• @[email protected]
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    792 months ago

    Uhhh… Take into account that they are all connected to a pipe network, so they are actually much much larger, they are a city wide grid.

  • @[email protected]
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    382 months ago

    And yet the phrase, “That’s just the tip of the fire hydrant,” never really caught on :(

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    I learned this fighting the giant super mutants in Fallout 3 that used them as clubs.

    • @amenji
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      32 months ago

      I remember this guy! First fallout game I played, my friend introduced it to me and let me borrow his disk for the PS3.

      This is probably the first boss I’ve fought and in my memory it’ll always be an intense battle.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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    332 months ago

    The fire hydrant stops at the red paint. You can see where it bolts to the water main. The rest of the piping is the city water system.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        242 months ago

        It looks like you’re right for at least a couple of those examples. That’s cool, I learned something today. So what’s up with the bolts at the base? I guess the valve part slides into the main pipe so they can easily replace it when needed?

        • @[email protected]
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          162 months ago

          They are universal. You ca. either have the valve right there in fair weather places, or you use extensions to make it below a 2’ 4’ or 8’ frost line.

          • @[email protected]
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            42 months ago

            I’d imagine it also makes repairs easier. Say a car hits a fire hydrant. It’s really only going to damage the part above ground. Having that part bolted on means you don’t have to dig out and replace the entire thing.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 month ago

      You’d be surprised how many of us simply never consider even the bare minimum of the mechanisms behind how things work.

      I don’t entirely blame them, because the areas outside my knowledge you could wave your hands and I’d probably believe you if it’s too detailed or advanced for me to understand deeply, and things closer to my area I understand and question more.

      Quantum physics is basically magic to me (I’m trying to think of another area where I’ve never considered how something works, I’m sure there are many areas where I’m a dunce, but alas, it’s hard to know the things you don’t know you don’t know). I’m totally happy with the physicists telling me: there’s some wibbily-wobbly magic happening down there, and thus, in most cases you’re going to come across, discrete electron energy levels 👍.

      Thanks, I like your funny words magic man.

      Though, in some cases, I think people’s lack of curiosity disturbing. I had someone once seriously tell me they thought we had sent spacecraft to other star systems 😬. because they heard been able to measure compositions of atmospheres. That was a formative experience for me at the age of 19. That despite someone going to 13 years of school, and getting into a decently competitive university, they didn’t know we haven’t sent spacecraft that far.

  • @[email protected]
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    222 months ago

    They gotta reach the mains, which need to be well below the frost line. Watermain breaks are common enough from tree root and age damage, they gotta prevent them freezing as much as possible too.

  • Baggins [he/him]
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    202 months ago

    It depends if you live where the ground freezes or not.

    Southern hydrants are normal length.

  • @[email protected]
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    152 months ago

    Would you prefer it if all those high pressure water pumps were directly underneath the ground, one shovel away?

    • @[email protected]
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      192 months ago

      The mechanism I actually the whole thing. These ones are designed for cold climates where the pipes are buried deep so they don’t freeze. The valve is at the bottom so the vertical section can drain to prevent freezing