For the last few years I've noticed my pump surging from time to time (i.e. losing prime temporarily, but not to the pump where it starts a prime cycle) and I've always had small bubbles coming out of the return jets.
To me, this indicated a suction side leak, based on what I've read. The problem is that I am losing water... My pump runs constantly and if the suction side is under suction, it should be sucking in air and not pushing out water, so this may not be my leak...
I have a very simple plumbing configuration. A single suction line from skimmer to pump. It is 2" PVC Tigerflex (I am in Canada, we use flex piper underground here due to freeze/thaw cycle). Only fitting is at skimmer and at the pump. The bulk of the line is protected inside of a 8" undeground PVC pipe acting as a conduit.
On the return side, I have a 2 inch return line going out to the pool, where it splits in 2 with a Y fitting to the 2 jets. Not a big pool. 2 returns and 1 skimmer is all I have.
Some backstory, I had no noticeable water leak over the last few years. I have a cartridge filter (now 3-4 years old) that was getting pretty gummed up and could not be cleaned anymore. I could tell it was heavily restricting the flow so I decided to run the pump without a filter in the cartridge. Oh man did the water ever flow - pump basket was full to the top (as I remember it being years ago) and the return jets were just shooting out a ton of water. All good. The downside is that since taking the filter out last night, I lost about 1" of water in the pool. That additional flow seems to possibly have found a leak in the system.
With the supply chain issues, it's been hard to find a replacement filter but a new aftermarket one should arrive this week.
Any ideas on where to look or what to do? Logically, a pressure test would be in order - my pool guy is booked out for a week or two. Wonder if there's troubleshooting I can do myself...
Thanks!
To me, this indicated a suction side leak, based on what I've read. The problem is that I am losing water... My pump runs constantly and if the suction side is under suction, it should be sucking in air and not pushing out water, so this may not be my leak...
I have a very simple plumbing configuration. A single suction line from skimmer to pump. It is 2" PVC Tigerflex (I am in Canada, we use flex piper underground here due to freeze/thaw cycle). Only fitting is at skimmer and at the pump. The bulk of the line is protected inside of a 8" undeground PVC pipe acting as a conduit.
On the return side, I have a 2 inch return line going out to the pool, where it splits in 2 with a Y fitting to the 2 jets. Not a big pool. 2 returns and 1 skimmer is all I have.
Some backstory, I had no noticeable water leak over the last few years. I have a cartridge filter (now 3-4 years old) that was getting pretty gummed up and could not be cleaned anymore. I could tell it was heavily restricting the flow so I decided to run the pump without a filter in the cartridge. Oh man did the water ever flow - pump basket was full to the top (as I remember it being years ago) and the return jets were just shooting out a ton of water. All good. The downside is that since taking the filter out last night, I lost about 1" of water in the pool. That additional flow seems to possibly have found a leak in the system.
With the supply chain issues, it's been hard to find a replacement filter but a new aftermarket one should arrive this week.
Any ideas on where to look or what to do? Logically, a pressure test would be in order - my pool guy is booked out for a week or two. Wonder if there's troubleshooting I can do myself...
Thanks!