DIY plumbing and pump project

[Flocculus]

Hello everyone. The forum was so helpful at getting me through my pool opening and month-long SLAM. Now hopefully you all can keep me out of trouble with my DIY plan for replacing my pump and plumbing.

With replacement of a few parts, the setup I inherited has been working adequately, but:

• There must be air leaks I haven't found since the pump always has some air in it and fails to prime about once a week (after being off for 12 hours). A couple of times, it has run for a couple hours without a prime and has been boiling hot.
• All of the joints are coated in silicone, and it looks like someone welded in a bunch of threaded connectors that seem likely candidates for leaks.
• There is a water leak, losing a good inch a day, I think from the pump housing, where the ground is always wet. The pump seals are bad.
• A few days ago (not when hot), the single-speed pump motor became really loud, up multiple decibels. The motor is just a year or two old. I opened the housing and didn't find any damage.

So I'm thinking of replacing everything between the 3 underground poly pipes and the filter - VS pump, replace the extra piece of poly with PVC, replace the valves.

• I hope that welding all possible joints should help the air leak situation.
• I'd like to keep the valves which aren't in bad shape, but I think they're welded to impossibly short pieces of PVC.
• I could keep the pump housing, but it's old, would need to be resealed, and would limit pump motor options.
• I get $400 from the power company for an Energy Star pump.

Of course, I need to get the parts before the pump dies and get the installation done in a day. Any obvious pitfalls? Any changes you would make? Is it an issue that the pump is sitting on the ground? Any recommendations on the pump?

Thanks for any voices of experience.
John

 

[BoHpool]

I don't have any knowledge of 'poly' piping.
It sounds like you need to rebuild the whole mess. I assume you mean slathering the joints with some sort of sealant when you say welding. IMHO that will not work.
I think keeping the valves would be a false economy and you would end with leaks and a real headache.
You should do a search for Black + Decker pumps.

 

[Flocculus]

Sorry for being unclear. By 'poly' I meant HDPE, which is what I believe the pipes running underground are made of. I'm not replacing those. And by 'welding' I meant joining PVC slip joints properly with cement because clearly all the slathering that has already been done does not work.

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[BoHpool]

HDPE! I am not very knowledgeable about pool building. I have never heard of HDPE piping. It seems like it would be hard to join.
The Black+Decker pumps are relatively inexpensive and have good reviews on Amazon.