Losing prime unless pulling from spa

[concretegardenstx]

When I started my pool for the season, I wasn't getting any flow to the pump unless I turned off the pull from the skimmer and pulled from the spa. I figured that maybe something was clogging the pipe from the skimmer, and once I started slamming the pool, whatever was there would die and get sicked into the pump basket. Once I start pulling in water from the spa, I can close off the spa drain and I start pulling from the skimmer. However, when the pool shuts off, and then starts again, with the spa suction turned off, I get nothing or just a trickle of water coming in. I can open up the spa suction, everything is fine, then turn off the spa suction once it is going, and it's fine. I don't see a lot of air in the pump lid, it's kind of like a bubble in the top of the dome, but that's it. When the pump starts there is air bubble coming out of the return jets initially, but it goes away.

I don't know if I am getting any suction from the main drain. I don't have a way to shut it off, but I can try shutting off both the skimmer and the spa and see what happens.

Any advice/insight?

Thanks!

 

[bradj]

I had this exact issue. It was a bad o ring in the 3 way valve that diverted from either spa drain or skimmer/Main drain. Pool builder replaced the valve internals and Orings and the problem went away.

I could run on spa drain all day and have no issues, if I rotated to pull from skimmer/main drain I'd get tons of air in the line. Overnight with the pump off the suction side of the pump would loose nearly all prime and it would take ~30 seconds to reprime everyday when turning on.

 

[concretegardenstx]

Great googly moogly! I have so many valves it's ridiculous, they probably all need o-ring/gasket replacement. Might as well do it all at once! At least that's better than a cracked/leaking pipe. Thanks!