Took me 5 hours to find a clog in my suction line that was just a small rock

I was dredging a pond in Ohio last Tuesday and my suction kept dropping off. Spent all afternoon checking the pump and the belts before I finally pulled the intake grate and found a stone the size of my thumb wedged in there. Anybody else ever have a tiny piece of debris mess up a whole day?

2 comments

2 Comments

walker.alex18d ago

Ever check the intake screen before anything else? I learned that one the hard way a few years back. Spent a whole morning chasing a pressure issue only to find a piece of gravel about the size of a pea stuck in the impeller. Now I keep a couple spare screens in the truck because those little rocks seem to find their way in no matter how careful you are. You might want to think about adding a finer mesh filter at the pump if this keeps happening, especially if the pond has rocky spots near the edge.

nancy92918d ago

Huh, I gotta say I think that's sort of overthinking it. I mean, yeah, sure, a pebble can get stuck, but I've had my pump running for years without ever checking the intake screen and it's been fine. Maybe I've just been lucky, but it feels like a waste of time to carry spare screens and mess with finer mesh when most of the time nothing goes wrong. A piece of gravel causing a whole morning of trouble? That sounds like a one-off, not something to stress over. Unless your pond is built in a gravel pit, you're probably good just leaving it alone.