Water Damage Issue

[bensurdi]

We got called out to a water damage in a hotel in Seattle, there was about 2 feet of standing water in an elevator shaft that we needed to extract so i stuck the 1 1/2 inch hose down the siding and started to pull the water out. After about 10 minutes of extracting I realized that it wasn't JUST water... it was A LOT of hydraulic fluid. Filled up the waste tank with it, went into my blower and silencer.

What would you recommend for cleaning out the blower, silencer and hoses of this stuff. I was thinking sucking a degreaser through the hoses but I need to get it into the blower and silencer to degrease those as well.

Any suggestions?

 

[handdi]

i would.nt think any kind of oil is goin to hurt the blower

 

[joe harper]

We got called out to a water damage in a hotel in Seattle, there was about 2 feet of standing water in an elevator shaft that we needed to extract so i stuck the 1 1/2 inch hose down the siding and started to pull the water out. After about 10 minutes of extracting I realized that it wasn't JUST water... it was A LOT of hydraulic fluid. Filled up the waste tank with it, went into my blower and silencer.

What would you recommend for cleaning out the blower, silencer and hoses of this stuff. I was thinking sucking a degreaser through the hoses but I need to get it into the blower and silencer to degrease those as well.

Any suggestions?

What type of machine ...blower ect......?

 

[dealtimeman]

I personally would not feed degreaser through my blower. Just flush it the hoses to clean those then flush the blower like Harper stated a few months ago.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

The waste tank musta been fun to clean out. Check your floats to see if they have crude on them.

 

[dealtimeman]

And Ben let this be a learning experience for u. I did a job very similar to this when starting out. For these kinds of jobs you need a submersible pump or a trash pump. I rather throw away a 75 or 100 foot 5/8 garden hose than go through all the cleaning you are going to have to do.

 

[John Olson]

Invest in a trash pump. Never use your truckmount for that much water. Run Some Prochem UltraPac Renovate through everything then flush your blower extremely well. After flushing it make sure to spray penetrating lube and let the blower run for awhile to make sure no mostiure is left in it.

P.S. DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN! Go buy a trash pump TODAY.

 

[bob vawter]

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Invest in a trash pump. Never use your truckmount for that much water. Run Some Prochem UltraPac Renovate through everything then flush your blower extremely well. After flushing it make sure to spray penetrating lube and let the blower run for awhile to make sure no mostiure is left in it.

P.S. DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN! Go buy a trash pump TODAY.

HOWEVER the question would BE....
WTF are you gonna run a trash pump TO............

 

[bensurdi]

Good point! This was right on Alki Beach too! But yeah, I actually have a really good sub pump - didn't have it with me on that job though.

Thanks for the input.

 

[John Olson]

[quote="John Olson":1mfmvaih]Invest in a trash pump. Never use your truckmount for that much water. Run Some Prochem UltraPac Renovate through everything then flush your blower extremely well. After flushing it make sure to spray penetrating lube and let the blower run for awhile to make sure no mostiure is left in it.

P.S. DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN! Go buy a trash pump TODAY.

HOWEVER the question would BE....
WTF are you gonna run a trash pump TO............[/quote:1mfmvaih]
Depends on who's watching seriously though the same place he was dumping his tank and if it had that much contamination he should have been pumping it into a holding tank/truck to be taking someplace that handles hazardous waste.

By the way where did you pump the hydraulic fluid too Ben?

 

[steve g]

noone has said it yet, but WTF is anything other than air doing going through your blower??? do you not have a float switch that turns off the machine?? your blower will be fine, if you want give it some wd40 for good measure. then use a high alkaline prespary and flush your hoses with it.

 

[bensurdi]

Typically water isn't getting in the blower but when your extracting large amounts of water , it can get into the blower. In addition, my shutoff valve did not work which was fun

 

[bensurdi]

Typically water isn't getting in the blower but when your extracting large amounts of water , it can get into the blower. In addition, my shutoff valve did not work which was fun

 

[steve g]

I can extract water from a swimming pool and no water is going to enter my blower. the only time I have problem with any water in the blower is when I am extracting a large amount of water and its also foamy. I have seen this happen on some brand new carpets and some that have had broke dicks clean them.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

A large septic pumping truck would have been more appropriate for this job. I have friends who transport liquid waste and their trucks hold between 1000-2500 gallons. Similar hoses, much better vacuum pumps...and they usually are less expensive than you'd think, $100 or so.

Typically in any community there are more of these trucks than carpet cleaning TM's.

 

[The Great Oz]

http://www.ventilationpower.com/ They clean parking lot and street drains.

There's a hotel on Alki?

 

[dealtimeman]

Worst case scenario I would of pumped to toilet using a submersible. It is an emergency situation.

 

["The" Al Bradham]

I hate to ask but what did you do with the Oil? When you pumped it out and into your tank it is then YOUR oil, so where did it go? Can be big fines for pumping it into a tolet. Be careful.

I would not worry about a little water in my vac pump. Let it run to dry out then spray wd 40 or what ever, it will be fine.

 

[dealtimeman]

Al what would you have done I'd you had started extraction and then found out it had oil in it?

 

["The" Al Bradham]

2 things
We keep "Oil Pig pads" at our shop just for this kind of thing. You throw them on the water and they suck up the oil. Remember oil is lighter than water. Then we put them in a DOT approved drum and have them removed for disposal.

We also have a trailer with a 1000 tank on it and we would pump it into there. Then we would take it to a company that handles this kind of biohazard waste and trust me it is biohazard waste.

Sometime it is better to walk from a job OR have a friend to call for help. That is why I post my cell phone on this site. If I don't know the answer I know someone that does and I am always willing to help. Like my answer or not.

 

[steve g]

he put the oil back where it came from. into the ground

 

[Larry Cobb]

Ben;

I would be concerned about where the hydraulic oil you extracted came from.

"The vast majority of elevators now in service, use pressurized hydraulic oil to move and hold the elevator car. Leakage in the hydraulic system can result in unintended operation and car movement."

Just check to make sure.

Larry

 

[markwaldin11]

The location is merely in which water is actually standing. You won't have the ability to simply implement stain-blocker within the damage. Apparently from the dropping coloring this wall is going to need for being showed plus a supporter mounted or maybe you'll have a considerable shape problem. Specifically given that this is your son's space the idea should be repaired pronto.

 

[dealtimeman]

Is this a posting bot?

 

[Mikey P]

No, I hired Tre to improve our numbers.

 

[Desk Jockey]

LOL