Silt in the intake at a Puget Sound job almost cost me a pump, until an old hand on the barge showed me the bucket trick

Olivia Lewis · 2026-10-22T03:35:04.75795+00:00

Last month on a dock inspection near Bainbridge Island my dredge pump kept choking on silt every 20 minutes and I was losing daylight fast. The senior diver on the barge told me to zip-tie a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut out over the intake as a crude pre-filter, and it worked so well I ran the rest of the shift without a single clog. Cost me about $8 in hardware and saved maybe 3 hours of pulling the pump apart on deck. Has anyone run something like this on deeper intakes, or does it just fall apart past 40 feet?

🐿️Pinecone Attack

Loading…

Silt in the intake at a Puget Sound job almost cost me a pump, until an old hand on the barge showed me the bucket trick | Commercial Divers - Pinecone Attack