Any thoughts on the following scenario:
Pond pumps are great but at the moment they're regularly blocked with leaves so I got to thinking about dirty water "shredder" type pumps that will mince up any leaves, frogs etc that find their way into the pump sump.
There were 2 thoughts that came to mind.
First was if the motor is quoted as 500W would the low-load consumption be significantly less i.e. if it was just pumping clean water to a head of around 2 foot compared to under maximum load if it was shredding lots of solid waste or would the 500w be a fairly static consumption balanced by increased pumped volume of liquid compared to low volume maximum head?
The other thought was, although these type of pumps are not designed with a 100% duty cycle in mind, if operated continuously submerged in "clean" (apart from the occasional willow tree leaf) cold water why shouldn't they sustain a 100% duty cycle? It's got to be less of a strain than chomping up turds and toilet paper on/off 50 times a day?
Cheers - Pete