by Brian White
New plastic tubing and blockages
3:14 am in Being a good member of this community, Education, Getting Started, Help the project by testing this, How-Tos, International, Materials and Resources, questions, R&D-I-Y, Uncategorized, Version 3.0 Modular Airlift Columns, Water flow by Brian White
Hi, I have usually just joined up old tubes to make my windowfarm airlift demo’s and I did not really understand why other people were having problems. Then I did this experiment today pumping water to 18 ft high with a T joint and 2 ft of submergence. (I did it). But there was the blocked tube problem over and over. I had to put detergent in the tubes to help get off whatever grease or coating that new tubes have! Finally it started working but was still stopping at times.
I think windowfarms need to issue an advisory about this. So many people had a similar problem and after a day or 2 it went away. Perhaps detergent is the answer, perhaps washing soda, perhaps dish soap. A few quick experiments need to be done to find the best solution because it really seems to put new people off. Thanks Brian. The new video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_88_xUd5Zs
Whoa. I missed this post. This is really interesting. I have found that a lot of new systems have this problem and that after they run for a while the problem just goes away. Had not thought that they might just need an interior cleaning. Really great, Brian. I’m going to try it with a bunch of new ones I’m making.
Hi, Windowfarms, just note that I still don’t know if cleaning the tubes or ‘dirtying” them is the answer. I have not done a bunch of experiments on this issue. Only a couple. It might be that running dirt or clay through the tubes before you use them is more effective. In my experience a grubby looking tube works pretty well. In a city, you could probably get clay from a pottery place. Clay is a pretty amazing substance, and it has a wonderful set of properties.
When washing our hands after working on a farm tractor with diesel, clay was as effective or more effective than detergent for removing the smelly diesel from our hands.