Results that speak for themselves.
we're turning valves around the world at scale
The Hydrant Buddy is used in 46 states and 8 provinces. Cities and municipalities all around North America have seen the many benefits of using our innovative valve exercising tool.
Here are just a few of the hundreds of cities and municipalities who use the Hydrant Buddy:
People are also using the Hydrant Buddy around the world from Iceland to Australia!
some of the private companies and public institutions that use hydrant buddy:
“We’re young enough that we still think we can do everything ourselves, but common sense is starting to catch up with us.”
North Tonawanda's water system is 100 years old. The pipes' age and condition makes valve exercising a particular challenge. Joe L., the city s Water Distribution Supervisor, runs a team that maintains 120 miles of pipe for the city. Doing the job safely and efficiently is not an easy task.
In the summer of 2021, Joe's crew was working on a water main break that quickly escalated to a secondary break. The break blew the bottom off a valve, and the controlled environment turned into an emergency situation. The team scattered to work on different valves, and with everyone feeling frantic, they weren't as careful as they needed to be. once the situation was under control, Joe realized his hard work had given him a hernia. He was in and out of doctors' offices for four months, then needed surgery. In total, he missed a full month of work during his team's busiest season.
Joe and his team knew they needed a safer and easier way to get their job done. They needed a tool to minimize lateral twisting and lower the chance of injury.
The team already had part of a solution with their trailer mounted exercisers. Unfortunately, those are challenging and time-consuming to set up and can put the crew in danger when the truck has to navigate through or park on a crowded road. Getting to some valves would require jumping the sidewalk, so Joe's crew would switch to hand-turning to avoid damaging private property.
Joe's crew purchased one Hydrant Buddy and tried it out on a transmission main project where they turned a 20”, 24” and 12” valve. The exercising was “far superior than doing it with one person by hand.” The setup is easy because they can carry the tool directly to a valve. The risk of injury is minimal, as the machine provides the torque rather than the machine operator's shoulders or back. Joe's crew now uses a total of four Hydrant Buddies.
The Hydrant Buddy has also significantly cut down on the number of people and amount of time needed to complete each project. A two-man job now only requires one person. If extra work is needed around a water main break, it's easy to send someone with one of the Hydrant Buddies stored on a shelf to help solve the problem, and the overall risk is mitigated.
“Some of our hydrants are a bear to open, but Hydrant Buddy makes it easy.”
The Utilities Systems team in Palm Coast, Florida, turns 4,000 valves per year, which comes out to around 25-30 in a work day. All of these valves are turned by a single woman on staff. A few years ago, she was feeling burnt out. She was exhausted at the end of the day; her arms were beat from turning valves by hand. Her team decided to look for a solution that would save their arms, backs, and shoulders.
The team looked at a handful of other competitors alongside the Hydrant Buddy. One required a compressor and a variety of attachments, and seemed too complicated to add to their arsenal of tools. Another looked easy to use, but didn’t have enough torque for the city’s old hydrants. The competitors couldn’t match Hydrant Buddy’s power and ease of use.
Since purchasing the Hydrant Buddy, the woman exercising every valve around Palm Coast has used it every day. It saves her time and minimizes injury to the back and shoulders. The team didn’t want to have anyone else go on workman’s comp after one worker pulled his back out opening a hydrant by hand, so this was a lifesaver. Their main technician loves it - after all, she can now turn 25-30 hydrants at 20-40 turns each with the power of the Hydrant Buddy every day! Most of the time she’s ahead of schedule because the Hydrant Buddy is so fast.
"[The Hydrant Buddy] is far superior than doing it with one person by hand."