Hello,

I'm a new owner/operator. I have a job coming up that has me booming out abount 60 ft. then adding 40 ft. of line to pump into a basement. Any worries as far as priming with hose adding extra weight to the boom. Can I hang the line to ease in priming or do I have to lay it on the ground. I will be using slick pack to prime.

lay it on the ground prime your boom with one hose in an A-frame like normal, then hook it up to your line, dump a 5 gal bucket of slurry down the lay line before you hook it up. Your owners manuel should be very clear on what to hang from your boom. Or get a yard of grout to prime out with make it really wet and and get set up the way you want and prime the entire system all at once.

Hey Dickey,

Thought you were getting out?

hey slick might work good on pipe but getting a fiver with mud and segregating it with water is idiot proof you might need a second one to acomidate the volume. take your time to make enough primer.  

Follow dickies advice but here's one more tip. 1 bag of slick-pak goes a long way! with only 40' of hose you wont need the whole bag. Only a couple of ounces. Open the plastic bag then rip a small hole in the water soluable bag. Then add about 1/4 its contents to a 5 gal. bucket of water. Make sure you do this 10 of 15 min. prior to priming & mix it real good. I've found that a whole bag w/ 5 gal. of water is too thick. Slick-pak is so viscous that the segragated rock will pass right over that slimy white booger and you'll be beat'n on hose wonder'n how the hell all that rock got in AHEAD of your primer? Once I used (1) bag of slick-pak to prime a 32m + 50' of 4" hose all at once! No $hit. I put the whole bag in the hopper, filled w/water to just below the agitator, Let it slosh around in rev. for a while to mix, pumped it down before I put any mud in the hopper. Then idled it out the end like noth'n! I did this to proove my theory. I would'nt advise this on your job! Its way too much snot to put in a basement! Good ??? though NEVER hang that much hose off of any pump!   PUMP-ON!

Mmmm well here is a very real thing that happened I know this happened a newbie operator hung 4 25 foot 3 inch hoses off the boom and was trying to prime and it plugged and he forced it through the explosive force sent the hose through a concrete block wall and filled a new SUV full of concrete. Never use your boom to pull hose out other than one section. The owners manual of your pump tells you the do`s and dont`s.

Dickie is right, however, He didn't mention that you should capture the yard of slurry. what I've done is fill the hopper with the slurry from the mixer and then send him away, pump the slurry down just before it hits air and then fill the hopper with mud and send it. you won't have a yard of slurry to contend with and you will make your customer happy, isn't that what its all about. One other thing is to keep ALL the slurry out of the pour, whether its slick pack, cement/flyash or slurry. You'll do nothing but piss off the finishers from the beginning by filling up there pour with a bunch of s%$t. 

I was hoping that one of you would mention the safety aspect of this task. There are many different ways to go about priming a boom plus system. There is some good advice here. The one thing that everyone failed to mention is how dangerous this is… people wise.

The boom + system is a better than even chance that you might plug. An even worse event is to plug and then have the plug free its self and whip the hose around and, like a fire hose, hunt for anyone close enough to club and cover with concrete.

Here is a very good tutorial for all, especially applicable to what you are getting ready to do.

Follow the good advice you have received, read this, then pour it out.

http://www.concretepumpers.com/pdfs/Hosewhip_Bulletin_FINAL.pdf

Be careful out there ;~)

Seed, next friday is my last day, I signed up for spring classes gonna give college another try just to probably end up pumping again, it gets in your blood lol. I gotta gig for the winter, I'm gonna take some time and golf and enjoy the weather before it gets cold tho. Everyone have a good safe long weekend!

YA GO WITH THE WAY DICKIE SAID TO DO IT , ITS THE RIGHT WAY AND THE SAFE WAY TO PRIME OUT WHEN YOUR GOING TO BE FLAT OUT WITH SYSTEM AT THE END . . . .

We do it in Las vegas.1yd of grout.Pump yur water down then pump your grout (one hopper only)then fill up with one more hopper of grout.When u start pumping run the concrete,it'll go but remember your end hose will wip if it plugs.I use 2yds of grout on 2500ft of system(62story high-rise)never pluged yet.Pumped thru 450ft of system with a 42m Putz,no problem,over five hundred yards.

make the builder get you slurry mix first and put it throught the whole line