How do I empty water out of my pipes?

[47199]

I was connecting water to one of my chemical plants when I accidentally placed a full water pipe next to the pipe for my petroleum gas line. Water filled up the petroleum gas pipes and I'm not sure how to get it out since the water is stopping the gas from flowing. Should I just remove and rebuild all the gas pipes, or will a pump of some kind remove the water?
Thanks

[FishSandwich]

I think the best thing to do is remove the pipes and replace them. Even if you put the pump on, it would remove the water yes, but might also send the gas to somewhere you don't want it.

[Apollysis]

Just remove the pipes that have water and replace them.

[Garm]

If the pipe network is too big you can place a pump pumping into storage tank.

[Teurlinx]

If the pipe network is too big you can place a pump pumping into storage tank.

Indeed, for small sections removing all affected pipes and then replacing them is the quickest though. I have some mixed results with trying to use pumps on water, it seems to work far better on the oil derivatives.

[robhol]

I've done the same thing, pumps worked well here. If you're impatient and talking about lots of water, you might want to use several.

Also, I had to pump out water from 2 different places along the same pipeline, not sure how that happened, but you might want to keep an eye out.

[ssilk]

This is more like a suggestion and if there is consensus I will put it to suggestions:

I think this would be useful: If there are mixed fluids in pipes/tanks, that there is a "fight" between those fluids: They destroy themselfs. The fluid, which has the larger "backpipe" win this fight and so the pipes are cleaned up automatically.

Bad for those, which mix up pipes and connect water with oil. I mean for that pipe becomes somehow marked (light, fire?, another color?). Perhaps there is also some kind of warning about it? Every time a fight is over, a message?

[Garm]

very dangerous suggestion.

If you accidentally hook up water pump (unlimited water) you can void any oil and oil byproduct storage from your factory.

[ssilk]

Well, this is just thinking forward from current behavior: If there are only view rests in a pipe, they will be destroyed like that. But I admit this could cause some harm.

EDIT: If there are small rests of water etc. in a pipe and then comes for example oil, the water is destroyed silently.

How about so: If you plug two different fluids, the pipes won't connect? Or show some red alert?

[Anexgohan]

Put a tank at the end of the line and a pump on the joint and it will suck up all the water into the tank, then just delete the tank and voila empty pipes.

[Teurlinx]

Well, this is just thinking forward from current behavior: If there are only view rests in a pipe, they will be destroyed like that. But I admit this could cause some harm.

EDIT: If there are small rests of water etc. in a pipe and then comes for example oil, the water is destroyed silently.

How about so: If you plug two different fluids, the pipes won't connect? Or show some red alert?

From what I've seen a refinery will not output in contaminated pipes. Therefore it's impossible to just remove the accidental water pipe connection and let the system restore itself.

[opequan]

I had this problem. Tanks will get you pretty far, but it's ability to drain the pipes will get smaller and smaller every time you re-add it.
An easy way to totally drain your pipe is to hook up a boiler and a steam engine and connect that to your power grid. That should pretty quickly suck up what's in the pipe.

[Pothrekr]

I had this problem. Tanks will get you pretty far, but it's ability to drain the pipes will get smaller and smaller every time you re-add it.
An easy way to totally drain your pipe is to hook up a boiler and a steam engine and connect that to your power grid. That should pretty quickly suck up what's in the pipe.

When you add the tank the water undoes entropy and seeks the lowest energy state. Essentially water flows from the pipes into the tank until the pressure is equal to that in the pipes. When you remove the tank this "deletes" the water that was in it, reattaching the tank the water seeks a new equilibrium. This method theoritically will never empty the pipes.

The suggestion of attaching the steam engine is good though I don't think it would work if it encountered a pocket of oil? Haven't tested does the oil get deleted when the pipes flood with water?

Regards
Poth

[steinio]

If you remove the tank, the water gets pushed back into the pipes if there is space.

[Bauer]

The pipes should have a memory. First time a liquid comes in, it remembers this type and doesn't let anything else in. Without sensors that can read pipe content mixed setups are close to impossible with Factorio anyway.

[Zool]

Well, what happens in reality, if you have for example waterpipes conterminated with oil or acid? It would be an extremely expensive proccess to clean them up again.

A good implementation of a cleaning proccess could be a special cleaning-liquid. 1unit of this liquid neutralizes 1unit of a different liquid and then vanishes. For example: You have 80 oil in your waterpipes, and now you add 100 cleaning liquid in the pipe - 20 units of the cleaning liquid will remain inside, all the oil is removed. When you now let the correct liquid flow into the pipe, the first 20units of it will get neutralized, and then you have a clean system running.

I think thats the closest you can get to the real cleaning proccess without completely revamping all the liquid system.

[Aeternus]

Bit of a gravedig this but my 2 eurocents:
- Create a blueprint of the affected pipes.
- Deconstruct them. Use your bots.
- Re-construct them from the blueprint.

And be careful when connecting pipes that already have fluid content

[vanatteveldt]

This is more like a suggestion and if there is consensus I will put it to suggestions:

I think this would be useful: If there are mixed fluids in pipes/tanks, that there is a "fight" between those fluids: They destroy themselfs. The fluid, which has the larger "backpipe" win this fight and so the pipes are cleaned up automatically.

Bad for those, which mix up pipes and connect water with oil. I mean for that pipe becomes somehow marked (light, fire?, another color?). Perhaps there is also some kind of warning about it? Every time a fight is over, a message?

I think it would be better to have the new fluid push the old fluid.

E.g. if there are two pipe sections with each 1 crude oil. You hook a water pump to the pipe. This pushes the oil in section 1 to section 2, and then stops as there is nowhere to push. Thus the end result is water in section 1, and 2 oil in section 2.

[HurkWurk]

If you remove the tank, the water gets pushed back into the pipes if there is space.

thats why everyone said use a pump into the tank. pumps do not allow backwash.

[mrvn]

This is more like a suggestion and if there is consensus I will put it to suggestions:

I think this would be useful: If there are mixed fluids in pipes/tanks, that there is a "fight" between those fluids: They destroy themselfs. The fluid, which has the larger "backpipe" win this fight and so the pipes are cleaned up automatically.

Bad for those, which mix up pipes and connect water with oil. I mean for that pipe becomes somehow marked (light, fire?, another color?). Perhaps there is also some kind of warning about it? Every time a fight is over, a message?

I think it would be better to have the new fluid push the old fluid.

E.g. if there are two pipe sections with each 1 crude oil. You hook a water pump to the pipe. This pushes the oil in section 1 to section 2, and then stops as there is nowhere to push. Thus the end result is water in section 1, and 2 oil in section 2.

But most often you have 2 or more entities pushing into the pipe, like 5 refineries. Now there is a little water in the pipe and all 5 refineries push in light oil. What you end up with is one pipe of water between each refinery. What you want to end up with is one pipe overall with water at one end of the pipe. But only allowing push when it isn't a junction also has problems. Basically you want to allow a push when that doesn't split the remaining fluid in two and never split fluid in two when it flows.

If fluids alway stay connected in pipes then pumps could also create a suction pulling the end of the connected fluid towards the pump and truly pump a pipe empty.