So I am getting a few small rocks in my water lines and have a few plugs in my spray system. I am thinking of ideas for a foot valve. I used the bucket with a rock and it worked but I am looking for a more elegant solution. I am thinking a 2 to 3 foot section of 3" PVC with large sections removed and a screen wrapped around the outside. Am I over complicating this? Is their a keep it simple stupid solution I am overlooking here? What is everyone else using?

We usually just use the foot valve with a screen placed in a bucket with a rock in it to keep it from flaoting away. We also have holes in the bucket, but we make sure the bucket doesn't sink into the mud too deep so it takes in sand. Not very elegant but works great for us.

I think that is one of the problems that have pestered gold miners for years.

Of course it is easy if you are dredging in clean deep water, you can simply hang your foot valve over the edge of the dredge. But if you are doing any kind of recurulating operation you have to get inventive. It has to be suspended; too high you get all the floaties, too low you get the dirt and rocks. I use a screen that is covered with a Nylon Stocking. I just slip the nylon up to about a foot above the screen. It has to be cleaned often in dirty water but keeps my spray bars from plugging up. Also I like the length of the Nylon so I don't have to tie something around the screen everytime I clean it. I just slip it off, shake it out, ant then slip it back on.

on a down note, it does not last very long and once it snaggs or tears.... forget about it! I wish I could find something like Window Screen that I could slip on and off just as easy.