Had a pump clog scare on the Klamath River that taught me a new trick

We were pulling up a lot of old roots and muck near Orleans, and the suction head kept getting choked. My foreman, Carl, showed me how to use a short blast of high-pressure water from the jet pump to clear it without shutting down the whole line. It saved us about 45 minutes of downtime that day. Anyone else have a good method for dealing with heavy organic debris in the intake?

3 comments

3 Comments

patjones1mo ago

My buddy swears by a little mesh cage he rigged up around the intake. Catches the big stuff before it can even reach the pump. What kind of pump setup are you running?

hannahw301mo ago

That mesh cage trick is legit, saved my pump more than once. Honestly any decent submersible pump should work, but you gotta keep the intake off the bottom or it just sucks up mud. A couple bricks under it works fine.

gray61mo ago

Mesh cages seem like overkill unless you're pumping from a swamp, hannahw30 has the right idea just keeping it off the bottom.