London Round to Storz Fittings: The Change Coming to SA Fire Hydrants

If you own or manage a building with a fire hydrant system in South Australia, you may have heard that hydrant outlets are moving from “London Round” to “Storz” fittings. It’s a change that sounds minor (a different connection on the end of a pipe) but it carries real implications for how your system is designed, upgraded and budgeted over the next decade.

 

This piece explains what the two fittings are, why the change is happening, what the Australian Standards and South Australian requirements actually say, and what it means for you as a building owner. The aim is to help you understand the change, not to alarm you: for most existing buildings this is a long-term planning matter, not an urgent one.

 

The short answer: new and upgraded hydrant systems in SA must use Storz fittings. Routine maintenance does not trigger a changeover, and there is currently no mandate to retrofit existing compliant London Round outlets. The direction of travel is settled though, so a prudent owner plans the change rather than being caught by it.

 

Why the fitting on the outlet matters

 

A fire hydrant system exists to supply water to the fire brigade when they attend your site. In larger buildings, hydrant outlets are installed around the perimeter and throughout the property so that firefighters always have access to an adequate water supply close to wherever a fire breaks out. When the brigade arrives, they connect their hoses to your hydrant outlets, so the fitting on that outlet has to match the fitting on their equipment. That single point of compatibility is what this whole change is about.

 

London Round: the old South Australian standard

 

For as long as most people in the industry can remember, South Australia required fire hydrant outlets to be fitted with the London Round thread. A threaded connection works like a nut and a bolt: it has a male end and a female end, and you have to bring the correct end of the hose to the hydrant for it to connect.

 

The London Round thread served South Australia well for decades. The complication is a distinctly Australian one: historically, each state adopted its own hydrant thread, so there was never a single national standard. For a long time that didn’t matter, because crews rarely worked outside their own state. Major emergencies changed that. During large bushfires and other significant incidents, fire crews are routinely deployed across state borders to assist. When interstate crews arrive with equipment built for a different thread, they can’t connect directly to local hydrants without adaptors, and every second spent fitting an adaptor is a second’s delay in getting water onto a fire. That interoperability gap is exactly what a national standard is designed to close.

 

Storz: the new national approach

 

To solve the problem, Australian fire authorities have adopted the Storz connection as the national standard for firefighting fittings. Storz is fundamentally different from a thread. It isn’t a nut-and-bolt arrangement at all: it’s a hermaphrodite (or “sexless”) coupling, meaning both ends are identical. Two matching couplings are pushed together and given a quarter turn, where internal lugs lock them into place. Because both ends are the same, it no longer matters which end of the hose you bring to the hydrant.

 

The practical benefits are straightforward. The firefighting connection adopted nationally is the 65 mm Storz coupling, and on delivery lines it’s designed to be coupled and uncoupled by hand, wearing gloves, without tools. It’s rated for firefighting pressures (PN16, a 1,600 kPa nominal working pressure). And most importantly, it’s a common connection that crews from any Australian jurisdiction can use. Both South Australian fire services (the MFS and the CFS) now operate Storz-fitted equipment, with the state specification setting the Storz coupling sizes for each.

 

The standards that govern this

 

The fittings on your hydrant system aren’t a matter of preference. They sit inside a framework of Australian Standards that the law refers to. The relevant standards are the AS 2419 series, Fire hydrant installations:

 

• AS 2419.1:2021, System design, installation and commissioning. The primary standard for hydrant systems, referenced directly in the National Construction Code (NCC) 2022, which South Australia adopted on 1 May 2023. The NCC 2025 Building Code is not due for SA adoption until 1 May 2027, so NCC 2022 remains the operative code. Being referenced in the NCC is what gives the standard its legal force.
• AS 2419.2, Fire hydrant valves.
• AS 2419.3, Fire brigade booster connections.
• AS 2419.4:2021, Storz fittings for firefighting purposes. The newest and most relevant part: it sets the minimum requirements for the design, manufacture, performance and testing of the Storz couplings used on firefighting systems. In practice, hose connections on any new or upgraded hydrant or sprinkler system must be AS 2419.4:2021-compliant Storz fittings.

 

Separately, AS 1851 (Maintenance of fire protection systems and equipment) governs the ongoing routine servicing and testing of your hydrant system once it’s installed. Hold this distinction in mind, because it’s the line between a maintenance activity and an upgrade, and that line is what determines when a Storz changeover is triggered.

