My cutterhead suction went from clogging twice a day to zero after one change on the Illinois River job | Dredge Operators - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
My cutterhead suction went from clogging twice a day to zero after one change on the Illinois River job
I ran a 10 inch cutterhead on a river dock job near Peoria last month and we were pulling the pump to clear roots and clay every 2 to 3 hours. Around day 4 my leverman told me to drop the suction strainer screen from 2 inch openings down to 1 inch, and I thought he was crazy because of the head loss. Turned out the bigger holes were letting long root pieces wad up right at the impeller. We finished the last 6 days of that job with zero clogs and maybe a 3 percent hit on production. Anyone else running a tighter screen on rooty bottoms, or do you just live with the pull-and-clean routine?