I thought I'd post a quick update. I haven't tried the drain yet. By the time I had the opporunity, the rains had backed up the water into some of the sediment basins so it was somewhat pointless. The spring / summer in our area has been very dry. It would have been a good year to do more work; but it has been a busy year with lots of stuff going on. The lake has been on the back burner. The biggest personal event was getting married.

I do plan to drain the lake down before the rains hit this fall so I'm taking that old water off the bottom and preventing as much water from going over the overflow. I'd like to find a really good, relatively inexpensive 8" valve for the bottom end; but I'm not sure what type of valve would even be best and haven't taken time to scan ebay or the internet much.

I'll let everyone know how the siphon works (if it starts and does ok and also if it quits when I open the 2" valve - I'm pretty confident it will based upon the responses). I'll try to take some good pictures while I'm at it.

[Linked Image from i108.photobucket.com]