Filter: air pressure release valve weak

[ddas]

For years, every time I've opened the air pressure release valve at the top of my filter (in order to release air bubbles), it's violently spewed out water a few feet away. I understand this is normal.

About a week ago, I opened up the filter to drain it and clean the grid, and now, the release valve doesn't do that anymore; now it weakly dribbles water out of it.

But the pressure gauge on top of the air filter looks normal, which tells me the pressure inside is OK. The jets in the pool look normal. (I don't see air bubbles, and if I put my hand in front of them, they're definitely pumping water into the pool.)

Any thoughts?

Here's a video of me trying to open the air release valve:

http://youtu.be/Uveu1Aadmfk

 

[pwrstrk]

Have you tried cleaning the valve out ? Maybe something is obstructing it.

Does your pressure gauge go back to zero when pump is off ?

 

[ddas]

Pressure gauge does go to zero when the pump is off.

How do you clean the valve out? I didn't know that was possible.

 

[jblizzle]

I would turn the pump off, open the air release valve, and shoot a little compressed air into it. Likely some piece of gunk got dislodged and is now clogging the port.

Or take the filter lid back off and see if you can see the debris.

 

[duraleigh]

+1 what others have said. That whole assembly should break down into parts (check your filter diagram) and you will probably find a clog during disassembly

 

[ddas]

Thanks for the input.

I did the compressed air trick, but no change. So now the next step would be disassembling the filter again. I may wait a few weeks to do this, since I'm battling a small algae outbreak at the moment, so let me give the filter a chance to catch all the dead algae then it's worth opening it up and washing it all out again. I assume there shouldn't be any harm in that valve being clogged, since the pressure in the filter appears normal and I'm not seeing any air bubbles in the water.