Tried a different pump speed on a silt job near the river and it clogged everything

We were working a channel cleanup near the Missouri last week, pulling up a lot of fine silt. Usually I run the pump at about 75% to keep a good flow, but I figured with all that soft material, maybe bumping it to 90% would move more volume faster. Big mistake. Within twenty minutes, the whole discharge line was packed solid, like concrete. It took us three hours to rod it all out and get going again. The faster speed just didn't let the water carry the silt properly, it just jammed it all together. Learned that sometimes slower is actually faster with that kind of muck. Anyone else run into this on a high-silt site? What's your pump strategy?

2 comments

2 Comments

max8081mo ago

That clog sounds rough but three hours to rod it out? Man, I gotta ask, was the line that bad or was the crew just moving slow? Sometimes a good pressure flush from the cleanout can break that packed silt up way faster than rods. I've seen guys fight a line for an hour before someone remembers the water truck. Not saying you did it wrong, just that maybe the fix took longer than it had to. Speed definitely changes how silt behaves in the pipe though, you're right about that.

vera_dixon891mo ago

We just used a jetter last time, cleared it fast.