Turcotte Heat Pump problem...restricting flow?

[Lou_III]

I think the my Turcotte heat pump is restricting the flow of water out the jets of my pool. I close the pool myself but since buying the house I always get the same guy to help me blow out my lines as I'm not comfortable doing this myself. Oddly last fall he could not blow out the lines to the jets without disconnecting the heat pump's intake hose. This had never been a problem in years past and he was using the same blower he always does so I kind of expected a problem when opening the pool last week.

Basically I was getting very little flow from two my my jets. When I bypassed the heat pump by simply tying the input and output hoses together I got awesome flow and my pump primes super fast (which it usually struggles with but I had assumes was normal.) So looking into the heat pump I see there is a check valve at the top of it. Is it more likely the check valve is broken or that it is clogged with some debris? If its debris how would it get past the filter? Is it easy to take apart. It looks to be made out of white PVC pipe type material and has "Hand Tigheten" embossed on it so I assume it is easy to take apart? I know that it is exactly five years old as the previous home owner had just bought it but not run power to it yet.
Is this a typical lifespan for a checkvalve? Is this a common problem or something abnormal? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, I just found this forum and have been reading for a couple hours. Awesome, wish I had found it years ago.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Can you take a pic of it?

If it's as you describe, then I'd take it apart and clean & inspect it. You might not need the check valve at all and can just take the guts out of it. That should remove any obstruction caused by it. While you're at it, be sure to inspect the entire water path for obstructions as well.

 

[JasonLion]

Check valves can get debris stuck in them so they don't open/close all the way. All of the better check valves can be opened up so you can check them and either clean them out or repair them as required.