Hi all, I'm a newbie to the forum, but not to above ground pools. Last summer my pump went out and I waited until this season to replace it with a new one. I had the Intex 2600 GPH sand filter pump and upgraded, or so I thought, to the Intex 3000 GPH pump. I also have a salt water chlorinator hooked to it and a skimmer basket.
Issue: The pump works fine with the salt water pump and skimmer basket attached. When I go to vacuum, using a manual vacuum with a hose that attaches to the inlet on the pool, (I remove the skimmer hose to do this) I immediately lose pressure and don't have enough suction on the vacuum to pick up much of anything. The strainer basket on the pump fills with bubbles and the water level in it drops about halfway. I never had this issue with any other pump I've used, and have had several over the years. I finally called Intex, twice, and after a lengthy discussion and no solution, they decided to send me a new pump which I'm still waiting on to arrive supposedly sometime later this week. My question, which they never seemed to understand (they kept telling me to hook the hose to the inlet and it would work...no, it doesn't work) is that the pump works fine until I hook the vacuum hose to it.
What I've done thus far: Make sure the hose is full of water and no air in it. I even read on here about holding it to the outlet jet to fill with water and then hook it to inlet. Didn't work. Took all the fittings off, checked gaskets and et, put them back on, replaced one hose between pump and inlet at pool 'just because' and still doesn't work. Checked the gasket on the strainer basket, seems to be fine. It doesn't seem to suck any air until I hook up the hose and the hose fittings are tight and doesn't seem to have any leaks that I can see. The hose is actually almost brand new, bought last year just before our pump went out so we really didn't use it too much, but it did work at that point with no issue. The only other thing we've changed is buying a new vacuum head. We also did replace the outlet jet thingie (sorry whatever it's called) with the new one that came with the pump, but didn't change the inlet because it had a strainer and no place to hook a vacuum hose or the skimmer hose. I do notice that the outlet has a air release valve on it (guess that's what it's called?) and the original plunger which we put back on it also has one. The new valve is more open with a black sort of cap that goes on top. The plunger valves have the screw in kind. What are these for anyway? Even though it's on the outlet side we're thinking of replacing the new one back with the old one, though from what I've read and researched, if there is an air leak causing the issue, it should be on the inlet side between pump and inlet jet.
Oh, I've also backwashed and rinsed until I'm blue in the face. I also used the 21 grade silica sand better quality sand which it said to use. I don't understand why our old pump that had less power worked great, while this one which is suppose to be slightly more powerful doesn't work at all with the vacuum.
Sorry to be so long winded, trying to give enough info to maybe get some solution to the issue. Can anyone suggest anything else? I'm not sure a new pump is going to fix anything as the pump we have works great until the hose is hooked to it. Even the skimmer basket works great. In the meantime I can't clean the bottom of the pool. Thanks in advance!
Issue: The pump works fine with the salt water pump and skimmer basket attached. When I go to vacuum, using a manual vacuum with a hose that attaches to the inlet on the pool, (I remove the skimmer hose to do this) I immediately lose pressure and don't have enough suction on the vacuum to pick up much of anything. The strainer basket on the pump fills with bubbles and the water level in it drops about halfway. I never had this issue with any other pump I've used, and have had several over the years. I finally called Intex, twice, and after a lengthy discussion and no solution, they decided to send me a new pump which I'm still waiting on to arrive supposedly sometime later this week. My question, which they never seemed to understand (they kept telling me to hook the hose to the inlet and it would work...no, it doesn't work) is that the pump works fine until I hook the vacuum hose to it.
What I've done thus far: Make sure the hose is full of water and no air in it. I even read on here about holding it to the outlet jet to fill with water and then hook it to inlet. Didn't work. Took all the fittings off, checked gaskets and et, put them back on, replaced one hose between pump and inlet at pool 'just because' and still doesn't work. Checked the gasket on the strainer basket, seems to be fine. It doesn't seem to suck any air until I hook up the hose and the hose fittings are tight and doesn't seem to have any leaks that I can see. The hose is actually almost brand new, bought last year just before our pump went out so we really didn't use it too much, but it did work at that point with no issue. The only other thing we've changed is buying a new vacuum head. We also did replace the outlet jet thingie (sorry whatever it's called) with the new one that came with the pump, but didn't change the inlet because it had a strainer and no place to hook a vacuum hose or the skimmer hose. I do notice that the outlet has a air release valve on it (guess that's what it's called?) and the original plunger which we put back on it also has one. The new valve is more open with a black sort of cap that goes on top. The plunger valves have the screw in kind. What are these for anyway? Even though it's on the outlet side we're thinking of replacing the new one back with the old one, though from what I've read and researched, if there is an air leak causing the issue, it should be on the inlet side between pump and inlet jet.
Oh, I've also backwashed and rinsed until I'm blue in the face. I also used the 21 grade silica sand better quality sand which it said to use. I don't understand why our old pump that had less power worked great, while this one which is suppose to be slightly more powerful doesn't work at all with the vacuum.
Sorry to be so long winded, trying to give enough info to maybe get some solution to the issue. Can anyone suggest anything else? I'm not sure a new pump is going to fix anything as the pump we have works great until the hose is hooked to it. Even the skimmer basket works great. In the meantime I can't clean the bottom of the pool. Thanks in advance!
