A rising main is the pipeline from a submersible bore hole pump to the bore head.
On a very large pumps it may be steel pipe, but generally it is polythene pipe. These days we use and strongly recommend the lay-flat hose designed for the purpose. Our preference is the Australian-made Crusader FlexiBore.
The reason is simple. Polythene pipe needs to be of the heavier Metric types, not Rural. That means, using conventional poly fittings, which, like the pipe itself, are not really designed to take high end loads. If a poly coupling fails to hold, or becomes un-screwed due to reactive rotation on pump start-up, the safety of your equipment relies entirely on a safety rope, which is customarily installed as a back-up. For these reasons, we favour FlexiBore.
FlexiBore is a lay-flat hose, so it is very flexible, compact to transport and easy to handle. The product has a specially designed hose end and a clamp system of stainless steel. The hose tail has a heavy threaded end for connection to the pump or to the bore cap. It is not barbed, like a conventional hose fitting, but has a single tongue around the middle over which the clamp’s matching groove locates. The clamp consists of three pieces bolted together around the hose tail, trapping the hose with an immensely strong tongue-and-groove system of connection, without distorting the hose. The hose itself has a strip longitudinally with a small loop every metre, to which the power cable can be cable-tied.
The hose expands slightly under pressure both longitudinally and in diameter, so no scale or bore minerals can remain attached. The increased diameter also decreases the friction loss in the rising main.
The product has a very high tensile strength and extremely strong attachments, so safety rope becomes superfluous.
We have used it for years and strongly recommend it to all our customers.