Your Pumps Pickup hoses!

Pickup hoses!

Pickup hoses! A pickup hose runs from your pump to the water. There are a few very important points that must be observed in regards to your pumps pickup hose.

The hose should not exceed 2 meters in length it is quite unnecessary to have a much longer pickup hose.

A foot valve is only required for a non self-priming pump. A Self-priming pump dose not require one.

The pickup hose has to have a smooth boar on the inside of the hose to reduce air leaks. If your pickup hose is ribbed it will develop an air leak over time. Which will reduce your pumps ability to pump water to the pumps true ability.

All connectors has to be air tight. If your pickup is sucking air as stated the pump will struggle at pumping if it works at all.

Last you need to fit a removable silt filter on the pumps pickup end {the bit that’s in the water}. cheers

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JB 6/4/2011

James 101

Ahh James you have hit on a good one there because a lot of people strangle their foot valve with very fine mesh !! very commendable in trying to keep small stones and sticks from the pump but in so doing they create such suction at the valve it invariably pulls debris from near and far and clogs the pick up !!
I have tried many covers over the years and I have settled on this one



it is a 20l plastic bucket with many 20 mm holes drilled in it and as you can see it is in a shade cloth bag with a toggle tie at the top where the pick up hose goes



Now the science behind this is that the pick up cover is many times bigger than the foot valve so the suction from the pump is dissipated over such an area that a lot of the floating debris just goes past the pick up point and so does not clog also there is no chance of cavitation because you have restricted the water input !

Now some people are goin to say" why carry such a monstrosity with the stuff you already carry?" well lets use our heads here!! what are we carrying? a bucket so in mine I carry a short lay flat hose /my filler bottle/ my drink bottle/ and other stuff !! also let me say this kind of foot valve cover is so easy to clean if the need arises and I have found that the cleaning of the spray bars on the Banjo has been almost eliminated --so it wins all round

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JM 9/4/2011

Murachu mate very well put indeed and so true! Even on self priming pumps where there is no foot valve the strainer or silt filter as such must have a bit of clearance from the hose intake. What you have stated about {dissipated & cavitation } these are the key points to remember. One other bit of trouble I have had in the past with the S/steal metal cylinder types of strainers is they stand a very good chance of been crushed in transit, and they are a pain to clean.
Cheers James 101

Murachu,

I have, independently, in entirely different circumstances (and half a world away), found the same to be the case.

In Nome Alaska, in 2005, I was faced with constructing, on site and with entirely "found" material, an ocean input screen for the water I would need to process beach sands. All I could "find" was some fine mesh Aluminum expanded metal (what a chore THAT was!) and I constructed the largest cover I could with it for my 2" intake.

I never had any problem with seaweed clogging this intake screen (as my neighbors did) because the natural current just kept the seaweed traveling past the intake. There just wasn't any high suction drawing it into the screen.

That simple fact of using an oversized input screen allowed me to work 20-30% more time than the other miners right next to me.

Thanks for that comment KAEOJ its nice to know that information given is supported by others half a globe away!!!

Well done KA common sense wins out every time. Cheers mate

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