I got those Joaquin Man blues...and lousy suction.

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J

Jeff Lebowski

Well-known member
May 29, 2014
86
Virginia Beach
Greetings to all and (golly), on my planet the summer is drawing to a close. No more Cohiba's while afloat in my personal, pleasure pit.

I got a ton of leaves, etc in my pool while out of town this week. My "monster" isn't functioning properly due to a suction leak in my solar heat system. It's leaking and I 'think' that it's also sucking air. As a result, the monster is hovering and has lost his negative buoyancy. He's belching constantly about a foot off the bottom. But, that's another problem.

HOW do you properly vacuum using the Pump / Filter / Waste function?

I hooked up to lower the pool (at its lip due to the heavy rain) and to remove tons of (golly) that the monster ignored.

Here's my Q...

1)

There are TWO inlets at the end of a T which carry water to the filter system. ONE, has a 90 degree shutoff, one does not. Which one shuts off the bottom inlet and gives max suck to the skimmer for vacuuming? The suction I get (at the vacuum head) is miserable and hardly enough to remove anything, yet the hose FROM the filter is pumping like gangbusters. I must have it hooked up wrong.

2)

Do you leave the strainer basket (at the PUMP, not skimmer) in place while vacuuming?

3)

At the pump outlet, downstream of the Salt Cell there is a T fitting and TWO lines to the pool. BOTH have 90 degree shutoffs. One is RED.

I assume one is for the four corner "jets" and one is for the main outlet, into which I plug the monster. Is that correct and should I modulate either one of those two valves? If so, for what purpose?

Thank goodness that B-Hole Joaquin has hooked east. Sorry for those folks in Bermuda.
 
All you are doing when vacuuming by hand is pulling water through your vacuum and sending it through the filter and back to the pool through the returns. Depending on how dirty your pool is you may have to backwash your filter during the process or when you are done. You need to backwash when the filter reads about 10 PSI higher than the PSI when the filter is clean. All waste does is bypasses the filter and takes water out of the pool. Make sure you are correctly priming your hose before you vacuum.

1. You need to shut off one line or the other and check the suction at the skimmer with your hand, chances are one of them is a skimmer line. This is assuming you have only one skimmer.

2. Always leave the hair and lint basket in the pump. Otherwise all that junk your vacuuming will end up stuck in your impeller.

3. You are probably correct about the return line valves. Once again you will just have to experiment but never turn both valves off at the same time or you risk serious damage to the equipment or you.

You need to realize that every pool is different and there is no way of us knowing exactly how it works without some experimentation and or pictures.
 
I was attempting to vacuum leaves and crud. The net was proving to be painfully slow and tedious.

Copy on the valve positions. That's what I thought. I will experiment.

Like an idiot, I ran it (briefly) without the basket. I think I must now have crud in impeller. I cycled back and forth between backwash and filter posn's and was able to manually remove some junk as it was spit back into the filter basket cavity.

I also disassembled the multi - port valve. It was clean and contained no debris.

Here's the rub, now my filter basket no longer fills to 100%. There is a half an inch of air at the top. It was always full and positively STUFFED with high psi water. It's still moving a significant volume of water, but I fear that its doing so at significantly lower pressure...my PSI gauge now reads about a third to one half of what it ought to. Its below the bottom needle. In fact, my gauge has NEVER risen more than a needle width or so from the null position established at spring start up. My pool doesn't get a ton of use and I seldom backwash after initial opening. The needle doesn't justify it.

May I assume that my current situation is caused by crud in the impeller?

And, is it possible...possible, that I have a clog in the plumbing between the skimmer port and the pump itself due to the amount of junk I was able to vacuum out? If so, how do I make that determination and how do I remedy that problem?

Many thanks to both of you for the inputs!!!

First time pool owner and at the end of my third season. I have LOVE having a pool!!!

So far I replaced the circuit board on the salt generator and the cell itself. I do my own open and close. All was possible with the advice and knowledge garnered here. You folks are top notch! :lovetfp:
 
May I assume that my current situation is caused by crud in the impeller?
Click to expand...
A better bet is some kind of obstruction between the skimmer and the intake at the pump. It could be either but the odds favor the suction issue first, then perhaps the impeller. The impeller is the easiest to check.
 
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