Help with Durso Standpipe

[R.Allard]

Im having some problems (oh and btw everyone there is water in my tank!!) with my durso pipes. the one on the right hand side is working great and doing its job just fine the one on the left is being a lil-%$&%.
the water goes up, the water goes down, the water goes up ...................
well you get the picture. i have tried everything i can think of.. adding a
air valve from a powerhead, rebuilding the top section and adding the "hole in the cap valve" and two or three different other things and still have the same problem no matter how small i make the adjustments.
thanks
Robert

[R.Allard]

well the biggest hole i had was 3/8". the othe pipe has a hole about 1/8"
so i dont think thats it... ill check on the back pressure thing....
Robert

[TimFountain]

OK, so I also had the usual durso problems of gurgling, levels going up and down in the overflow etc. Here's how I solved it, without continuously drilling/sealing holes etc.

Create the standpipe in the usual way, and use a 1" cap at the top which requires you to use a piece of normal 1" tubing from the T piece to mate with it. Glue the lower half of the 1" tube in the usual place, so that there is enough of the tube sticking out of the top of the T piece to allow the cap to rotate.

Drill various holes around this piece of 1" normal tubing of increasing size.

Drill a hole equivalent to the largest one you drilled in the 1" tube, at the same height as the holes in the inner 1" tube, in the cap.
The idea is that you can rotate the end cap around, to let in differing amounts of air until you find the hole on the inner 1" tube which is right for your setup.

I hope this makes sense, after building one Durso and enlarging the hole until it was too big, I thought this setup made a lot more sense. In my experience the problem I found is that I consistently made the hole larger than it needed to be.

Let me know if you have any questions.

- Tim

[matt]

Robert;

I guess you've checked out the durso standpipe website, right? Like, if you have 1" drain, you should use 1 1/4" PVC to make the standpipe. I also use the thin walled PVC, which allows for more flow than schedule 40. The use of one size bigger than your drain does the trick. Also, try just taking the cap off, letting unlimited air into the pipe, and see if that stops the level moving. And, try switching pipes to see if it's the pipe itself or something weird in your drain on that side.

HTH