What, me worry? (aka Spider Gasket insurance)

rdshackleford · Jul 4, 2016

I was searching for posts on leaks and noticed an awful lot of posts about leaking spider gaskets. I have had my fair share of spider gasket leaks, so thought I would post a pic of this simple 'improvement' I came up with this year.

No more worrying about wasting my water thru a spider gasket leak!

woodyp · Jul 4, 2016

Is that an added flat gasket under the multi port valve?

rdshackleford · Jul 4, 2016

Not sure what you mean. The improvement was a ball union valve on the waste port for redundancy.

RedBluePool · Jul 4, 2016

That's a nice bandaid and all but if the spider gasket gets bad enough your water from the pump can bypass the filter or it can even cause sand to blowback into your pool. I wouldn't rely on that for to long.

rdshackleford · Jul 4, 2016

My spider gasket and multiport valve are brand new. The ball valve is not a bandaid, it is redundancy against a blown gasket dumping pool water out the waste port. But if we are talking about reliability, I would not rely on the spider gasket nearly as long as I would rely on a ball valve.

RedBluePool · Jul 4, 2016

And that's why i have a cartridge filter. Easy to clean very efficient, lets more water to squeeze thru so your pump can pump as much gpm as it can. My filter doesn't have a multiport and it is rated to let 150gpm of water thru.

kimkats · Jul 5, 2016

That is a nice fix. Another thing you can do to help your spider gasket is to only turn the lever in one direction every time you need to turn it. I even went so far as to draw an arrow on it just in case someone else needs to turn it.

I LOVE my sand filter! It is SO much easier to take care of than a cartridge filter. I really like the fact I can do so much more with it like vacuum to waste where you cannot on a cartridge filter.

Kim:cat:

pondfishr · Jul 5, 2016

The clear tubing is cool in order to better see the discharged dirt... Great idea IMHO!!

rdshackleford · Jul 5, 2016

Good idea on drawing the arrow, I'll do that too. I love the clear PVC pipe. The dome on the sand filter is clear also. Really helps let you see what is happening in your pump/filter system.