Jay Fortay
Uber Member
I don't know if my planned overflow would be considered a Herbie or a beananimal style. I think it was bean (with the additional drain hole). Now with only one backup I think it would be considered a Herbie. Here are my [scattered] thoughts.
I was working on tuning my overflow yesterday. My overflow plan is pretty simple, but it wasn't seeming to work as designed. My overflow is a coast to coast style internal with holes for 4-1.5" bulkheads. The hole on the far lift is for the return which leaves 3 for the overflow. The left one is supposed to be my full siphon main line. This one dumps into its own 2" pipe and goes straight to the sump in the fish room. I glued a down turned 90 on this one so the inlet would be lower than the other two. The other two bulkheads are designed to catch the extra flow once the full siphon is dialed back on the main line. These two extra flow/emergency drains both dump into 1-2" line and head to the sump. After a good amount of frustration with noise and violent flushing/bubbling I figured something was amiss. I cut off the main return line that terminated below the water line in the sump to find that the "main" drain was not carrying any water at all. I looked everything over again after scratching my head for a while. I realized that the bulkhead for the main drain line is a small amount above the other two. This is not good because DAS left me little room to extend any of these elbows up or down. In fact the down turned one I have glued into the main drain had to be cut about an inch short so it wouldn't bottom out in the overflow box. With the other 2 drains carrying all of the flow they would just flush and fill. Of course this is really loud.
My plan today is to reverse the idea. I will saw off (I may just drill a large hole in it) the down turned elbow that was the main drain. This one will now serve as the backup. I will put a gate valve on the line that carries the two that were used as backup drains. These will become the main siphon. These lines have already proven to be able to form a siphon and carry all of the return flow. Hopefully there is not something weird going on with the designed original main suction line that would prevent it from carrying the overflow from the dialed back siphon. I got this pipe to start carrying a bit more than a trickle yesterday. I realize I may need to cap one of the two lines that I am planning to have siphon. Because they run into the same pipe I realize this may cause an issue with maintaining a siphon. They seem to develop a siphon quite easily in tandem, but we'll see how they function once dialed back.
Anyone have any input here????
I was working on tuning my overflow yesterday. My overflow plan is pretty simple, but it wasn't seeming to work as designed. My overflow is a coast to coast style internal with holes for 4-1.5" bulkheads. The hole on the far lift is for the return which leaves 3 for the overflow. The left one is supposed to be my full siphon main line. This one dumps into its own 2" pipe and goes straight to the sump in the fish room. I glued a down turned 90 on this one so the inlet would be lower than the other two. The other two bulkheads are designed to catch the extra flow once the full siphon is dialed back on the main line. These two extra flow/emergency drains both dump into 1-2" line and head to the sump. After a good amount of frustration with noise and violent flushing/bubbling I figured something was amiss. I cut off the main return line that terminated below the water line in the sump to find that the "main" drain was not carrying any water at all. I looked everything over again after scratching my head for a while. I realized that the bulkhead for the main drain line is a small amount above the other two. This is not good because DAS left me little room to extend any of these elbows up or down. In fact the down turned one I have glued into the main drain had to be cut about an inch short so it wouldn't bottom out in the overflow box. With the other 2 drains carrying all of the flow they would just flush and fill. Of course this is really loud.
My plan today is to reverse the idea. I will saw off (I may just drill a large hole in it) the down turned elbow that was the main drain. This one will now serve as the backup. I will put a gate valve on the line that carries the two that were used as backup drains. These will become the main siphon. These lines have already proven to be able to form a siphon and carry all of the return flow. Hopefully there is not something weird going on with the designed original main suction line that would prevent it from carrying the overflow from the dialed back siphon. I got this pipe to start carrying a bit more than a trickle yesterday. I realize I may need to cap one of the two lines that I am planning to have siphon. Because they run into the same pipe I realize this may cause an issue with maintaining a siphon. They seem to develop a siphon quite easily in tandem, but we'll see how they function once dialed back.
Anyone have any input here????
