Hi Ladies and Gents,
Have another few questions about our pump and filter and we hope you can provide some insight. Our pump seems to lose prime and/or trip the breaker every couple of days, especially after heavy rains. This is usually indicated by either a still pool (when breaker trips) or one of our two return lines blowing out air bubbles (the other return line pushing nothing). When breaker trips we assume it’s due to overheating as the water in the basket is usually hot.
Last night we had a t-storm and woke up to see one of two return lines weakly pushing out air bubbles. The skimmer basket didn’t look full but was off center. Tried to backwash to no avail after 5 mins. Checked the pump strainer basket, which had some leaves and debris. Filled up w water to reprime, ran in backwash then rinse, but no flow either way. Reprimed and ran in rinse for two mins, which got the water flowing, but switched to backwash and nothing. We had to run to work so we couldn’t finish troubleshooting but in the meantime the pool is sitting stagnant on this hot day.
Usually after a few tries of repriming and shuffling between backwash and rinse we can get things flowing again, but then after running fine we have to do this again after a day or two.
We skim and check skimmer basket daily, and try to vacuum every couple of days or as needed. Our pool is surrounded by trees which looks nice but contributes to quite a bit of debris and foliage landing in the pool as you could imagine.
Some questions:
What might be causing the pump to lose prime/overheat/trip? Could it be a line getting clogged from debris? My stepdad worries that we might be getting air into the line based on the returns blowing occasional bubbles during normal operation. I’m also a little worried that the pump strainer basket knobs aren’t tight enough, how tight should it be? It looks like there’s no gaps and we try to tighten as much as we can but don’t want to strip the screws.
When restarting, should we backwash first, then rinse? That’s what the manufacturer instructions say but sometimes we find that rinsing first can get the water going when backwash does nothing.
How long should we run the pump in backwash before we try to reprime and start again? We heard it was a minute or two but sometimes we give it 5 minutes or so and nothing.
What would be the best way to avoid/prevent such situations? We just want to get a better read on whether this is normal or if it’s evidence of a problem somewhere in the system.
As always, any advice or insights you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks!!
Have another few questions about our pump and filter and we hope you can provide some insight. Our pump seems to lose prime and/or trip the breaker every couple of days, especially after heavy rains. This is usually indicated by either a still pool (when breaker trips) or one of our two return lines blowing out air bubbles (the other return line pushing nothing). When breaker trips we assume it’s due to overheating as the water in the basket is usually hot.
Last night we had a t-storm and woke up to see one of two return lines weakly pushing out air bubbles. The skimmer basket didn’t look full but was off center. Tried to backwash to no avail after 5 mins. Checked the pump strainer basket, which had some leaves and debris. Filled up w water to reprime, ran in backwash then rinse, but no flow either way. Reprimed and ran in rinse for two mins, which got the water flowing, but switched to backwash and nothing. We had to run to work so we couldn’t finish troubleshooting but in the meantime the pool is sitting stagnant on this hot day.
Usually after a few tries of repriming and shuffling between backwash and rinse we can get things flowing again, but then after running fine we have to do this again after a day or two.
We skim and check skimmer basket daily, and try to vacuum every couple of days or as needed. Our pool is surrounded by trees which looks nice but contributes to quite a bit of debris and foliage landing in the pool as you could imagine.
Some questions:
What might be causing the pump to lose prime/overheat/trip? Could it be a line getting clogged from debris? My stepdad worries that we might be getting air into the line based on the returns blowing occasional bubbles during normal operation. I’m also a little worried that the pump strainer basket knobs aren’t tight enough, how tight should it be? It looks like there’s no gaps and we try to tighten as much as we can but don’t want to strip the screws.
When restarting, should we backwash first, then rinse? That’s what the manufacturer instructions say but sometimes we find that rinsing first can get the water going when backwash does nothing.
How long should we run the pump in backwash before we try to reprime and start again? We heard it was a minute or two but sometimes we give it 5 minutes or so and nothing.
What would be the best way to avoid/prevent such situations? We just want to get a better read on whether this is normal or if it’s evidence of a problem somewhere in the system.
As always, any advice or insights you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks!!
