robinson.leo•1mo agoProlific Poster

The old suction line on the Port of Tacoma job gave up the ghost yesterday

We were pulling up a lot of heavy clay and the pressure gauge started jumping around like crazy. I shut down the pump and found a six inch split in the rubber about fifteen feet from the dredge head. Had to call the barge over for the spare section, which took an hour because of the tide. Anyone got a good source for heavy duty 12 inch suction hose that can handle sharp rocks mixed in?

3 comments

3 Comments

robert_hayes1mo ago

Gotta push back on blaming the hose for that. Seen it a dozen times... that jumping pressure is usually a big rock or a chunk of timber jamming the impeller first. The split happens because the pump is fighting itself. You shut it down right when it finally let go. That spare section is gonna blow too if you don't check the strainer basket more often in that muck. Hard clay will hide anything.

diana6411mo ago

So you think the hose split is just the final symptom, not the cause? That would mean the real fix is better upstream screening, not just swapping hoses. How do you spot that kind of blockage before it wrecks something?

clark.kelly17d ago

Actually, that pressure spike could have been the hose starting to fail, not a blockage. A weak spot flexing under load looks the same on the gauge. Diana641 might be onto something about it being a symptom, but the cause could just be old rubber.