Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 January 28

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January 28

Yellow H boxes in the UK

Does anyone know what the yellow boxes with an H on them are that are found in the UK? I can't really describe them all that well as it's been a while since I was in the UK, but they're usually on the side of a building or wall, are about 6x6 inches square and three inches deep, with a thin yellow pipe going straight down into the ground. I've tried searching on Google but it's hard to get results with such a weak description. I suspect they have something to do with power or phonelines but that's just a guess. What are they called and what do they do? Thanks for any help, Matthewedwards :  Chat  01:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

See Fire_hydrant#Signage: 'In the UK and Ireland, hydrants are located in the ground. Yellow "H" hydrant signs indicate the location of the hydrants... Mounted on a small post or nearby wall etc., the two numbers indicate the size of the water main (top number) and the distance from the sign (lower number)'. Is this what you mean?

Yeah! Thank you, whoever you are! Matthewedwards :  Chat  03:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Amazing the little differences between countries that you don't think of. If they don't have red fire hydrants in Britain, where do urban dogs pee? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Lamp posts, of course. And pillar boxes. DuncanHill (talk) 04:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The number of American fire hydrants that get smashed in car chases[1] or used as communal showers[2] - at least in Hollywood films - it's a wonder that they haven't gone over to our system years ago. Ours are under a rectangular iron plate in the pavement (sidewalk) that you need the right tool to open[3]. Alansplodge (talk) 11:21, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The movies obviously overstate things, it's Hollywood after all. And I bet that if someone ran a cost/benefit analysis, they would find that the financial reasoning just isn't suitable to put them all under the pavement. Dismas|^(talk) 11:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The image Alansplodge linked looks like a legally opened fire hydrant equiped with a spray cap. Some fire department will open hydrant with this kind of cap which limits distributes water flow for block parties and such. It's not all Hollywood. Rmhermen (talk) 15:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If you put them underground they would be covered in snow for half the year and completely inaccessible. In places with frequent deep snow they add a special tall flag to them to help find them. Ariel. (talk) 12:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Or you could put a yellow sign with an "H" on it. ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 13:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, the sign would have to be on a tall pole. In the pictures in the article it's low down to the ground and would be invisible in winter. And of course you don't want the hydrant itself underground. Ariel. (talk) 13:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Except that in the UK, which is where the asked-about yellow "H" signs are used, the hydrants are usually underground, under metal hatch covers. Admittedly, in most of the UK deep snow has been relatively infrequent in recent decades (though that seems to be changing). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yesterday, during a break from shoveling hip-deep snow outside my house, I amused myself by googling "shoveling deep snow". One of the links that came up was an article from UK complaining about the trouble caused by unusually deep snow, "up to a foot deep in places". I laughed and wished out loud that my snow were only a foot deep. The UK is fortunate not to know really deep snow. Marco polo (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a student in the UK and was recently talking to a Canadian student who had just arrived for a semester abroad. We were telling her that this is the tail-end of the coldest winter ever in the UK. She didn't seem too impressed...Prokhorovka (talk) 09:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That's the coldest December. I'm justabout old enough to remember 1962-3). Alansplodge (talk) 09:20, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

(ECs) Well, it's all relative to the local norm and what the locals are used to. The UK mainland is around 600 miles North to South and generally warmer in the West than in the East, so local norms vary somewhat both geographically and over the decades. In the South where a couple of inches is the usual maximum, a foot or so (as we've had locally this winter) is a lot. In the East of Scotland where I used to live in the 70's, a foot was routine and 18 inches plus not unusual. My mother remembers walking to school in North-East England in the 40's through paths dug through snow taller than she was. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 09:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It's certainly the case that, until the 2009/10 winter, England has been having noticeably mild winters for at least the previous ten to fifteen years, compared to when I was a lad (50s/60s) - and people's perceptions are based on what they know. Feb 2010, and much more obviously Dec 2010, were the first time for many years that there was enough snow in many places to make a snowman. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, people seem to have forgotten about January 1963, and February 1947 when the snow was so deep that my father helped to dig tunnels under the snow along the main road. One thing puzzles me about American hydrants. If they are above ground, what stops them from freezing solid? Is it just the fast flow within the pipe? Is this sufficient? Dbfirs 10:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

40 degrees Celsius forecast for the next two days here. It's ok though, because that's still a fair bit less than the 46 degrees we had two years ago. But I'm in Melbourne, Australia, and that was Black Saturday. HiLo48 (talk) 10:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Straight Dope on why hydrants (usually) don't freeze: [4] But I will note that I have heard that if it gets cold enough, American fire hydrants do freeze in some ways. There have been a number of news stories recently in Boston about firefighters responding to a fire and not being able to get adequate water on the blaze because of pipes freezing, or something along those lines. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so they are just like the British ones but with an added (normally empty) pipe to show above street level. Dbfirs 08:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What are the largest outdoor recreation tradeshows in the US? Can I find a list?

Things like snow sports, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.27.176 (talk) 03:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Googling it seems to give plenty of answers and suggest you try the Las Vegas area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prokhorovka (talk • contribs) 19:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)