Quick-set mud in a pump on a Tuesday, what a mess

I figured I'd try throwing some 20-minute quick-set through the rental pump last week on a 1,200 square foot garage ceiling in Columbus. Worked fine for the first 15 minutes, then it started to thicken up right in the hose line. By the time we flushed it, the whole pump head was caked solid and I lost damn near an hour scraping it out with a putty knife. The only thing that saved us was having a five-gallon bucket of water standing by to backflush, but even that was a fight. Lesson learned: quick-set is for hand mudding only unless you want to babysit the hopper every five minutes. Has anyone else tried this and ended up with a brick of taping compound in their hoses, or was I just the lucky one?

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danielowens3d ago

My cousin tried the same thing on a commercial job back in 2017, except he used the 5-minute stuff because he was in a hurry. He got about a quarter of the hopper through before the auger just locked up completely. We ended up having to take the whole pump apart in the parking lot of a church in Parma and soak every piece in hot water for like two hours. The funniest part was the rental guy tried to charge him for a new pump, but he fought it and got away with just a cleaning fee. I swear quick-set should come with a warning label that says "for buckets only, not machines.