Soaps In Gas Wells

The evolution of Western Gateway

On certain sunny days, an out-of-towner could easily mistake the green space on the west end of downtown for a college quad. The lunch-hour scene looks like photos in an admissions brochure: Happy people reading on benches, tossing a Frisbee, even playing flag football. Few would guess that not so long ago, abandoned brick buildings and remnants of the city's old "auto row" lined the streets.

Walk a few laps around the Des Moines Arts Festival this weekend and you'll see why the Western Gateway has become one of the city's most desirable chunks of real estate. Now that major corporate players like Wellmark and Nationwide have staked their claims, smaller businesses are lining up, within a block or two of the fancy-schmancy library and the $40 million collection of artwork in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

'Really neat' neighborhood

Technically, the Western Gateway is the five-block strip from 10th to 15th streets between Locust and Grand, but its historic roots and fresh energy reach beyond its boundaries. Live music spills out the door at Gas Lamp, which opened this spring in the former home of Blues on Grand, while the 3-week-old Americana restaurant packs 'em in for grapefruit-glazed red snapper and deviled eggs in a spiffed-up storefront on Locust.

Wander south a block to Walnut and you'll find the Crane Building, whose owners recently secured tax credits to turn the space into about 30 lofts. Next spring you'll be able to toss back a frosty glass of beer in what was once a soap factory across the street.

R.J. Tursi, a sommelier at his family's popular Latin King restaurant on the east side, is working to turn the property at 16th and Walnut streets into the Exile Brewing Co., with Euro-style lagers for the in-house pub, as well as various local restaurants and supermarkets. He and his father, Bob, were scouting other locations when they spotted the "For Sale" sign last fall.

"It's just a really, really neat neighborhood," Tursi, 24, said. "A lot of entertainment places and smaller businesses are going to start filling in along Locust. It's just a really attractive place.

"When we first started looking at the spot, we had no idea about Gas Lamp or Americana, but we think that's a great thing. The more stuff, the better."

City turns choosy

City leaders agree, to a point.

How to Make Homemade Foaming Soap | Northern Cheapskate

If you have kids, you know how quickly they can go through a bottle of liquid hand soap by taking too many squirts to wash their hands or while making bubbles to play with in the sink. And when a $3 bottle of liquid soap costs approximately 30-cents an ounce, you start to explore options on how to cut those costs so you don’t have to hover over your child at the sink to make sure they are not using too much.

I found that when we switched to foaming hand soap, only 1 squirt was used (instead of 2+ of the liquid hand soap). When you use the foaming hand soap it fills up more of your hand and you choose to not use as much because a second squirt would overflow those small hands. Even though the foaming hand soap also cost 30-cents an ounce, less was being used each time which helped reduce costs. Plus when you use less soap, you typically use less water because it does not take as long to rinse the soap clean from your hands. So, I was sold on the foaming soap and one bottle seems to last us quite a long time.

After we emptied a couple of bottles, I had decided I would save them and cut costs even further by making my own hand soap.

I chose to make mine using Seventh Generation liquid dish detergent because it is not harsh, I enjoy the lavender-mint scent, and it costs 12-cents per ounce as opposed to 30-cents per ounce for liquid hand soap. If you use a different liquid dish detergent, please read the ingredients and determine if frequent use could be drying to your hands. Not all soaps are created equal.

The only other ingredient you need is water. Liquid handsoap or dish washing liquid by themselves are too thick and will clog your foaming pump, so you need the water to thin it out and help create the foam.

You also need a pump specially created to create foaming soap. I do not know where you can purchase these, other that reusing a container that you had bought filled with foaming hand soap.

You will need 2 parts water to 1 part soap. Make your measurements based on the size of your bottle. I had a 9 ounce bottle, so I filled a measuring cup with 6 ounces of water and 3 ounces of soap. You will want to mix them together and gently stir to mix before pouring them through a funnel in to your bottle.

This picture illustrates just what one pump of foaming hand soap looks like in an adult hand. One pump is definitely sufficient.

So, how much is this costing me? This bottle that cost me almost $3 in the store now only cost me 36-cents to refill. Don’t forget to check out the Seventh Generation website to look for coupons to help bring down the cost even further. Also, remember that every product your can replace by making it at home instead also helps decrease the need to make a trip to the store which in the end can help shave your gas costs as well.

Gas Well Deliquification

Often, the use of soap was a part of a last ditch effort to get a well flowing— this was one of the tricks of the trade in the oil and gas industry. ...

World oil

Soap Creek Production. "The Western States has completed six addition ;il ... Oil and Gas Company, some eight or nine miles east of the Campbell well, ...

Hand book of natural gas

CAPPING A LARGE GAS WELL Figures 46 to 48 show a novel method of capping a large ... The men were compelled to use cotton in the ears covered with soap then ...

Scientific American

BROWN WINDSOR SOAP. Under this name there is a soap well known in commerce, and much esteemed for its durability and fine odor, but which is not made by the ...

Transactions of the Society of Petroleum Engineers

MOTOR VALVE WATER TO TANK BATTER* SOAP INJECTED 2 OAS TO COMPRESSOR TIME CLOCK INJECTOR PUMP Fig. 16 - Gas well soap injection system. k WELLHEAD SEPARATOR ...