Pool use vs SWG level?

[Tegguy]

Only time I ever get air in my system like that is when I clean my pump basket out, or check my salt cell.

Yeah I don't know if maybe last time I cleaned the filter or pump if air air pocket got trapped somewhere and the slower pump speed helped lodge it loose. It's weird.

 

[Orion7319]

Yeah I don't know if maybe last time I cleaned the filter or pump if air air pocket got trapped somewhere and the slower pump speed helped lodge it loose. It's weird.

Could be. I wouldn’t worry about it unless it does it consistently. Seems like I had an air bubble in my system the other week right after I opened the pool that was a bit stubborn for a while. Eventually I just bled some water and air out from the top of the filter.

 

[Tegguy]

Could be. I wouldn’t worry about it unless it does it consistently. Seems like I had an air bubble in my system the other week right after I opened the pool that was a bit stubborn for a while. Eventually I just bled some water and air out from the top of the filter.

Unfortunately I just got home from dinner and noticed it was doing it again. Bumped the pump speed up and got a lot of air out of the return (only one). Any ideas on what the cause could be or how I could troubleshoot it?

 

[Tegguy]

Unfortunately I just got home from dinner and noticed it was doing it again. Bumped the pump speed up and got a lot of air out of the return (only one). Any ideas on what the cause could be or how I could troubleshoot it?

I was looking at the equipment area today and noticed there was an air pocket in the check valve that is just after the skimmer on my spa side of everything. I set it to the spa returns only and bumped the pump speed up until it cleared and then set everything back to where it was. We will see if this cures it. Perhaps the air pocket is from the last time I cleaned the filter.

 

[Tegguy]

Well I just checked the check valve and it's back to doing the same thing and the return is bubbling a little bit.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Orion7319]

Well I just checked the check valve and it's back to doing the same thing and the return is bubbling a little bit.

Anyone have any ideas?

You might want to consider doing or having a leak test done. I had one last summer because I had a leak somewhere. Guy came in with scuba gear and tested all the pipes. Turns out the leak was due to a gap between my skimmer and pool wall, fixed it with some epoxy.

 

[Tegguy]

You might want to consider doing or having a leak test done. I had one last summer because I had a leak somewhere. Guy came in with scuba gear and tested all the pipes. Turns out the leak was due to a gap between my skimmer and pool wall, fixed it with some epoxy.

Don't say that. How much did that cost you?

I have activated my heat pump bypass valve and I still have what appears to be an air pocket in my check valve however, the return so far isn't bubbling.

 

[Tegguy]

So just an update I went to clean out my skimmer's and the water flow didn't look like quite enough (at least to me the person who knows nothing). There were lots of dead nats and stuff on the surface through the entire skimmer surface and the water flow over the little door didn't seem like it would be enough for leaves and stuff. so I bumped the pump up to 1600 RPM. I have 2 skimmers on this pool so that probably is playing into the pump speed

On the good news side the FC is now up to 6

 

[Orion7319]

Don't say that. How much did that cost you?

I have activated my heat pump bypass valve and I still have what appears to be an air pocket in my check valve however, the return so far isn't bubbling.

$500.00 I think. It was money well spent because they did find the leak and now I know that the 40 ish year old underground lines are fine. However on second thought, as long as you aren’t loosing water then it’s probably not necessary. I am relatively new to a VS pump myself. To be honest , I don’t really know what their quirks are below 1700 RPM as my pump trips my GE branded GFCI breaker at anything lower then that speed. Could just be a normal thing to have air pockets in the lines at lower speeds as the pressure drops?

 

[iflyjetzzz]

Its the water temp.. and the angle of the sun. This is the time of the year when things are warming up and the sun is creeping higher in the sky, so the affect of UV degradation becomes more pronounced. Its easy to think you have your SWG dialed in.. and then things go south because you forgot to take into account the effect of the change of the seasons. My second year with my SWG was like that as I tried to figure out how to adjust for the changing conditions.. but its easy.. just turn the % knob up a little as your FC starts to drop due to the demand.

This is a great post. Tegguy, be prepared to tweak your SWG % output quite a bit until you've got it dialed in. Even at that, any change in the pool will cause you to change % output.

