At the beginning of the swimming season I replaced some of by broken grids with this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E06892/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 as it seemed like the best value. Everything worked perfectly for several months until about mid-July. All of a sudden we started seeing bubbles in the return jets. I backwashed and thoroughly cleaned the grids and manifold, but it didn't go away. I installed my stenner pump and replaced a few lines of plumbing going into the multiport valve thinking there was an air leak, but besides having chlorine inject into the return line, everything stayed the same.
A few weeks ago, the bubbles got worse and we started to see the return hiccuping and blowing a bit of DE into the pool each time. We can fix this for only a few minutes at a time by bleeding the air out of the filter. But no more than 10 minutes later, we see air and DE coming out of the returns. Now, I didn't like the air bleed design on the manifold that came with the new grids, so I bought this and put it on a few days ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055EMBQW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It seemed like a much better design. I installed it, made sure everything was tight and it looked like all was solved. Until the pump came back on several hours later and we saw the same bubbles and DE coming back into the returns. Bleeding the filter still only solved this for a few minutes. Figuring a suction side air leak was letting air into the filter, I took the filter and pump apart and thoroughly cleaned, dried, and applied Super Lube: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XBH9HI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 to the o-ring on the filter housing, the pump basket lid o-ring, and even the seal on the pump basket drain, which I then tightened securely with a ratchet. I immediately saw improvement with the flow int he pump basket. It was completely full of water and I could only see a small bubble at the top of the lid. I felt good for an hour or so, until I started seeing more bubble and DE shooting back into the pool. The last step I took only an hour ago was to take apart the filter and put the original manifold back on, figuring that the higher air bleed could help. It didn't. I still have the same problem.
I did a bit of searching thinking that an auto-bleeder could potentially solve this problem, and I saw some old threads of people trying to adapt one to work with the Pentair, but I didn't find any reports of success. I am nearly out of ideas, but before I go any further, I want to solicit the ideas of people with more experience on this forum.
My two thoughts were the pump is letting air in (it is old) or that it was the multiport valve (I don;t have a reason to suspect it, but I want to replace it with the one made for 2" PVC instead of using 1.5" threaded to 2" adapters.
Does anyone have any ideas? I feel like I am losing my mind and my wife is not pleased with how much time I spending on the pool when we aren't even swimming.
A few weeks ago, the bubbles got worse and we started to see the return hiccuping and blowing a bit of DE into the pool each time. We can fix this for only a few minutes at a time by bleeding the air out of the filter. But no more than 10 minutes later, we see air and DE coming out of the returns. Now, I didn't like the air bleed design on the manifold that came with the new grids, so I bought this and put it on a few days ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055EMBQW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It seemed like a much better design. I installed it, made sure everything was tight and it looked like all was solved. Until the pump came back on several hours later and we saw the same bubbles and DE coming back into the returns. Bleeding the filter still only solved this for a few minutes. Figuring a suction side air leak was letting air into the filter, I took the filter and pump apart and thoroughly cleaned, dried, and applied Super Lube: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XBH9HI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 to the o-ring on the filter housing, the pump basket lid o-ring, and even the seal on the pump basket drain, which I then tightened securely with a ratchet. I immediately saw improvement with the flow int he pump basket. It was completely full of water and I could only see a small bubble at the top of the lid. I felt good for an hour or so, until I started seeing more bubble and DE shooting back into the pool. The last step I took only an hour ago was to take apart the filter and put the original manifold back on, figuring that the higher air bleed could help. It didn't. I still have the same problem.
I did a bit of searching thinking that an auto-bleeder could potentially solve this problem, and I saw some old threads of people trying to adapt one to work with the Pentair, but I didn't find any reports of success. I am nearly out of ideas, but before I go any further, I want to solicit the ideas of people with more experience on this forum.
My two thoughts were the pump is letting air in (it is old) or that it was the multiport valve (I don;t have a reason to suspect it, but I want to replace it with the one made for 2" PVC instead of using 1.5" threaded to 2" adapters.
Does anyone have any ideas? I feel like I am losing my mind and my wife is not pleased with how much time I spending on the pool when we aren't even swimming.
