Pump basket no water?

[mikegmi2]

I have sorta' dropped out of this thread but I will say this......Underground leaks are possible but they SELDOM exist. Every effort should be made to discover the leak above the surface which is where it is maybe 98% (or more) of the time.

For sure duraleigh. I feel I have got to that point as I have spent a lot of time testing and troubleshooting everything I can above ground. I am planning to do a bit more testing above ground this weekend before I get out the shovel and power drill again.

Something I didn't share...when I dug to find the T joint where my suction line goes out to each side of the pool, I had a huge clue for where to dig...the decking boards in a couple areas had newer stainless steel screws...so someone dug here before I did and perhaps fixed the problem in that area...but from what I have seen and shown in this post, wouldn't most agree based on finding metal worm clamps underground it would lead one to believe there surely may be an air leak underground?

Also, the video I posted...it sounds like air is in the suction line at that point...which means air is getting in either at that point, or further up the lines toward the pool/skimmers, correct? Meaning there has a be an underground leak, right?

 

[Etchase]

Was wondering what the final solution was to this problem?

 

[mikegmi2]

I haven't had time to pull up more of my deck boards and dig in other areas in search of the leak. After spending 4 hours on 2 separate occasions, it became not worth my time here in Michigan where summer is short...so I decided to enjoy the pool rather than work on it. I will try again when it starts to cool off.

Yes I have an air leak, but the pool functions fine with it. I actually figured out I can slightly crack open my air relief valve on my sand filter and constantly allow a bit of air to leak out, which prevents the system from filling with air and I don't get bubbles in the pool.

I also plan a double/triple check all my above ground stuff as well...but for now enjoying summer.

 

[mikegmi2]

One update, as I had to do some necessary investigating.

Came home from a 1 week vacation, and although my friend that was watching my pool put chlorine in like I asked, he forgot to clean out the skimmer baskets! 9 days worth of gunk built up in my skimmers and had the flow extremely low. It seems as though the pressure built up and built up, and something gave out...making my air leak worse...to the point I was only showing 5-6 PSI on my filter gauge.

I cleaned out all the gunk first, from skimmer baskets and pump basket...yet the PSI was still 5-6. Crud. So I re-lubed the pump basket O ring, no change. I then put silicone on the first few threads of the inlet pipe going onto the pump basket, took apart the union a few inches before the inlet and re-lubed that...boom I was back to around 16-17 PSI, great! This was yesterday evening...but today it was back down to 10psi. Low flow.

So I REALLY got into the pump lid. Looked it up and down. Took my finger to make sure there was nothing in the o-ring crevasse...and felt a little bump. What's this? Some sort of glue or epoxy? It was a few millimeters circumference, and really stuck to the pump basket good. Scraped it out best I could, cleaned the bottom of the lid to make sure that also had no foreign material on it...put the lid back on and boom, back up to 20psi!

Unreal. I must have taken that lid on and off 7-8 times, re-lubed it...how was I to notice this little speck of glue or whatever that was?

I do still have an air leak, although it is much smaller now that the lid seems to be fixed...detective work continues for now.

Just wanted to share this in case anyone else comes across the same problem, make sure there is NOTHING in the area where your o-ring is seated on the pump basket. I couldn't even see this speck of glue with my eyes until I barely felt it with my finger.

 

[duraleigh]

The pump basket o-ring is the MOST common place for a suction side leak. They are ALWAYS pretty hard to find but pretty easy to fix once you locate them.

Suction Side Air Leaks

If you see air bubbles coming out of the return lines in your pool, you likely have a leak. Some signs that a suction side plumbing leak has occurred include: Read more

www.troublefreepool.com