air compressor to clean tubing

[sugarnut]

i don't have a pump and i didn't clean my tubing last year. i have @ 800 ft. of 1/2 in. main and 800-1000 ft. of 5/15 in laterals and drops. (i forget exactly) i need to clean it. since it isn't mounted that well, i plan to bring it back home and do what i need to do right here.

i thought about mounting some sort of a "Y" connector to the compressor and having two separate fittings for each size tube i plan to clean (interchangeable). on the other side of the "Y", i plan to mount a tube to drop in a vat of solution. my plan is to use the compressed air to suck up and blast the solution through the tubing.

i'll probably separate all the laterals from the main line and do each one separately. i know it will be a pain, but i think they really need it and i don't know how well it would work to leave them connected with this rube goldberg device.

what do you all think?

[sugarnut]

thinking more about this, maybe i would need to use my flat pan as a reservoir to maintain pressure on the smaller tube.

[Russell Lampron]

I built a tubing washer so that I can connect my air compressor to one side and a garden hose to the other. I adjust the air pressure so that it mixes with the water and creates a turbulence to clean the tubing.

[sugarnut]

how did you build it?

[Maple/Cherry]

I used my power washer plus a twin tank air compressor to clean a main and about 250 taps. The input for soap which I have never used for soap was connected to my tubing cleaner solution. I started at the far end with 5 to 10 taps open then open the next set of 5 to 10 and pluged the last set. When done opened all let them drain and dry then pluged for the summer.

[Russell Lampron]

I used a 1" tee for the main body. I put a short piece of pipe with an adapter to connect the garden hose to the side of the tee. I did the same with an airline fitting on one end. I put another short piece of pipe on the other end connected to a threaded tee to put a pressure gauge into. Another short piece of pipe off of that to a valve with a nipple to connect it to my sap line. I am going to add a check valve to it this year so that air doesn't go back down into the garden hose. One of these can be made using 1/2" or 3/4" pipe as well.

Wash your tubing in place letting the air and water mixture blast out of the spouts as you pull them. I will get a picture or two of it on my photobucket so that you can see what it looks like.

[Sugarmaker]

I also built one of these low cost washers using PVC fittings, ( about $30) added house water line and filtered air line from compressor and got real good pulsing action on the tubing.
The pictures may be on here somewhere. Use the search feature.

Chris