our competition. Put that roll-up door up against a double pin hinge door, you could be saving six, seven hundred pounds just by going to a roll-up door. So that can help you in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, no, great points and something to consider there. And I want to throw that in. But as we sort of finish out here, can a vehicle be underweight?

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Absolutely. Uh, so we I was doing a lighting webinar earlier, which we'll have up on Rig Recon. And one of the funny things I was talking about in that webinar was everybody wants the most. Yeah. So the easy answer here is what's the biggest rear axle I can get? About 33,000 pounds. What's the biggest front? Uh like 21,480. Well, then why don't I just put the biggest rear and the biggest front on there? If I don't load it properly, so now I've got a vehicle that has like a 55,000 pound rating, but I've only got 40,000 pounds on it, now that's a problem. Now my suspension's too stiff. Now I'm not going to ride and I'm not going to get a good ride quality in that vehicle. If I don't have good ride quality, then that means I'm not getting the proper contact between the road and the surfaces for braking. So now instead of having a suspension that gives and having my tires able to grab the road, I'm bouncing. Well, when I'm bouncing, my wheels are coming up off the road, and now I don't have the stopping power. So definitely being there's no simple answer here saying just put the biggest axles on. No, that's going to be a problem. You want to be within a certain range. And our our webinar on suspensions talked about loading the suspension sun. That is critical. Uh one other thing I'll talk on quick is what you talk about. And I touched on tankers and I touched on aerials, I touched on rescues. I didn't touch on probably the biggest problem in our industry, and that's the mini pumper. The mini pumper, unfortunately, it's a great tool. It's small, it can get into spaces that other things can't. Everybody wants to overload it, especially with water. I see mini pumpers on the market, 350 gallon water tank. Oh man, put that in service and put it on. Scale. All right. Keep in mind your F550 chassis has a 19,500 pound weight rating. That's the overall rating of that vehicle. That's not a lot of payload because the raw chassis has a lot of weight to it. 250 pounds per person. If I've got a five-man cab, I've already taken away a bunch of weight right there, and I'm near the max rating on the front axle. We drive around and do demos across the country in our demo vehicle that we call L Car One. It's a glorified mini comper. It's never going to be in service as a fire truck, but it's essentially a mini pumper. It's got a midship pump on it, only as a 200-gallon water tank. It's got a modest hose load. There's 300 feet of five-inch in there. There's two cross lays, and it's got a decent amount of equipment, but it's just equipment we show. It's not loaded like a normal fire truck. That truck with 200 gallons of water full with the pump, with the equipment on it, with only one person in the cab, weighs 17,800 pounds. I put it on a scale to test it and make sure that we were okay. Now take that same truck, load more equipment, put four more people in the cab on a response and go to 250 gallons of water, probably going to be overweight. So it's something you got to watch out for.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Good stuff, Darren. And as we close out, we always go with the three takeaways. So we talked about apparatus weight. We talked about some things to consider. We even talked about how one of our companies, ROM, can play a role with the roll-up doors versus the slam doors. You talked about just now the mini pumpers and overloading or even underloading certain types of apparatus. So three takeaways to consider uh from our episode today.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Absolutely. Details matter. Details matter in everything you do. We already know that. We talk about it all the time. Just be open with your OEM. Tell them how much hose you plan on carrying. Tell them how much equipment you plan on carrying. If you think you're going to exceed it, build in a little bit of a safety factor. Don't go crazy because we already talked about underweight can be a problem too. But just be open with them and tell them, hey, we think we're going to load this one compartment up. Is that going to be a problem? They're going to work with you and they're going to help you get it right.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Uh, the second thing would be weigh your truck. You know, when you take delivery of that truck, you're going to have a certified weight from your OEM. That's without the hose, that's without the equipment, that's without the personnel. Load that truck with all your equipment, load it with the hose, put six guys in the cab, pull it on a scale. If you don't have a free scale near you, there's cat scales all around this country. It's going to cost you four or five dollars to wade the truck. Right. Get an in-service weight and then monitor that. Over the years, you're going to add equipment. Hopefully, you're going to take some off. The truck's going to wear some. So, so that suspension's going to wear. Those tires are going to wear. Take an in-service weight three years later and see where you're at and make sure that you're staying safe. You're better to protect yourself and make sure that you're okay than to worry about it after an incident's happened. Right. The last thing I'll talk about are tires. And uh, this is a little known fact in NFPA in the code. So people look at tires and say, well, you know, it's a fire truck. I don't drive it all that often. You know, there's trucks in our rural fire service that are in service for 10 years that have six, seven thousand miles on. The tires look brand new. It doesn't matter. The code states that your tires are good for seven years. There's a date code on the side of your tire. Depending on what brand it is, it's typically a letter. You can look that letter up on the internet. That letter will tell you what year that tire was manufactured. That tire is good for seven years from the data manufacturer. Doesn't matter if the tread depth is perfect. It doesn't matter if they look perfect. If they're seven years or older, you have to replace them because the material starts to break down. I can guarantee you, if you ever have an incident in the field, an insurance agent is going to look at that date code and they're going to come back at you. That tire was expired. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Good points there, Jason. And again, uh, we even talked about the FEMA tool as well, where you can calculate all this stuff. So there's resources, there's tools out here. Obviously, you have this podcast. We referenced a few podcasts from the FEMA one we did to the suspension one with Bob Obano, too. So all great listens. Make sure you catch up on that. So this has been another great episode of Rig Recon Live. Again, if you haven't followed us already, you can follow us on social media. That's at Rig Recon. Visit our website, rigreecon.com, for this podcast, webinars, product comparisons, product guides, and all the latest apparatus information. You truly can become a fire truck expert when you go through that site. And then most importantly, you can get this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And uh newly Spotify and Apple, uh, we started uploading the video portion of the podcast to this as well. So not only can you catch the video on YouTube, but you can catch it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcast as well. Until then, spec the best