Many children have spent hours playing with their toy firetruck as they pretend to be saving lives like the firemen & women they look up to. For these service people, the firetruck is more than just a means of transportation, it is filled with all the essential tools necessary to extinguish a fire, equipped and ready for nearly any scenario. These robust vehicles can demand a price of over $1,000,000, making it a major investment for most communities. Therefore, it’s important the firetrucks are made to withstand harsh environments, chemicals and rough terrain to ensure they can remain in service for a long time.

Economic growth has driven further development of populated areas as well as previously rural areas. As land prices rise and square feet become more valuable in congested cities, developers reach for the sky in their new construction and build houses closer and closer together. With this growth and changing landscape comes an increase in the potential of structural fires meaning aerial ladders are becoming more prevalent in fire protection in order to keep department personnel out of harms way. With so much at stake, including human life, the structural integrity of this equipment is extremely important. Rosenbauer Aerials takes this seriously in the manufacturing of their aerial ladders.

Rosenbauer Aerials has been instrumental in providing equipment to fire departments across North America with aerial ladders that can reach in excess of 125 feet. These ladders have the capability of pumping between 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of water per minute which is a significant amount of pressure on the chassis of a truck. With that amount of water disbursement and the need to run multiple chemicals through the system, departments were seeing equipment deteriorate due to rust in short periods of time.

Rosenbauer turned to galvanizing to combat this corrosion. The protective zinc coating ensures internal components, such as the torque box which supports the main ladder, stand the test of time. The torque box is the main base of the aerial ladder and provides counter balance weight for when the ladder is in operation. Although the torque box is not a visual component of the ladder it is definitely the heart of the unit and takes the blunt of all water, chemical, and physical abuse. Fortunately, hot-dip galvanizing offers three levels of corrosion protection against this abuse: barrier, cathodic and the zinc patina. Futhermore, due to the metallurgical reaction that occurs when the steel is immersed in molten zinc, the coating that develops virtually becomes part of the steel itself making the galvanized coating extremely durable.