Poolside Pumps Questions and Answers - Part 1

Interviewer: How would you describe Poolside Portable Pumps?

Bart Tuttle: We've designed and built a professional grade portable fire fighting unit that is cart mounted to be used with water, foam, or gel to use as a pre-evacuating preparedness of the home.

Interviewer: Would you advise a homeowner to stay in their home and attempt to fight a wild fire using your equipment?

Bart Tuttle: Absolutely not. We don't condone anybody staying behind when advised to evacuate (or it makes sense to do so). Our equipment is only to be used prior to evacuation to prepare the home with a fire retardant, such as Barricade Gel or class A foam.

Interviewer: So if the home owner sprayed this foam onto their home, how long would that last to protect their home from the fire?

Bart Tuttle: Depending on air temperature and wind speed, the foams will have to be reapplied after about three or four hours. The gels are good for about three to five hours, but then they can be re-hydrated by just using the pump nozzle or as little as water from a garden nozzle if that's available.

Interviewer: So with a normal situation, the family would see the fire coming, spray the retardant onto their home and then get out safely.How would the fire fighters handle the equipment when they arrive? Would that be useful to them?

Bart Tuttle: Certainly. All of our pumps come with a yard sign. What it does is it notifies the department so when they do come by, they know that there's a high pressured pump at poolside. All of our hoses and nozzles are all professional grade as well as the pumps themselves, so that our equipment and their equipment will marry.

Interviewer: So I think you in Poway during the 07 fire and the 03 fire, what happened to people if they had pools? Was the pool water useful for saving their home?

Bart Tuttle: What I found out during my observations as well as coming back and being involved in many of the rebuilds, both in Scripps in 03 and then Poway in 07 is that I saw the backyard swimming pool as highly overlooked for a viable water source in which to not only prepare properties prior to evacuation, but also for the fire fighters to use that water as a source to fight the fire.

Interviewer: So they have this fantastic source of water, but it was pretty much useless. And the fire and the house was often burned.

Bart Tuttle: Correct. For a small investment, the home owner can hopefully stage this equipment by their pool, put their yard sign out. If they don't have time, at least get it staged, get the car loaded and get out of the path of fire. Again, we don't condone anybody staying behind to use this equipment.

Interviewer: Right, that sounds sensible. Everyone is concerned about the safety of their loved ones and would prefer to see a house burned than anyone be hurt. But this seems to be the perfect balance that you could both save your home, use the water from your swimming pool, and also get to safety and leave the task of fire prevention to the professional fire fighters. Who would you say would be the ideal customer who would most benefit from your poolside pump?

Bart Tuttle: Our fire pumps are very powerful units, they can do a lot, but anybody, who is in basic physical condition can us them. It doesn't take a grown man to operate these pumps. I have two teenage daughters that can set them up and operate them. Depending on the properties, horse power is critical because that will drive your hose line that you might need and keep up the PSI and GPM.

Interviewer: I was thinking about our own home. We have a drive, which would be difficult for the fire fighters props to drive up very easily. But if they could find one of those pumps in our yard, they could come up and just get on and use that pump. And the sign at the bottom of the drive would show them that it was definitely worth fighting because they would have appropriate equipment to use. So I could see that there are a lot of people in places like where I live who could be tremendously helped by the pumps. What about people sharing the pumps? Are there neighbors who would see that it would be a great investment, perhaps one with a pool and one without a pool, who would share the cost. Does that happen sometimes?

Bart Tuttle: Absolutely. We've got a number of clients that in some areas of, whether it's Sabre Springs, Carmel Mountain, and Poway, Northern San Diego country where one of the home owners has the pool and their neighbor does not. So what they've done is they've gone in and split the cost of the equipment. And obviously duplicated some of the fire retardant for the two homes, but that way the water source could be used for multiple preparations.

Interviewer: What about cost? How much would say the basic, smallest poolside portable pump cost for the average family that might want to buy one?

Bart Tuttle: We carry a number of different pumps as well as build a number of different pumps. We're distributors for a number of professional grade firefighting pumps. But I have something as small as a hot tub kit, which could be used with the amount of water in a hot tub up to your average backyard swimming pool. And then even further, if you have a lake, a pond, that kind of thing. But generally, the six horsepower pumps that we have here today for demonstration, they start at $ 2,995-. They come with 100 feet of professional grade spec 187 wild land fire hose as well as a professional grade aluminum pistol grip ball shut off nozzle.

Interviewer: I'm certainly persuaded that this type of pump would be tremendously useful for anyone living in areas where there could be wild fires. How could they find out more about what you sell and how to buy them?

Bart Tuttle: We're located here in Poway on Oak Knoll Road. And our Web site is poolsideportablepumps.com. The phone number is 858 513 2677. Our shop there is usually stocked year round. And we do offer a, for the local residence here and San Diego North Country, a free home demo, no obligation. We'll come out and bring a couple of pumps and walk you through what they're capable of.

For advice on your fire preparedness needs, phone Bart Tuttle at 858 513 2677 or email sales@poolsideportablepumps.com for a free, no obligation consultation. I am always happy to explain to my customers how to operate and maintain the pumps and I can even schedule house calls to take care of regular maintenance and equipment checks.