Hi colleagues. Thank you for all of the wonderful advice in the forums. I’ve learned a lot in the 4 years since we’ve had a pool at our new house. I’m looking for advice here:
The pool is an unground acrylic pool of about 13,000 gallons. It has the original cartridge filter which I’ve been told is quite old, and I’ve been considering replacing it with a sand filter as it doesn’t seem to filter the fine sediment. We have a pool robot that picks most of that up.
My dilemma, is that since day one there seems to be an air leak somewhere on the intake side. I’ve replaced the pump twice now, since the original and the warranted replacement (home warranty) both burned up when the pump lost its prime.
We had the home warranty company authorize pressure testing and the outgoing lines are free of leaks, but they don’t test the incoming lines.
The new pump is a variable rate Intelliflo pump, but I’ve found that it takes more than 10 minutes to prime - if it primes at all without adding water into the return basket. Fortunately, this is a better pump, so it hasn’t died or burnt out on me, but I have come home a number of days to find it’s lost it’s prime. I ran it on full speed most of the summer so it was fine, but I’m trying to save on money and whenever I set a period of time of slower rates, I come back and it’s lost prime.
What would you suggest I do to evaluate it? When I replaced the pump, I had my plumber install new shutoff valves as it seems like the bigger air leak is from the deep end drain, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the valve. Additionally, when the pump loses prime, it often backs up with air and the skimmer floats up and tips letting in additional air from that side.
I didn’t build the pool, so I have no idea where the PVC runs underground. My neighbor and my internet comes across my yard in PVC pipes buried, and my neighbors was crushed at some point - not sure if it was during pool installation or later. I’m worried that there is damage in one of the return lines that is causing the air leak (and maybe the fine sediment) but I don’t have obvious spots in the yard.
Is there a way to trace underground PVC plumbing without digging it up?
Would you recommend I hire workers to dig up the plumbing and trace it back to the apron looking for a potentially damaged area?
How would you suggest I approach this. It’s really frustrating to me, especially as I finally did a good job with opening and keeping the pool clean and balanced all season with mostly just bleach, a stabilizer, and occasional muriatic acid. I just want this to work!
Thanks in advance. My info is below in my signature.
Eric
The pool is an unground acrylic pool of about 13,000 gallons. It has the original cartridge filter which I’ve been told is quite old, and I’ve been considering replacing it with a sand filter as it doesn’t seem to filter the fine sediment. We have a pool robot that picks most of that up.
My dilemma, is that since day one there seems to be an air leak somewhere on the intake side. I’ve replaced the pump twice now, since the original and the warranted replacement (home warranty) both burned up when the pump lost its prime.
We had the home warranty company authorize pressure testing and the outgoing lines are free of leaks, but they don’t test the incoming lines.
The new pump is a variable rate Intelliflo pump, but I’ve found that it takes more than 10 minutes to prime - if it primes at all without adding water into the return basket. Fortunately, this is a better pump, so it hasn’t died or burnt out on me, but I have come home a number of days to find it’s lost it’s prime. I ran it on full speed most of the summer so it was fine, but I’m trying to save on money and whenever I set a period of time of slower rates, I come back and it’s lost prime.
What would you suggest I do to evaluate it? When I replaced the pump, I had my plumber install new shutoff valves as it seems like the bigger air leak is from the deep end drain, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the valve. Additionally, when the pump loses prime, it often backs up with air and the skimmer floats up and tips letting in additional air from that side.
I didn’t build the pool, so I have no idea where the PVC runs underground. My neighbor and my internet comes across my yard in PVC pipes buried, and my neighbors was crushed at some point - not sure if it was during pool installation or later. I’m worried that there is damage in one of the return lines that is causing the air leak (and maybe the fine sediment) but I don’t have obvious spots in the yard.
Is there a way to trace underground PVC plumbing without digging it up?
Would you recommend I hire workers to dig up the plumbing and trace it back to the apron looking for a potentially damaged area?
How would you suggest I approach this. It’s really frustrating to me, especially as I finally did a good job with opening and keeping the pool clean and balanced all season with mostly just bleach, a stabilizer, and occasional muriatic acid. I just want this to work!
Thanks in advance. My info is below in my signature.
Eric
