pool pump gets weak on vacuuming

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labbatsbrew

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Nov 17, 2012
28
Hello all,

I own a 12000 gallon pool chlorine pool with plater.

Hayward filter s244t sand filter

Emerson 1081 1.5 hp pool motor

Filter is 8 months old and have no idea how old the pump is. Seems to work fine and runs quietly... until I vacuum the pool. It will sound the same but slowly lose suction until it's borderline useless. The motor never stops running though. I'll turn off the pool filter and wait 30 seconds then restart and it's good as new for another 5 minutes or so of vacuuming.

No bearing issues or really any probelms until I fired the pool guy and used a 40' Helix vacuum hose, Hayward skim plate, and Hayward SP1068 Vacuum Head myself.

Any ideas?
 
Pictures....

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Looks to me like you have algae/debris in the pool. That is getting sucked into your filter and plugging it up, causing you to lose flow.

Have you backwashed recently? What is your normal psi? What does the psi drop to as your flow decreases?

Bama's question about air in the pump strainer basket could be another source of your loss of pressure
 
In the picture, you pool does not look clear which can indicate algae in the water. To me it just sounds like your filter is filling up with debris and slowing the flow. Do a very thorough backwash and/or open it up and rinse the sand and report back what the pressure is.

I would also recommend doing the OCLT to verify the presence of algae and then start the shock process as described in Pool School

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short ;)
 
The picture makes the water look a little green and cloudy - is it clear enough that you can see a quarter's details on the bottom? If so the picture is just misleading perhaps due to reflections of the sky and digital camera nonesense. If it isn't then follow the advice about checking for chlorine losses over night so you can determine if that is a problem.

Does the pool have main drain and a skimmer? Is the main drain suction closed when you vacuum? Have you tried vac to waste as well as to filter? If you have what happens - is it the same or do you have better suction for longer in one or the other of these conditions?
 
The cloudy water was an anomaly since I took that right after I scrubbed the walls.

PSI reads 0 when off.

I don't know where to put the handle when vacuuming. That could be an issue.

More pictures in a minute.
 
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Still some copper staining on the wall that you can see in picture two.

The third picture is the gauge that reads at 30psi when the pump runs.

The last picture has the main black handled valve that I'm unsure where to place it. The vertical valves left to right are...

-waterfall
-spray (the cooling spray nozzle on the poolside that sprays a fountain of water over the pool)
-poppet valves on the pool bottom that move the water around

I hope this is better information. As you can tell I'm new at this and I appreciate the help.
 

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What does the pressure gauge on the in-floor cleaner valve on the lower right of the picture read when the pump is on?
 
That gauge's needle doesn't move when I run the pump. I'm unsure if that's due to the gauge being broken or not. I can hear and sense plenty of water coming through the chamber there and the jets on the sides of the pool show a lot of water moving with the pump on.
 
Well, in that picture you have the black Jandy valve turned so that the floor cleaner is OFF ... so the gauge will not move. What happens if you turn (with the pump off) that black Jandy valve 180 deg?

EDIT: Also, you have 3 brown return valves and then the in-floor cleaner dome valve. What are the 3 brown ones? Not sure why one of them would run the pop up valves as it seems like you said before.
 
Rotated the black handle 180 degrees and the poppet valves in the bottom of the pool started working. LOTS of bubbles when they started. Then progressed to steady water. I assume I should leave the handle facing left. What happens if it's straight up or straight down?

Obviously I was wrong on the far right vertical valve. It turns the jets on and off on the sides of the pool. Should I keep those jets on or off? Will shutting that valve off affect the suction of the vacuum from the vacuum plate? What purpose do those jets serve other than to swirl water around?

The psi when the poppets were on showed 22psi on the gauge in the last picture.

I backwashed the heck out of the pool and the gauge in the next-to-last picture read 18 psi during the backwash and steady at 23 psi afterwards while running the pump.

The following are the current test results today (before I adjusted accordingly via the pool calculator)

FC - 1.4ppm
Ph - 7
TA - 90ppm
CH - 280ppm
CYA - 60ppm

I hope this helps....
 
Your CYA level is too high in comparison to your FC level. You want your CYA closer to 30-50ppm and FC at around 2ppm. Your pH reading seems to be inaccurate as well unless you just dumped a bunch of acid into the pool.

Anytime you vacuum algae off the walls, you want the multiport valve set to waste. What I would do is this. If you cannot clearly see your main drain at the deep end, shock the pool while brushing the walls, come back tomorrow, set the filter to waste and vacuum everything up. Do not mix up the water though. You want the dead algae on the floor so brushing will be pointless. Make sure you have a hose running to add new fresh water since you're dumping water. That will also fix your high CYA level.

FYI, when you shock, raise the level to 8-10ppm.
 
labbatsbrew said:
I backwashed the heck out of the pool and the gauge in the next-to-last picture read 18 psi during the backwash and steady at 23 psi afterwards while running the pump.
Click to expand...
That still sounds high, but better than before. You should backwash again when that goes back up 25%. If that happens quickly, that would be another sign that you need to the do the shocking process: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/shocking_your_pool Understand that it is a process and not a one time event.

labbatsbrew said:
The following are the current test results today (before I adjusted accordingly via the pool calculator)

FC - 1.4ppm
Ph - 7
TA - 90ppm
CH - 280ppm
CYA - 60ppm
Click to expand...
What are you using for a test kit? Typical accurate test kits can not measure FC with decimal precision. As mentioned above, 1.4 ppm is much too low for your 60 ppm cya level, for a cya of 60 your FC level should be 5 ppm. Having FC this low is another indicator that you might have algae and need to do the shocking process.
 
I also want to point out the the shock level of FC for a CYA level of 60ppm is significantly higher than 8-10ppm. Review the Chlorine / CYA chart and the Shock Process in Pool School to see that the shock level to maintain through the entire process is actually a FC of 24ppm.

Likely you should be leaving the floor popups on all the time and only switching the valve if you want to rub the other features. The wall returns are usually just a secondary return to use if the floor system was not working properly.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short ;)
 
Anytime you vacuum algae off the walls, you want the multiport valve set to waste.
Click to expand...
Nope. Vacuuming to waste is strictly a personal choice.

Many areas of the country experience water restrictions from time to time which makes the "waste" setting impractical as well.

You can rid a pool of algae and make it crystal clear without ever using the "waste" position. Adequate chlorine (shock value) and correct filtration are the keys to getting algae out of your pool.
 

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