Fix a leaky bladder with lots of goop

[prospectsnow]

So I got a hold of some fire hose only to find a couple hundred pin holes. Needless to say I was pretty bummed. Took a look here for some fixes, but only saw some people who had a few pin holes, not sweaty hose.

I came up with a fix that was really fast, really easy, and mess free (well almost) by using Slime tire sealant. Spandoman Road bikers use it on their bikes witch have 100+psi.



The process was mess free by using the applicator hose that usually connects to the tire valve. I used half a gallon in each, which was too much. A couple 32oz bottles would work well. I connected the applicator hose to my 3/8" barbs on the hose and pumped in green spooge and capped the ends with paper towel. Mess free so far.

Then I did my best to spread the goo in the hose. (massaging and stroking vigorously hoping it would squirt out the end.) There was enough that it easily coated the inside and sloshed around.

Then I connected the air system and pumped in 10psi until my hose was good and stiff. Sloshed around the goo some more until I thought it was well coated and added 10 more psi. Let it hang out for a few minutes and went up to 40psi. Totally leak free.

Didn't want to get any goo coming back out into my controls when I was going to let the air out so I elevated the valves so the slime washed away from the hole and let it settle. I then pumped in 20 more psi to clear the hose of any green stuff. Then repeated the process on the other side.



It wouldn't have been good to keep in it there and risk a flow back and possibly ruin stuff. Now to get the slime out I connected up an old bike pump rubber tube and fed back into the slime jug. Squeezed out the goods. Now here is where I went wrong, the rubber tube was too small to pass a large amount of thick ejaculate I was working with so I started pumping out of the valve itself. It was much easier, but a palm full leaked to the ground. Not bad, it washes away with water anyway.





Hope this help someone deal with their spooge issues.
Cheers.

[powderho]

I have the exact same hose with the same problem--a million pin holes throughout it. Luckily, I bought the hose from a forum member on here who was super nice and refunded me my money. I thought about going the route you did but using some Stan's sealant instead of just slime. That stuff is way better. I went against it because all sealant is a temporary fix. Maybe it will last for a while, and adding more slime won't be a big deal. Your way is cheap and easy to try out for a while. My fix was to go spend $140 on new hose. Not that cool.

I also kind of think your hoses are spaced too far apart. You will have a pressure void in the middle.

[MontuckyMadman]

ahhhhhh good tip.

I juts bought some hose, it may have holes? Who on here did you buy it from?

[Richuk]

Millions of little holes??? Are you sure you are seeing a leak? Did it deflate?

When you inflate your hose for the first time, you may notice hundreds of tiny spots of water appear on the skin. This could just be a reaction to how it has been stored. Fire hose has an outer skin - a small amounts of water can get trapped between layers, particularly if it has been stored outside for a while. If you are pressurising the hose and it looks like it is sweating, then this could be what you are seeing. Inflate it once, perhaps twice and it is gone for good.

If you are unsure, run a few low pressure tests using soapy water and blow a few bubbles. Soapy water is a good way of understanding whether you have a leak in the hose or within any of the couplings.

If you are buying hose and it is second-hand, you should check whether it has been pressure tested in advance of purchase. If it hasn't and you still buy it, then you need to adopt a series of test measures in advance of using it, like prospect has indicated. Increments of say 5 psi done at a distance. Soapy water around the value, angle iron and then any suspect area. Be very sure of your finding before you go above 30 psi. Personally, I adopted these measures even though it was a super reliable source - I was the one putting holes in it right!

Not saying you guys haven't done this, but getting the hose right is important and easily overlooked by new builders.

[krp8128]

ahhhhhh good tip.

I juts bought some hose, it may have holes? Who on here did you buy it from?

He got it from me, as did you. Prospect sent me a PM on Wednesday, I couldn't log in to read it immediately at work (I am under a cease and desist from professional ski building and composites consulting due to the nature of my employment, I stay of the forum @ work). Last night when i got home i found I had a virus, and pulled the plug on the internet until I could get that taken care of.

Honestly, I have sold probably close to 200' of this so far and this is the first problem, so not sure what is going on, but this sounds very plausible:

Millions of little holes??? Are you sure you are seeing a leak? Did it deflate?

When you inflate your hose for the first time, you may notice hundreds of tiny spots of water appear on the skin. This could just be a reaction to how it has been stored. Fire hose has an outer skin - a small amounts of water can get trapped between layers, particularly if it has been stored outside for a while. If you are pressurising the hose and it looks like it is sweating, then this could be what you are seeing. Inflate it once, perhaps twice and it is gone for good.

They were outside for a few days before it got to me. I've had these stored all winter in an enclosed, unheated shed, and the past month they have been downstairs in my garage. This hose came from connections at a FD, their procedure was explained to me as follows:

100' hose gets a leak, and is then cut down to a shorter length, or into 2 shorter hoses if it is in the center. This process repeats the next time around.

Once the good section becomes too short to use effectively the ends are removed and it is discarded. This puts the damage close to the end of the discarded section (i.e. if the damage in a 100' line is 15 feet from the end, you cut the hose down into a good 85' hose, you don't cut it into a 75'). This is also why I try to send my sections out longer then what is purchased, I believe that if you measure the length, the 25' is more like 27-30'

I checked with my source tonight, and the hoses typically get approx 1-3 leaks (depending on the severity) in a concentrated section before it is cut out. He has never seen hundreds of pinholes.

These aren't subjected to a straight pressure test, but were run at line pressure before they were cut up and given to me.


Bottom line, I thought this was really odd, and was going to have prospect send me back the leaky hose so I could investigate wtf was going on, and in turn i was going to get a new section sent out ASAP (source and stockpile is out of state).

PM me of you would like to discuss.

[prospectsnow]

I thought about how long this might last. The label said it has a 2 year guarantee for what thats worth, so I figured it was semi permanent.

There wern't a million, but there were a lot, maybe 30 to 50 in the area of my hand in the bad spots. There were others areas were there were less. But certainly more than I wanted to tend to by other means. It leaked about 5psi per 10 seconds over 30psi. I bathed in the suds made from the soap test.

krp8128 gave me some bonus hose that I can put in a third length. I've got a 3/4 cat track. Would it be effective to get rid of that gap?

His price was really cheap, he didn't know, and I fixed it for $30 bucks. I tried this before I gave him time to get back to me on the issue, so don't think he was being a bad dude.

umm, can I get some courtesy laughter from all the innuendos built into my how to?

[powderho]

Millions of little holes??? Are you sure you are seeing a leak? Did it deflate?

Maybe 1000's and yes and yes. It would lose most of it's pressure in 30-45 minutes or so. Check it:

The entire length of hose looked like this. And I didn't buy my bladder from KRP, but he did make my PID controller for me. Thanks again!

[sammer]

I used to fight forest fires in my youth.
The hoses we used were smaller but most were "weeping hoses"
The idea being the water would seep thru the hose so it was less susceptible to burning thru.
Wondering if this is true with residential fire hose as well?

sam

[Richuk]

Nope - the information I received was from a company who repaired fire hose professionally. They pressure test to 250 psi, so I wouldn't expect weeping from this type of hose.

[MontuckyMadman]

We finally built the hose you sent K and it was leak free at 70 psi for 4 hours. Just FYI that one section was bad i guess. Mine is sweet. Almost to double wammy status.

[artski]

It looks to me like you got some air pressure between the layers. The outside layer is not airtight and will look like its leaking all over the place.
Check that all your bolt holes are all clean cuts and that you have a good seal between layers and those leaks should disappear.
I speak from experience!