Is Herbie the best?

I keep reading about how people are using the herbie method for their overflow's because its aparently silent. Im just wondering if those using this method all use a gate valve on the drain line? Ive always kind of thought that a gate valve on the drain is a bad idea in case anything gets caught in it? Anyway, I am in the process of re-doing my plumbing and thought that I could get away with no valves on the retrurn, or the drain and just adjusting the drain height by experimenting with diferent lengths of pvc going into the threaded bulkhead. But no matter the length of pvc I try, I keep getting this wave effect where the water level slowly rises, and then al of a sudden, flows out in this mad toiletflush sounding surge! Any ideas on what is going on here? Sorry Im kind of plumbing challenged I guess...

So you have gate valves on your drainlines then badfinger?

Jeff, what type of tank do you have? To do the Herbie method you need 2 drains, 1 runs at full syphon and the second is a backup in case it ever gets clogged. You cant really do the Herbie with a standard drilled tank that has a hole for a 1" bulkhead and a 3/4" bulkhead. I personally wouldn't trust a 3/4" pipe as my backup. However you can drill a hole in the back glass inside the overflow box to accomidate a 1" bulkhead for a backup drain. Don't use a stand ball valve for the herbie, it is WAY to hard to keep it consistant. I used a standard ball valve on my frag tank and hate it, I will be changing it to a gate valve shortly.

Edited by tcfab - December 19 2010 at 5:10pm