Foam "Pig" to clean Main Line

[johnallin]

Any one try to clean a mainline with/by sending a foam pig through?
Buddy who's a commercial diver, showed them to me, he has used them to clean municipal water lines.
The "pig is pulled or pushed through the pipe by vacuum or water-air and cleans the inner walls as it goes through.

Anyway...I tried it yesterday with a "food-grade" sponge I bought and cut to 1" x 2" cubes, soaked in hot water ...turned on the vac, let it suck one on down ...and said "this is going to work great!"
Well..I've got a piece of sponge hung up somewhere and hope to flush out today with 70 gal of water.
Probably should have cut a cylinder shape and been a bit undersized.

I know this can work and am determined to see it through, Google "Foam Pigs" and it's a whole 'nother world of info on pipe cleaning.
I can see doing the same on laterals - just need to catch everything before it hits the releaser?

Happy New Year - John

[DrTimPerkins]

https://webstore.cdlusa.net/en/mainline-cleaning-sponge

Need to be the right size and followed by a slug of liquid.

[johnallin]

Thank you Dr.

I probably need to add to my post that plugs are mentioned in the link you posted earlier this month pertaining to cleaning tube systems.
It was a combination of buddy “Murph” (the commercial diver) and that link that got me wanting to try it.
I’m going out there now to see what I can do to clear the line.

[TapTapTap]

If it has been below freezing then you could get hung up on reduced line openings due to icing in the sags. Then, even reduced diameter cylindrical sponges could get stuck. Probably best to do the pigging before winter.

[JoeJ]

My advise, "DON'T USE A LINE CLEANING PIG". I tried one once and lost the little piglet in a 1,100' long main line. I spent hours looking for that pig. I took tees apart, couplings apart, inspected every inch of that 1,100' line three times. Finally, about 2/3 through the next season, the foam pig showed up in the sap tank. It is still a mystery where the pig was stuck.

[johnallin]

If it has been below freezing then you could get hung up on reduced line openings due to icing in the sags. Then, even reduced diameter cylindrical sponges could get stuck. Probably best to do the pigging before winter.


Only 4 degrees here on Christmas so that's a possibility, but it's been in the 50-60's here since Wednesday.

I was able to get it cleared yesterday. Had some open drops (spouts not seated in cups) so vac was only 15-18" and could barely pull any water in at the end of the line.
Once I closed them all I had 28". Didn't take too long and what water and snot in the line, all let loose like a cannon shot into the sap lifter. Hoping to catch the sponge, before it got caught between the lifter and releaser, 20' up and 75 feet away, I kept pulling vac hoses and dumping the lifter before it got full, but never did see the sponge.

Went back up to the end of the main line and it pulled about 25 gallons of water through like a cyclone. Again, hoping to catch the sponge, I raced back to the lifter but all the water had been pulled up to the releaser. Everything is now clear and clean - but no idea what happened to - or where that piece of sponge is.

[ennismaple]

The pig definitely needs to be a cylinder and ideally oversized so it's compressed going into the pipe. One key I've found is to thoroughly soak the pig in water so it slides through the pipe - I had one get stuck 2 feet from the start before figuring this out. If the pipe was dry the pig will be much more likely to get stuck.

We've been doing this with compressed air for our 1.5" pump lines over the past few years, immediately after the last taps are pulled. One line is 2000 feet long, the other 1800 feet. We take about 300 gallons of drinking water to each tank, pump the water to push through any crap remaining in the lines, close the valve on the pump line so we can put in the sponge and the air compressor fitting, hook up the air hose, open the valve and the pig shows up in the far tank in less than 10 minutes. It starts out moving slowly and picks up speed (in fits and spurts) until you can't run fast enough to keep up. It normally fires out the far end of the pipe at least 15-20 feet and hits the far wall of the sugar camp. We repeat with a 2nd pig to make sure all remaining water in the pipe is pushed through.

[johnallin]

Wow, and thanks, great information right there!
A few things I had wrong... 1, the pipe was dry and 2, the pig was home-made by me - cut to approx 1" square thinking it would compress and make on through.

I was relying on vacuum alone to pull it through - are you using air pressure? and if so how many PSF are you putting in the line?
Thanks again.

[DrTimPerkins]

A pig will definitely help you to find places where there are obstructions (fittings, saddles that protrude well into the line). Once you locate and correct those, the sponge will move more readily through the system. Many people quit trying before reaching that point. It is advised to use a good slug of liquid after the sponge to help push it along the pipe.

[ennismaple]

Wow, and thanks, great information right there!
A few things I had wrong... 1, the pipe was dry and 2, the pig was home-made by me - cut to approx 1" square thinking it would compress and make on through.

I was relying on vacuum alone to pull it through - are you using air pressure? and if so how many PSF are you putting in the line?
Thanks again. The pigs you can buy from most maple equipment dealers are pretty inexpensive - a few dollars each. Clean them with warm drinking water after you're done and let them dry out and they should last multiple seasons. I don't know how many PSI it takes to push them through because we don't have a gauge on the adapter we made - but it can't be more than 2 or 3 psi. If I take the hose off the fitting too early (the pig isn't through) the air pushes back but not a lot of it and not very high pressure.

[johnallin]

Thanks again both of you.
With all the posts about cleaning tube, this seems like a no-brainer.
Once you get the technique down and the bugs worked out- pigs can Fly!