The week the sand pump ate itself alive

Last Tuesday we hit a patch of clay we didn't see on the sonar, and it took out the pump impeller by Wednesday afternoon. Had to pull the whole suction line and spent 12 hours rebuilding it on the bank in the rain - anyone else ever get blindsided by a hidden clay seam like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaronclark1mo ago

Did you try running a probe bar ahead of the suction? We started doing that after a clay seam wrecked our pump in three hours. Saved us twice since then. Just a 5/8 steel rod with a point, works way better than sonar in heavy ground.

robinj291mo ago

Wait, have you actually run a probe bar next to a sonar unit in heavy ground? I get where you're coming from, I really do. We had a similar clay problem a few years back, and I tried the rod trick for a while. But here's the thing, I found the rod would miss those narrow sandy pockets that the sonar could catch, especially when you're dredging a tight channel. The rod only tells you what's right in front of it, where sonar gives you a wider picture of what's coming. For us, the sonar paid for itself by spotting those bad seams way before the suction line got anywhere near them. Maybe your ground's different, but I'd trust the electronics over a piece of steel any day for that kind of warning.