The hot tub has a hose with a spigot that can be connected to a regular garden hose that will drain a majority of the
water. I already use that to drain most of the water.
The shop vac has a built in water pump that automatically pumps the water out via attached garden hose. The problem
is that the pump can't keep up with the suction so the water going *into* the vacuum is faster than the pump pushing
the water *out* of the vacuum.
The reason for the water level indicator was to stop sucking water in before it automatically cuts off. When the auto safety cutoff
turns off the vacuum, I have to manually turn the vaccum back on and wait until the water is pumped out before I can resume suction
again. If I knew what the water level was while I was pumping water in, I can pull the end of the vacuum out of the water
and let the water level go down in the vacuum before resuming. Also with the water level indicator, I can see the water level
drop while it's pumping out and will know when it's safe to go ahead and resume pumping. Right now, it's just guessing
since the pitch of the vacuum motor doesn't change.
-aki
From: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of HB
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2012 4:11 PM
To: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [DIY] Water Level Indicator for a Shop Vac?
Why not just use the water pump primarily to drain the water out of the tub instead of via a vacuum pump first?
Also, you can install a one way drain valve (a check valve) from your vacuum unit so that it will automatically drain the accumulated water when the vacuum motor is not running. The presence of a vacuum would keep that valve shut. No need to wait till the water level is too high to evacuate the water out of the vacuum unit.
From: Aki <01dyna@gmail.com>
To: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, October 7, 2012 5:33 AM
Subject: [DIY] Water Level Indicator for a Shop Vac?
Ok, this may sound a little strange but I'll toss it out there.
I have a 16 gal Shop Vac with an auto pump that pumps out the water via a garden hose as the vac starts to fill up.
I use it to help drain our hot tub and it works great. The only problem is, the suction is much faster than the pump
that pumps out the water so it fills up and shuts off before the pump can drain the vac.
What I do now is try and time it to so that I pull the suction hose out of the water before it completely fills up to allow
the pump to catch up. A major pain since I'm not always accurate.
What I'm thinking of doing is drilling a small hole into the side of the vac and putting a small plastic tube along the outside
to act as a water level indicator. But before I do that, I don't know if it'll work on a vacuum and I may compromise the
suction by doing so.
Anyone ever do this or know of any shop vac type of device that has this from the factory? I would think there's a valid
reason that manufacturers don't have this on wet/dry vacs although it sure would be handy. I searched on the web and
didn't see anything specific to doing this.
-aki
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