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That time I ran my dredge pump dry for two hours before I caught on
So I've been running a small cutter suction dredge on a pond job near Denton for about six months now. I always thought the pump needed to be primed just once at startup and then you're good. Last Tuesday I heard this weird grinding noise and the discharge rate dropped way off. I shut everything down and checked the suction line and there was this massive air pocket. Turns out I had been losing prime slowly the whole time because I never cracked the vent valve after the first few minutes. My foreman walked over and asked if I even bothered reading the manual page on re-priming. Felt pretty dumb standing there with mud all over my boots. Has anyone else had a similar brain fart with pump suction maintenance?
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torres.drew19h ago
Has anyone else had a similar brain fart with pump suction maintenance?" Yeah, my brain fart was thinking my suction strainer was fine until I pulled it out and it looked like a fur coat made of pond weeds. Lost prime three times in one shift before I finally checked the damn thing. Your foreman sounds like a real peach, at least mine just laughed and handed me a pipe wrench.
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