 

The South Australian position

 

In South Australia the technical requirements for Storz fittings are set out by the state’s fire authorities in Equipment Specification 001, Storz Couplings, Adaptors and Reducers. This is the MFS’s own document (first issued in 2013 and updated to version 2.0 in 2015, when it was extended to cover both the MFS and the CFS as the “South Australian Fire Authorities”). It defines the couplings, adaptors and reducers that are acceptable for firefighting connections in this state, down to materials, seals and pressure ratings. The specification is expressly clear that nothing in it waives any duty owed under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012.

 

This specification is why new on-site hydrant installations in South Australia have been required to use Storz fittings for roughly the past decade, a position now reinforced nationally through AS 2419.4:2021 and the NCC.

 

In South Australia, building fire safety is governed under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 and its regulations. Three touchpoints matter here: PDI Regulation 45 brings the fire authority into the design of buildings through a formal referral and consultation process, so hydrant provisions are reviewed at the design stage; Regulation 103D provides for a fire authority report confirming installed fire safety facilities operate satisfactorily before a building is occupied; and the ongoing inspection, testing and maintenance of essential safety provisions sits under Regulation 94.

 

The important nuance is that the fire services can currently operate with both connection types: the state specification provides for the necessary adaptors, including Storz-to-SA-Round-Thread adaptors. That’s what makes this a managed transition rather than an overnight switch, and it shapes the three situations you need to understand:

 

• New installations. If you are installing a new fire hydrant system, all hydrant outlets must be fitted with Storz connections compliant with Equipment Specification 001 and AS 2419.4:2021. There is no discretion here.
• System upgrades. If you’re undertaking a significant upgrade, extension or refurbishment of an existing hydrant system, existing London Round outlets should be replaced with Storz fittings as part of that work. Note that a London Round head can’t simply have an adaptor screwed onto it to “make it Storz”: the head itself must be replaced with a compliant Storz-compatible outlet.
• Routine testing and maintenance. Your routine hydrant testing, servicing and overhauls under AS 1851 are maintenance activities. They are not system upgrades, and routine servicing does not, on its own, trigger a requirement to replace London Round outlets. That said, when your system is already opened up for a major scheduled overhaul, it can be an efficient moment to fund the changeover and avoid a separate mobilisation later.

 

Do I actually have to change?

 

For most existing buildings, the honest answer today is: not solely because your fittings are the older standard. There is currently no blanket direction from the MFS compelling building owners to replace compliant, in-service London Round outlets. The specification that governs Storz fittings sets the standard for what goes on new and upgraded systems; it does not order a retrofit of every existing outlet in the state. The changeover for existing buildings remains a recommended direction of travel, not an enforced mandate.

 

The considered view, however, is that this direction of travel is settled. As the national Storz standard becomes more deeply embedded (now sitting inside the NCC through AS 2419.4:2021), it is reasonable to expect that the changeover will eventually be pushed harder for existing systems. There’s no current signal from the MFS that a mandatory retrofit is imminent, but a prudent asset owner plans for it rather than being caught by it.

 

What you should do

 

• Put it in your long-term plan. Include the replacement of London Round outlets with Storz fittings in your asset-replacement and maintenance budgets over roughly the next five to ten years, rather than treating it as a sudden capital shock.
• Ride it in with work you’re already doing. If you’re planning a hydrant upgrade, extension or refurbishment, incorporate Storz throughout at the same time: it’s required for that work anyway, and doing it in one pass is far cheaper than revisiting it.
• Use your major overhauls as an opportunity. When a scheduled AS 1851 overhaul has the system opened up, that’s the natural, cost-efficient window to bring outlets across, even though routine maintenance doesn’t compel it.
• Know the status of your own hydrants. Many building owners genuinely don’t know whether their outlets are London Round or Storz, or how each is distributed across a large site. Knowing that is the starting point for any sensible plan.

 

Frequently asked questions

 

 

Where WLSS fits

 

WLSS will tell you plainly where your hydrant system stands, what the standards and South Australian requirements actually demand of your building, and what a sensible, staged changeover looks like against your budget rather than someone else’s sales target. It’s the same put-it-in-writing standard we bring to fire equipment servicing (see our guides on fire extinguisher servicing and common testing mistakes) and across our WHS compliance services.

 

If you’d like a review of your hydrant outlets and a clear position on where Storz applies to you, we’re happy to help.

 

Book a Free Advisory Call
Or call (08) 8322 2279