Newbie question: How to clean pump strainer basket without a flood?

[poolfngy]

You are absolutely right--that will happen.
You can do either of two things:
1) Get some plugs. They look like tapered rubber corks with a wing-nut attached. You put them in the return, the low drain (if you have one) and the skimmer to plug the lines. Then you open the pump strainer. For threaded outlets, you can also use a threaded plug. Remember to remove the eyeball or screen first.

For give me for sounding dense here: if I plug the skimmer and plug the return and then open up the strainer lid, which is lower than the level of water in the filter, won't that still cause the filter water to backwash into the pump and out the strainer lid? Or is there a vacuum created in the filter because there is no air available to displace the exiting water?

2) You plumb in ball-valves to isolate the pump from those lines to clean the pump's basket.

1) is cheap but you have to do it everytime
2) is a little work but it make shutting down instantaneous.

I like instantaneous! If I can get it to work with plugs first then I'll go down the path of ball valves.

Thanks!