Water Level

[Tim]

Anyone have any brilliant ideas on the best way to fill 40' of plastic tubing with water? So far, trying has proved to be one of the dumber wastes of time in my life. It's 1/4" plastic tubing for a water level...don't know how to get the water in and force the air out! Submersion in a bucket isn't working, trying to pour water in from the tap isn't working...what a ridiculous exercise!

[John]

Tim;

Maybe you can find an old fish tank pump and fill it that way,

Good luck,

John

[Curmudgeon]

I went through this agonizing process last summer. A very large syringe worked pretty well for me - I had a bucket of water colored with food dye that I filled the syringe with and then injected into the tubing. The problem is that tiny bubbles cling to the inside surface of the tubing. It's necessary to tap the tubing along its length (repeating the process several times) once it is filled to work out the bubbles.

In the end, the accuracy still wasn't very good. Good luck.

[Tim]

OK, at least it's not just me!

As it happens, I had success just now. I used a manual spray bottle and set the nozzle for a thin jet, and "injected" the water into the tubing till it was as full as I could get it. There were tons of air bubbles; the sprayer didn't help, as it injects plenty'o'air along with the water. Once I had it relatively full, I worked to settle out the bubbles into as few pockets as possible, then slowly, slowly worked the large pocket out to one of the ends. I found that standing on the top of my 12' stepladder helped (or at least that's where I ultimately had what seems to be success).

All in all, it was a stupid, stupid waste of way more time than it should have been. 2+ hours down the drain, all told. Now I have to go back to the hardware store for some little brass valves; I bought the wrong thing yesterday, but need an easy way to open and close the hose to allow it to equalize when in use. Now that it's filled, I never intend to lose the water!

My hands are green, too. I look like the Incredible Hulk.

Thanks for the thoughts, guys!

[JetStream]

Tim,
Now we really know that this site is on the level!