HELP - New Pentair intelliflo vst 2 pump no suction

[tsainami]

The pump and Heater worked for about 2 days.


The heater itself is fine. Its just the pump... here are the symptoms


Turned on any mode (in this case egg timer, 2500 RPM set for 3 hours with a priming time of 5 minutes)


The Filter Pressure gauge jumps up to 20psi for a moment as the water is flowing and then down to 0.


Then It goes into its normal routine. Primes, water flow starts basket fills up and the LED completes priming and motor speed lowers from Priming at 3450 to 2500 RPM.


The issue is that its complete priming in under 3 minutes and the egg timer starts at 2500 RPM with zero to no water flow.

I attempted the following troubleshooting steps

- Checked all O rings and they are in good condition.
- Cleaned the filter out and back washed.

The odd part about the filter... i've opened it before to clean it in the past and when i opened it this time the water was still sitting on the bottom of the filter. It didnt drain.

Thoughts?

 

[Jimrahbe]

t,

Welcome to TFP... A Great resource for pool owners looking for random thoughts...

Not sure the type of filter you have, but on most of them you have to removed a drain plug to get the filter to drain.

Your pump should only run at the priming speed until it primes, it does not run for five minutes unless it does not prime.

I'm a little confused when you say no flow.. Are you basing this on the actual feel of the water returning to the pool or the filter pressure gage?

Please let me know if you can feel the water returning to the pool at one of the eyeball returns.

The whole purpose of a VS pump is to push the water slowly at a low RPM, to reduce the cost of running it. You will not see the same flow as a single speed pump unless you are running it at a high RPM.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[tsainami]

thanks for the reply.

I see very little water returning to the pool. the basket inside the pump should always stay full of water when pressure is achieved. In this case its not.

 

[Jimrahbe]

T,

An IntelliFlo can suck paint off the side of a ship, so, if the pump basket is not staying full then it is most likely because something on the suction side has an issue.

Some things to check are..

The water level needs to be in the middle of the skimmer mouth.

The Skimmer's door (Weir) should be floating up and down with the water.. sometimes they get stuck.

The Skimmer's basket should be empty.

Depending on your pool, you may have several valves feeding water into the pump. Check to make sure the valves are open.

You could have a blockage between the skimmer and the pump.

Post a pic of your equipment pad and we might be able to help more.

Did you do anything to the pool or equipment just before the pump started not working?

Thanks,

Jim R.