In my case, I live in Las Vegas but my pool has an electric cover on it so the water's usually not exposed to sunlight. I'm also out of town quite a bit so I can run my SWG at 20% for 2 hours a day and it's fine; keeping my FC stable at ~7-8. Until the pool gets used (I usually use it at night so it still doesn't lose much chlorine due to sunlight).
This last week, we've had out of town guests. I wasn't home the first couple of days (they used the pool during the day) so I didn't have a chance to check chlorine levels. When I got home, FC was down 1. I set my SWG at 100% and started running my pump for 24 hrs/day. The pool continued to be used daily during the day so it took me ~3 days to get the FC back up to ~7-8.
I've now got my SWG set to run at 100% with my pump running 12 hrs/day. Since our guests will be leaving in a couple of days, I'll wait until they're gone to dial back on my SWG output.

Now, as far as your leak goes. Please make sure to rule out bubbles from the SWG. SWGs produce bubbles as a byproduct of the chemical reaction that turns salt into chlorine. There are technical papers out there that explain it much better than me, but I really noticed the SWG bubbles in my pool the last couple of days.
For my pool, the SWG bubbles are very small. They have been coming out of one of my floor jets constantly while I've been running the SWG ... I hadn't noticed this before, as I rarely have to run my SWG this much.
I've had a leak before and the bubbles were much bigger for me and they came out of multiple floor jets.
So just to make sure that those bubbles are a leak and not your SWG, turn off the SWG for quite a while (I don't know how long it takes for the SWG bubbles to stop so maybe give it 30 minutes with SWG off?) while the pump is running and see if you still have bubbles. That would definitely allow you to rule out bubbles from the SWG.

 

[Tegguy]

$500.00 I think. It was money well spent because they did find the leak and now I know that the 40 ish year old underground lines are fine. However on second thought, as long as you aren’t loosing water then it’s probably not necessary. I am relatively new to a VS pump myself. To be honest , I don’t really know what their quirks are below 1700 RPM as my pump trips my GE branded GFCI breaker at anything lower then that speed. Could just be a normal thing to have air pockets in the lines at lower speeds as the pressure drops?

Not sure about the air pockets. I've been meaning to do a bucket water loss test just to verify I don't have any leaks.

Now, as far as your leak goes. Please make sure to rule out bubbles from the SWG. SWGs produce bubbles as a byproduct of the chemical reaction that turns salt into chlorine. There are technical papers out there that explain it much better than me, but I really noticed the SWG bubbles in my pool the last couple of days.
For my pool, the SWG bubbles are very small. They have been coming out of one of my floor jets constantly while I've been running the SWG ... I hadn't noticed this before, as I rarely have to run my SWG this much.
I've had a leak before and the bubbles were much bigger for me and they came out of multiple floor jets.
So just to make sure that those bubbles are a leak and not your SWG, turn off the SWG for quite a while (I don't know how long it takes for the SWG bubbles to stop so maybe give it 30 minutes with SWG off?) while the pump is running and see if you still have bubbles. That would definitely allow you to rule out bubbles from the SWG.

I tried to catch an image of the bubbles but failed right now. They are now small since I increased the pump speed but the check valve still has what appears to be an air pocket inside of it but I'm not sure how it can get there unless there is a leak and the air side of the spa jets is letting air in somewhere but considering that only happens right at the jets I'm not sure that possible. When I stop the pump the check valve water drains which is also a little confusing. Here are a couple pictures of the pump (couple air pockets but I think it's normal) and the check valve.

I might try to upload a video later to show everything better.

 

[iflyjetzzz]

I tried to catch an image of the bubbles but failed right now. They are now small since I increased the pump speed but the check valve still has what appears to be an air pocket inside of it but I'm not sure how it can get there unless there is a leak and the air side of the spa jets is letting air in somewhere but considering that only happens right at the jets I'm not sure that possible. When I stop the pump the check valve water drains which is also a little confusing. Here are a couple pictures of the pump (couple air pockets but I think it's normal) and the check valve.

I might try to upload a video later to show everything better.

You're talking about air bubbles you can see through those plastic covers? Sometimes I've had bubbles there and sometimes I haven't- since day 1 of my system operating. I've never really watched them; their presence has never negatively impacted my pool.

