Sorry for the lengthy post but I want to make sure I cover everything. my wife and I recently purchased a home with a pool. Its roughly 15 x 30 20k gallon inground pool. When we purchased the home we had a few contractors come out to look at the surface and equipment as they were on the last third of their life. All contractors agreed we could wait on the resurface for another 5-7 years but that we should replace the equipment and re-level the pavers on the patio as they were washing sand into the pool. We had our pavers re-leveled and since then I've had nothing but issues with the pool. There was a ton of cavitation and air coming through the pump. The old pump wouldn't prime so I chalked it up to my pump finally quitting on me.
I installed a new 1.6hp Jandy VSP pump, salt chlorinator and Jandy sand filter. Prior to the install I advised the tech that my pool was acting funny and not priming. He said all areas were pulling water and went ahead with install. Well...it was not fine. Same issue was occurring with the brand new equipment. We determined that the Skimmer was not pulling. We tried clearing the lines with pressurized air, and messing with valves and couldn't get it to work. We replaced the O-rings on all valves and checked for leakage at the pump side and saw no air escaping.
Fast forward a week I just had a leak detection/repair company come out to see if maybe the paver installers cracked a pipe or clogged the drain with concrete. We tested all the lines and the skimmer failed pressure tests, and static tests. Then it passed another static test. We then ballooned filled with a water hose to pump water into the skimmer and the pump seemed to prime a little better. It looked as though it was allowing water through but not air? In the 10 years the gentleman has been working on pools he said he has never seen anything like this. The odd thing is that my main drain and spa main drain cant keep my pump primed either. We had our paver people dig up the area where they were cutting into the concrete and did not find any leaks or cracked pipes.
My question I guess is this, does anyone have a hypothesis on what this could be? The service tech thinks it could be a cracked pipe with a clog which is why I'm seeing almost no significant water loss. I don't want to keep speding $ on techs who cant figure out what is wrong. Any suggestions on companies that could assist in the Tampa Bay Area? Also, am I better off forgoing the techs and just having someone come out and re-plumb the pool? What would something like that cost if anyone has experience re-pluming the main drain, spa and skimmer.
I installed a new 1.6hp Jandy VSP pump, salt chlorinator and Jandy sand filter. Prior to the install I advised the tech that my pool was acting funny and not priming. He said all areas were pulling water and went ahead with install. Well...it was not fine. Same issue was occurring with the brand new equipment. We determined that the Skimmer was not pulling. We tried clearing the lines with pressurized air, and messing with valves and couldn't get it to work. We replaced the O-rings on all valves and checked for leakage at the pump side and saw no air escaping.
Fast forward a week I just had a leak detection/repair company come out to see if maybe the paver installers cracked a pipe or clogged the drain with concrete. We tested all the lines and the skimmer failed pressure tests, and static tests. Then it passed another static test. We then ballooned filled with a water hose to pump water into the skimmer and the pump seemed to prime a little better. It looked as though it was allowing water through but not air? In the 10 years the gentleman has been working on pools he said he has never seen anything like this. The odd thing is that my main drain and spa main drain cant keep my pump primed either. We had our paver people dig up the area where they were cutting into the concrete and did not find any leaks or cracked pipes.
My question I guess is this, does anyone have a hypothesis on what this could be? The service tech thinks it could be a cracked pipe with a clog which is why I'm seeing almost no significant water loss. I don't want to keep speding $ on techs who cant figure out what is wrong. Any suggestions on companies that could assist in the Tampa Bay Area? Also, am I better off forgoing the techs and just having someone come out and re-plumb the pool? What would something like that cost if anyone has experience re-pluming the main drain, spa and skimmer.