Can't get the pump to fully prime

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T

thedingo13

0
Jul 5, 2013
34
Commack, NY
I just tried to open our pool for the year, and the pump simply will not fully prime. It pulls water, and air and water spits out of the returns, but no prime. If anything, the pool is overfull, so that is not the issue. I have checked the pump basket seal, and it appears to be seated correctly. I am imagining that I have a leak on the suction side, but I cannot think of what it would be. There are no valves on that side. One union and that's it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Chris
 
What's happening in the skimmer while the pump is having conniptions? No whirlpool? The weir (flapper) isn't stuck from being up so high? Are the pump drain plugs installed tight? How long did you run it, and did you open the air bleed on the filter? After I do a cleaning on my DE filter, it spits water out the bleed pretty quick, but it still takes a couple minutes to settle down, and then I can bleed off even more.
 
Check the union, making sure there is an O-ring in it. Check your skimmer for any cracks etc. Look over all exposed plumbing, and wiggle it all while looking at it. Sometime a hairline crack will allow air in, and no water out.
 
Hi Richard - good question on the skimmers. In one skimmer I have a pretty reasonable whirlpool ... the other is much less (but it is further away and that has been fairly typical). The water pull appears to be consistent, but relatively weak. The water level is high and it does not appear that the skimmers are being starved for water. All the gaskets appear to be in place.

I tried both in recirculate mode and through the filter, and the result has been the same. It took a long time to get the filter to fill with water ... and then the water spits out the valve, but weakly. If I close the valve and reopen it, I get more air. Overall, it just appears that the water pull is too weak. I can check the drain plugs again, but I would think that they would leak water if they were loose. I have a little bit of a leak by the chlorinator, but that is on the return side, and I wouldn't think it would affect this.
 
Hmmmm. Try this:

Shut the breaker off to your pump. Remove lid and basket. Feel around in the impeller intake. There could be some leftover trash in it, or a mouse made a nest in there over the winter -- assuming you have a winter that requires pump removal and storage.

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So - tried the impeller intake - nothing in there. I found that, if I poured water over the suction-side exposed plumbing, that the pump seemed to prime up. I tightened everything up on that side as much as I can, and now I have a much better prime, but there is still a lot of froth, and the returns are pushing a ton of air. I am guessing there is still something wrong with those connections (thought I feel I have tightened them as much as I can). Today I am going to try to disassemble the suction side and try to reassemble it. Maybe some teflon tape is needed.
 
thedingo13 said:
So - tried the impeller intake - nothing in there. I found that, if I poured water over the suction-side exposed plumbing, that the pump seemed to prime up. I tightened everything up on that side as much as I can, and now I have a much better prime, but there is still a lot of froth, and the returns are pushing a ton of air. I am guessing there is still something wrong with those connections (thought I feel I have tightened them as much as I can). Today I am going to try to disassemble the suction side and try to reassemble it. Maybe some teflon tape is needed.
Click to expand...
Threaded fittings and plastic pipe are a bad combination. If you do some searching using the word Teflon, you'll find people have had to do things like six winds of tape and a hefty coating of teflon pipe dope to get things to seal. Check out the search box and learn from others. You don't have to make every mistake yourself. ;)
 

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Ha - making all the mistakes myself is so much FUN though!

So - just for everyone else who has been following this thread - I disassembled the suction side of the plumbing and added teflon tape and silicon grease. Luckily one layer of each was enough to do the job, and now everything appears to be airtight. Now I just have to crank the filter non-stop to clear up the swamp. Thanks for everyone's help.
 
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