Did you turn off your SWG for a period of time to see if the small bubbles coming out of the return line disappeared?

 

[Tegguy]

You're talking about air bubbles you can see through those plastic covers? Sometimes I've had bubbles there and sometimes I haven't- since day 1 of my system operating. I've never really watched them; their presence has never negatively impacted my pool.

Did you turn off your SWG for a period of time to see if the small bubbles coming out of the return line disappeared?

I tried before when the pump speed was lower but didn't notice a difference. I need to do it again but got too busy with life today to do this.

On a side note my FC is up to 10.5 today so I backed off on the pump run time by 2 hours to see what it does to the FC level

 

[Orion7319]

I tried before when the pump speed was lower but didn't notice a difference. I need to do it again but got too busy with life today to do this.

On a side note my FC is up to 10.5 today so I backed off on the pump run time by 2 hours to see what it does to the FC level

My pool temp went a bit over 5O today, so I ran my salt cell for a while at with the pump at a lower RPM. It was spitting out bubbles like crazy. I played around with it turning the pump speed up, turning the salt cell up and down just to play around and experiment with those variables. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought I surely had a leak somewhere. I have never seen it make this many bubbles before so I’m wondering if the water temp might have something to do with it? I’m still getting sporadic overnight freezing spells here so I’m not going to run it for a while, but it was interesting seeing just how much bubbling and gushing it can create.

 

[iflyjetzzz]

My pool temp went a bit over 5O today, so I ran my salt cell for a while at with the pump at a lower RPM. It was spitting out bubbles like crazy. I played around with it turning the pump speed up, turning the salt cell up and down just to play around and experiment with those variables. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought I surely had a leak somewhere. I have never seen it make this many bubbles before so I’m wondering if the water temp might have something to do with it? I’m still getting sporadic overnight freezing spells here so I’m not going to run it for a while, but it was interesting seeing just how much bubbling and gushing it can create.

That's why I suspect Tegguy's bubble problems are just the SWG running.
I hadn't noticed the amount of bubbles in my pool either, but that's because I rarely run the SWG at 100% output and low pump speeds. My pump speed has historically been rather high so that the floor jets stir up the water better to self-clean the pool. At low pump speeds, my floor jets don't even open all of the way.

And it's not the water temp. My water temp's in the mid-80s and I have a ton of small bubbles coming out of one of the floor jets with the SWG running at 100%.

I will have to look for the bubbles more often in the future.

 

[mknauss]

I have never seen it make this many bubbles before so I’m wondering if the water temp might have something to do with it?

We see that every spring. Seems low water temperature makes the bubbles smaller and they tend to have a surface tension such that they do not 'pop'. Some have posted pictures of a cloudy pool from them.

 

[Orion7319]

We see that every spring. Seems low water temperature makes the bubbles smaller and they tend to have a surface tension such that they do not 'pop'. Some have posted pictures of a cloudy pool from them.

Thanks, that makes sense. I haven’t run my salt cell this cold before, I’ve never run it below 60 degrees. I noticed them floating on the surface. Usually I just see them under the water.

 

[Orion7319]

That's why I suspect Tegguy's bubble problems are just the SWG running.
I hadn't noticed the amount of bubbles in my pool either, but that's because I rarely run the SWG at 100% output and low pump speeds. My pump speed has historically been rather high so that the floor jets stir up the water better to self-clean the pool. At low pump speeds, my floor jets don't even open all of the way.

And it's not the water temp. My water temp's in the mid-80s and I have a ton of small bubbles coming out of one of the floor jets with the SWG running at 100%.

I will have to look for the bubbles more often in the future.

The more I think about it, the more I think that if he’s not loosing water not to worry about it. I have noticed as well a small bubble in my pump lid when I run the pump below 3,000 RPM or so.

 

[mguzzy]

Has anyone tired collected the gas from these bubbles and tried running the Hydrogen pop test on them?

DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER>> DO NOT LIGHT YOUR HEAD ON FIRE, DO NOT HINDENBURG YOUR POOL! I WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO YOUR DARWIN AWARD!

 

[mknauss]

Ahhhh --- I plead the fifth!