Dust collector hose is bad greasy and sticky!

[Alan Heffernan]

I have some clear 4" dust collector hose that now has a greasy, sticky coating on it. The hose is 10 years old and is a mess to handle if you have to move it due to the sticky and greasy surface.

Is this a degradation of the hose? Btw, it is not as flexible as it used to be.

[Chris E Smith]

Yes that is exactly what it is. I don't know the chemistry behind it but I have seen this in other similar materials.
I have considered wiping it down with ArmorAll but haven't tried it. Or maybe clean it with Googone first, it's expensive but goes a long way and probably not harmful as solvents would be.
I have a section of 6" hose that is hanging on a hook and it actually drips a little.
Chris

[Mark Wooden]

Is it near an electrical panel, a house service, an electric motor? It could be ozone degradation.

[Steve Gojevic]

Plastics that need to be flexible have a "plasticizer" added, which makes the plastic soft.

Depending on the specific materials and plasticizer (cost factors here) the plasticizer will eventually bleed out and produce the stick,gooey surface. Eventually enough plasticizer bleeds out and the base plastic becomes too brittle and breaks.

At this point, you can clean off the plasticizer from the outside surface, but it will continue to bleed out and get less flexible until it breaks. It's the nature of the beast due to its design chemistry.

Mineral spirits are one of the most inert cleaners for plastics, as it rarely damages most types of plastics. Depending on the plasticizer used, cleaning it with a solvent might only thin out the plasticizer and spread it around more. You have nothing to lose by trying.

Steve

[Alan Heffernan]

Thanks Steve for the explanation.

The particular hose is now too stiff for what I need and I have some new hose on order. I need to disconnect this one from my band saw and use it to clean up around my lathe from time to time and its lack of flexibility and greasy surface is a pain. So it is going to take a trip to the dumpster as soon as the new hose arrives.

By the way, I tried to coat it with talc to see if that would keep the sticky nature to a minimum and while it helped some it was not an effective solution.

[Ole Anderson]

By the way, I tried to coat it with talc to see if that would keep the sticky nature to a minimum and while it helped some it was not an effective solution.

Didn't have any sawdust laying around? ;)

[Brian Tymchak]

Hmm. Learn something new everyday.. I have 10 year old flex duct and it looks like the day I hauled it out of the box. Curiosity was killing me so I had to google this up. From wikipedia:

Chain scission increases with the presence of active Hydrogen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen) molecules (for example, in water) as well as acids and alcohols.

Maybe there are other factors contributing to the degradation duct.

[Alan Heffernan]

Hmm. Learn something new everyday.. I have 10 year old flex duct and it looks like the day I hauled it out of the box. Curiosity was killing me so I had to google this up. From wikipedia:

Chain scission increases with the presence of active Hydrogen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen) molecules (for example, in water) as well as acids and alcohols.

Maybe there are other factors contributing to the degradation duct.

Likely - "Made in China"

[Alan Heffernan]

Is it near an electrical panel, a house service, an electric motor? It could be ozone degradation.

It is in a 1800 square feet shop with the humidity controlled to 50% RH.