First off, thank you all. I've recently taken charge of my pool from my old pool service using everything I have learned here. The water has never been better.
I am on to the equipment now and absolutely losing my mind trying to find a small suction side leak. I definitely started with a suction leak, and frankly I can't tell if I have fixed it. So far I have:
- ruled out skimmer and suction vac pulling air
- replaced the pump lid o-ring
- replaced the lid
- replaced the o-ring again
- redone the plumbing connection to the suction side of the pump
-added unions to the suction side skimmer and accessory lines in order to accomplish the above (no space for union between the jandy valve and the pump itself)
- rebuilt the suction side jandy valve
- replaced the drain plugs on the super 2 pump housing (and discovered the threads for the pressure side drain plug were stripped by a previous owner, had to Teflon tape and caulk a lot, may still have to drill out and tap threads for a larger plug)
- in desperation, silicone sealed every slip joint and the unions themselves
In the process, I have created or discovered numerous other issues... I had to redo the connection to the union on the pressure side of the port. I discovered that my slide valve was leaking to waste. This wasn't fixed by a replacement slider, so the entire slide valve got replaced. I had to redo most of the above ground plumbing because it had been previously modified several times. Now there are all unions for the future... And now I have discovered that the gasket, clamp, dome, and valve assembly on my sand filter are dry rotted and leaking to the point that the system depressurizes when the pump turns off. Parts are on the way.
Long story short, I am tired of working on this. However, I still have tiny bubbles in the pump when my VS pump runs at higher RPMs. The bubbles get cleared out faster than they accumulate. At low RPMs, where my pump runs most of the time, the bubbles don't get cleared out and slowly accumulate just under the lid. The pump doesn't lose prime or stop. There is never more than a modest sized bubble under the lid.
My questions are: is this necessarily a suction side leak, or is it just that bubbles normally in the water aren't getting cleared by the low pump speed? If this is still a suction side leak, how important is continuing to hunt for it? The pump is working, and I'm not losing an unexpected amount of water, but I don't want to be sitting on a growing problem unknowingly.
Thanks for your help and for reading my excessively long first post on the forum.
I am on to the equipment now and absolutely losing my mind trying to find a small suction side leak. I definitely started with a suction leak, and frankly I can't tell if I have fixed it. So far I have:
- ruled out skimmer and suction vac pulling air
- replaced the pump lid o-ring
- replaced the lid
- replaced the o-ring again
- redone the plumbing connection to the suction side of the pump
-added unions to the suction side skimmer and accessory lines in order to accomplish the above (no space for union between the jandy valve and the pump itself)
- rebuilt the suction side jandy valve
- replaced the drain plugs on the super 2 pump housing (and discovered the threads for the pressure side drain plug were stripped by a previous owner, had to Teflon tape and caulk a lot, may still have to drill out and tap threads for a larger plug)
- in desperation, silicone sealed every slip joint and the unions themselves
In the process, I have created or discovered numerous other issues... I had to redo the connection to the union on the pressure side of the port. I discovered that my slide valve was leaking to waste. This wasn't fixed by a replacement slider, so the entire slide valve got replaced. I had to redo most of the above ground plumbing because it had been previously modified several times. Now there are all unions for the future... And now I have discovered that the gasket, clamp, dome, and valve assembly on my sand filter are dry rotted and leaking to the point that the system depressurizes when the pump turns off. Parts are on the way.
Long story short, I am tired of working on this. However, I still have tiny bubbles in the pump when my VS pump runs at higher RPMs. The bubbles get cleared out faster than they accumulate. At low RPMs, where my pump runs most of the time, the bubbles don't get cleared out and slowly accumulate just under the lid. The pump doesn't lose prime or stop. There is never more than a modest sized bubble under the lid.
My questions are: is this necessarily a suction side leak, or is it just that bubbles normally in the water aren't getting cleared by the low pump speed? If this is still a suction side leak, how important is continuing to hunt for it? The pump is working, and I'm not losing an unexpected amount of water, but I don't want to be sitting on a growing problem unknowingly.
Thanks for your help and for reading my excessively long first post on the forum.
