Vacuum Equipment Needed At The Municipal Treatment Plant?

Do I need special pumping equipment to haul for municipal treatment facilities?

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Question: Does anyone have any experience pumping and disposing of wastewater treatment plant sludge? Specifically, has anyone done it with a pump truck? What is the size of your tank, the model of pump, and the amount of time it took you to pump a load? I’m trying to figure out if my truck can do the job or if I should rent one of the larger industrial vacuum-loading trucks.

Answer: I used to haul sludge out of plants with a 3,200-gallon vacuum truck. Just a normal, everyday vacuum truck. I can’t remember the pump size but it was a Masport vane pump. Hauling sludge is no big deal. We hauled out of three or four smaller plants. We left 4-inch hose at the plants. We loaded fast pumping through the larger hose.

Answer: The truck I have was originally spec’d as a spray spreader truck for a municipal treatment plant. It had nothing special other than a spray unit on top. It had a 4,000-gallon tank with a Jurop R260 vacuum pump with 4-inch intakes. I understand one of the tanks could load the truck from the top and the others were sucked up. Now when the local treatment plant has a problem, they call me and I will pump a tank, depending on how thick and how deep. I can load at 15 feet in about 15 minutes with a 4-inch hose and 20 minutes with a 3-inch hose. If the waste is thick, it can add 10 minutes or more.

Question: What kind of oil do you use in your vacuum systems? Mine is a Wallenstein pump and instructions specify SAE 20W non-detergent and that’s difficult to find locally. Any other suggestions?

Answer: I have been using Mobil vacuum pump oil. I buy it in a 5-gallon container for just under $100 from the local Mobil oil distributor. NAPA also carries a vacuum oil. You might have to have it ordered in.

Answer: On my Masport, I’ve been using 30W non-detergent oil.

Answer: All of my trucks have 2,800- to 3,000-gallon tanks with Jurop pumps. I may start having problems tomorrow, but for the last 20 years I’ve been using automatic transmission fluid. They use a lot of it but I don’t have any pump problems.



Discussion

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