Cartridge filter filling with air

[athorman]

Hello all,
Thank you in advance for any advice, this is my first post, however I am a long time lurker / reader of TFP.

I do most of the maintenance / repair of my pool however I have a weekly 'chemical only' service. I know that I can ask my pool service but I would like to track this down myself if possible. I have saved myself hundreds (thousands?) of dollars working on my own pool!

The issue that I am having is that when my pool filter runs overnight the cartridge filter fills with air, however it is only when my Hayward automatic cleaner is running. I have a 2 way valve and if I divert the suction to the skimmer only, I have no problems. The cleaner has a dedicated port in the side of the pool, and the skimmer has 2 holes in the bottom, which I assume that 1 goes to the main drain (2 of them with the new concave covers).

At the beginning of the season, I replaced the main drain covers with the newer style concave ones. I had the old style covers but one was broken. All season, I have been dealing with this air issue and I feel that it has something to do with the Hayward getting hung up on the covers... it eventually frees itself, but it spends a lot of time stuck on the covers.

I know that leaks in the system are a possibility, but I only have the problem when the auto cleaner is on??

The only other thing to mention, is the 'equalizer / diverter' valve at the bottom of the skimmer is not being used. When I bought the house 5 years ago, it was not in use, so I never messed with it.

Background:
roughly 20,000 gal play pool in AZ with Pentair single speed pump and cartridge filter with 4 small filters inside. Pump runs for about 6 hours nightly on a timer.

Any ideas? Thanks again TFP!!

Andrew in AZ

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello Andrew! Welcome to TFP. It would appear you've done some of the investigating for us. It sounds like you've isolated any possibility of an air leak to the cleaner's dedicated port when the Hayward cleaner is operating. So you could assume the air is entering your system from either the plumbing from that dedicated port, or perhaps simply from the vacuum line attaching to your cleaner. Looking on-line I'm assuming your cleaner utilizes a separate vacuum line. If that's true, it's not uncommon for air to find its way into those hoses. I manually vacuum and I always get more air in my system when I vacuum. The important thing in all of this is that you never see so much air in the system that you could lose prime to the pump and run it dry.

 

[athorman]

Thank you for the reply. During my continued search on TFP I saw another similar situation where the fix was as simple as old hoses that connect the auto cleaner, like you referred to.

After work tonight, I will be inspecting those very carefully. That also gives me another idea, to vacuum the pool manually and see what happens!

thanks again,
Andrew