Do you all prefer cleaning with the square sponges, foam balls or other techniques. With whatever you use, how many times to you do it. If its unique, I'd like to see pics. I clean with square sponges, but also use a larger piece of a softer foam, each one works well, but just curious how you all do it.

I use a few liters of water between the sponges and suck back nice and slow

i use a 4.00 nerf football i bought at toy r us works just as well as a 20.00  dollare  sponge

 Depending on the application we use the sponge balls, or 2 different sizes of a high density foam that are cut into a sectagon shape. I hope I spelled that right. There about 12" long. If you have them cut into a cylinder you have to much waste of the foam. We get them through a upholstery wholesale company. We use the hard, soft balls you can buy from Conforms or whoever or the 2 differnt size foam ones we have made. The big difference is the price, I think we can get the foam for about 2$ a piece. When we blow our placing boom jobs and long system pours 1000' to 1500' we still use the foam because we dont have to worry about getting them back from the mixer company when we blow them into the mixer at that price. To save a little money we will blow a smaller one first and then 1 or 2 big ones to make sure everything is clean. The thing about the density is how well they will trap the water and the air or suction will push or pull them.

 The thing I forgot to say is the reason we will blow 2 or 3 foam sponges is I have seen build up at the bottom of a standpipe that will eventually build up more. We will blow them separetely each time with 15 to 20 gallons of water each time. Clean pipe is happy pipe.

 What's pictured with 16 cell's reply works especially well on the booms with two different ID systems (4.8" & 4.4" for example). Sending through an individual ball on those will want to 'jump' at the ID size transition & leave a build-up that may not 'hurt' tomorrow, but over a weekend can bite you big-time at prime-out on Monday morning if you get my drift.

There's also a 'Blue Go-Devil' that works real good on 4.8"ID pipeline. It's made from a silicone type compound & the center is very much hollowed out so it will go around the tight boom 90's. This thing acts like a 'squeegee' on the ID of the pipe & does an excellent job of cleaning it up.

yep the blue go devil is the idiot proof way to go, sometimes we have cut them in half leaving two wiper fins intact so they will travel thru the smaller diameter 90s

Believe it or not (my name is not 'Ripley' but...) back in the day (oh crap did I say that) Elba used to send out the good old hard black go-devil with the head of the 'bullet' cut off (termed as 'circumsized' go-devil BTW) & that would make it through standard boom elbows (R=275 type).  I believe that was back when 5" boom pipe meant 5" ID not 4.8" ID so I wouldn't recommend trying that on your brand new system these days (did I say 'these days'...I've become an old fart).

Water wash! Only way to go!

i like water wash buy my boss doesnt  allow me to so a use a  ball

What yard whore said. Water wash all the time every time. Learn the "One Hopper Wonder" and you'll never go back to sponge/balls/whatever.

Water wash here in the south is not an option it WONT WORK. Get your sponge/ball or what ever you want to use to take in the tip fold your boom up and  then you can suck back as slow as u want to make your pipes clean.

 for a normal clean out we boom down, fill reducer with water and insert ball on the left.... if it was a real nasty mud we use the cylinder sponge on the right (it actually works the best 90 percent of the time) if you pay attention to cleaning the critical areas its a real good system. i cant imagine how only a water wash would get mud with 2 percent accelerator in it completely out of the boom!? are you crazy?

Water washing with a accelerator in it is the best time to water wash. Then you don't have to worry about the mud blowing up in your hopper, while you fold up and move to the wash out.

Hard ball in the tip 90's . Ounce the ball comes back give the 90's a quick wash to save the gasket.

Mr Barone: There is no such thing in this business as "won't work"! They said you couldn't "pump concrete" Balderdash!! Can't waterwash in the south"? Wont Work? Poppycock!! If you can pump water, you can waterwash! I live here in the south and I do it all the time! I water wash, puddle wash, or pull a sponge! Depends on whats available! I prefer to puddle wash (also known as the Seattle Bucket Wash) as it is the easiest and does the job well! Balls or Sponges?? Well,if the muds bony, I prefer a sponge or two as sometimes you have to pull them back a little fast! And if I chop it up, its the cheaper!