Lori was right and now i have to re-plumb the truck

I know some of you saw my post on the new rig. Well we took It out today for the first job of the season and LOVED the 8gpm machines but ran into an issue. When we filled up our tank we noticed the feed hoses were leaking slight which we figured to be no big deal. After running them for a few minutes we started surging as if our tank was empty which we figured was just pulling air through the leaking hoses. Swapped over one of the hoses and stopped the leak and STILL got surging issues to that machine for the first few minutes. After contacting lori and sending her pictures of our plumbing i was informed that we cant run PVC as it will cause air bubbles. Also, we have a 2.5” fernco reduced to 1.5” pvc all the way back to each machine. She then told me we also needed a bigger 3” fernco to get enough water for each machine and we cant split it with a wye fitting like we did. Long story short we finished the job with 1 machine and im an idiot and have a lot of re-plumbing to do!

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Dang… I’m running a little less then that

A 7 and. 5.3 and have 2 inch pvc that Y’s and then 3/4 hose to each machine, zero issues

Off of a 125 buffer


We have no issues

What size is your feed and what size coming out of the tank? We are 2” to 1.5” feeds

2" to 1 " 8 gpm an 5.5

I call bull on this factoid. A circle with a diameter of 2.5” has more than double the area of a circle 1.5” across. Not to mention, 1.5” inch feed lines for an 8gpm machine is a little bit overkill, to begin with.

Due to the way water flows in a pipe, I’d bet that the 2.5” plumbing would flow 3-4x that of the 1.5” plumbing.

I’m guessing that all of your issues were due to poor plumbing connections. There are tons of guys running a setup exactly the way you had it, with zero problems.

Pvc does get brittle with age, so I would limit how much is in the system in favor of crush proof hose.

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I was about to ask where you got the blue hose, until I realized it was antifreeze, lol

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I dont disagree but from what ive noticed, if we run 1 machine with 250 gallons in the tank it does not surge. However, once we get our tank down to 100 gallons we notice surging even with 1 8gpm machine. With 2 8gpm machines we can only run both without issue if we have 200-250 gallons in the tank. Once we are under 200 they both surge. Are belt drive machines gravity fed? I always thought they pulled their own water so no issues with gravity feeding, but it seems that is not the case. Its almost like we have to have a lot of water to get enough pressure to get it to pump. Either way i want to try and keep my pvc, looks much cleaner than flex hose all over

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Lol, Lori fed you a load of bull. You just had an air leak.

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Belt drive are not gravity fed. I can run them with no problem til the last drop of water is gone

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Ohio life!

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Why are you guys using hard pipe PVC at all on your rigs?

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It’s not smart, but that wasn’t his problem.

Yeah not the problem.

I just keep seeing alot of PVC piping in these rigs.

No bueno…

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Can you explain why pvc is no good for a rig?

Apparently it gets brittle over time. I use suction hose I get from an agricultural supply store. The one near me have tons of it in all sizes. And all the fittings to get it from the tank to the machine.

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Where do you suppose the air bubbles to be coming from then? Feed hose is tight on the machine with no leaks, no leaks from any of the pvc… do you think the 1.5” split to 2 machines is too restrictive? Should i be looking into a larger option?

Just a theory, and I’m not sure how your machines are plumbed but if you were off one machine and it’s bypassing back into the buffer right over the take outlet it could be making lots of bubbles that are getting sucked into the pump intake. I know some people angle the bypass go hit the side of tank so this can’t happen.

I don’t think the pipe size is the issue.

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Why are you splitting one line to two machines?