Pump basket no water?

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Tried plastic wrap and nothing changed. I also had a pool guy come by to quote me for a safety cover, and while he was here asked his opinion about my air leak. He checked a few things, turned the pump on and off a few times, and told me I likely have an underground leak. I actually tend to agree with him at this point...and over the weekend I did a bit of investigating.

The first image is some of the pool plumbing coming directly out of my brick pool house, which is buried in sand under my deck, about 10" below. The pipe with the two 90 deg bends is my suction line. You can really hear the cavitation and air gurgling when this pipe is exposed. I ended up flooding this entire area and the bubbles did not go away, on to the next spot.

I have 3 skimmers, and so my next goal was to find where the suction line had a Y or T joint to run to both sides of the pool. Luckily I found this on the first try, close to the pool, about 4 feet south of where I dug by the pool house. 2nd pic is of this T joint. You can really hear the gurgling from the air at this joint. Same thing, I flooded the whole area, checked my pump lid, and no change! The air leak wasn't coming from here either.

This is as far as I made it yesterday. Was a lot of work removing the decking boards, and digging. My next goal is to find the joint where the left suction line breaks out into 2 lines since there are 2 skimmers on the left side of the pool, and check this joint. after that, I will be left with simply digging up the whole line and checking everything for hairline cracks.

My one questions is - since I started at the pool equipment, determined that was good, and am now working my way out to the skimmers...the air leak has to be somewhere between where I did my last dig, and the skimmers correct? If air is gurgling in the suction line, it is getting in somewhere upstream of where I am hearing the gurgling, right? Meaning, between where I checked underground and one of the skimmers?
 

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Holy smokes! Did someone actually bury pipes connected with worm clamps? That is super sloppy. The first thing I would do is correct that with PVC slip fittings as you find them.
 
PoolGate said:
Holy smokes! Did someone actually bury pipes connected with worm clamps? That is super sloppy. The first thing I would do is correct that with PVC slip fittings as you find them.
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I thought the same thing initially, but if you look the PVC is the flexible type...can you even use slip fittings on that flexible kind of PVC? Maybe that's why they did it this way?
 
I also wanted to point out that I have a separate main drain plumbing line, which is plugged. It T's in with the skimmer line on the inside of the pool house. The ball valve has been shut off ever since I purchased the home a year ago. I flood checked all this exposed main drain plumbing as well, which did not get rid of the air bubbles.

Since I don't seem to be losing water...is it ok to just "live" with an air leak like this? Yes it is a pain having to let the air out every day, and if I don't do it before the pump shuts off, the air pressure from the filter pushes the water back to the pool, which causes the pump to have to re-prime in the morning. But do people give up and just live with air leaks?
 

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mikegmi2 said:
I thought the same thing initially, but if you look the PVC is the flexible type...can you even use slip fittings on that flexible kind of PVC? Maybe that's why they did it this way?
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You can and should use PVC glue for flexible pipe. Worm clamps will eventually loosen up. If all of your PVC has these type of connectors underground, I suspect that is where your leak is coming from. I also would not live with a leak that is bad enough to cause the pump not to prime. The issue is it fills your filter with air. I would find it if it was me. That plumbing job, from every part of it that we can see, has Harry Homeowner written all over it.
 
PoolGate said:
You can and should use PVC glue for flexible pipe. Worm clamps will eventually loosen up. If all of your PVC has these type of connectors underground, I suspect that is where your leak is coming from. I also would not live with a leak that is bad enough to cause the pump not to prime. The issue is it fills your filter with air. I would find it if it was me. That plumbing job, from every part of it that we can see, has Harry Homeowner written all over it.
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Ok, and it seems they did use glue to join the flex PVC to the solid PVC in the first spot I dug right next to the pool house, as there are no worm clamps there. When I exposed that T joint with all the work clamps, I thought the same exact thing (this looks like Crud), but it turns out (based on my tests) this entire area is leak free. No water leaking out, and did not get rid of bubbles when I flooded the whole area with water. Maybe they glued it, and added the worm clamps as an extra line of defense?
 
For stubborn leaks that must be found what I would do is as I find a pipe, cut it and cap it and see if your leak goes away. If not, reconnect the pipe and move on to the next one. Once you find your pipe, follow that pipe until the leak is found.
 
PoolGate said:
For stubborn leaks that must be found what I would do is as I find a pipe, cut it and cap it and see if your leak goes away. If not, reconnect the pipe and move on to the next one. Once you find your pipe, follow that pipe until the leak is found.
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I think flooding the whole area where that T joint is essentially accomplished your "cut and cap" method, correct? If the whole area was flooded with water, and there was an air leak, the bubbles should have stopped...but they didn't.

This means, the leak must be further down the lines toward the skimmers. One of my skimmers is noticeably lower suction than the other 2...but this one is on the left side of the pool where there are 2 skimmers...and also further away from the pump...so this might just be due to the closer skimmer taking up more of the suction power? Or will it always be divided evenly?

My next time spent will be digging up the left side of the pool to expose more of the suction line, and the main goal is to find the T joint where the line divides for the 2 left side pool skimmers. I am hoping this will be where the air leak is.
 
mikegmi2 said:
I think flooding the whole area where that T joint is essentially accomplished your "cut and cap" method, correct? If the whole area was flooded with water, and there was an air leak, the bubbles should have stopped...but they didn't.

This means, the leak must be further down the lines toward the skimmers. One of my skimmers is noticeably lower suction than the other 2...but this one is on the left side of the pool where there are 2 skimmers...and also further away from the pump...so this might just be due to the closer skimmer taking up more of the suction power? Or will it always be divided evenly?

My next time spent will be digging up the left side of the pool to expose more of the suction line, and the main goal is to find the T joint where the line divides for the 2 left side pool skimmers. I am hoping this will be where the air leak is.
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No - My idea actually rules out that entire line, not just the joint.
 

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POINT 1
I started looking for other potential reasons/causes for air getting into your system Read an old post that talked about how flow restrictions can cause air bubble issues...and a test is to block off or restrict the flow of water back to the pool (turn the eyeballs 90 degrees). If your pump is sucking too much and there isn't enough water for it to suck, it can suck in air from somewhere.

Since my pool has a main drain line that is plugged, and I assume the 2hp pump I have was designed to run the main drain and 3 skimmers at the same time, maybe this could be an issue?

Jumping back in time to when I had a perfectly full pump basket, no bubbles whatsoever, this is right after I opened the pool and had just did a full sand replacement in my filter (all 600lbs). I am thinking that since it was all new sand, and those sand bags always have some 'fines' in them...smaller grains that eventually wash out into the pool, maybe these filer particles were restricting flow back to the pool, and allowing the pump basket to be filled with water?

I will try plugging a return line or rotating some of the eyeballs to restrict flow later today to see if this makes any difference.

POINT 2
My main drain is blocked/plugged on purpose. I assume this means they plug it right where the main drain is in the bottom of the pool? Which would mean most of the pipe that goes under the pool to the pump is full of air? If this is true, even though my main drain is plugged, it could also be a source of air leakage?
 
Your main drain was blocked for a reason. If that reason was a leak, blocking it at the pool end would only make the pool no longer lose water. The main drain line would still leak, air.
 
Wow you are getting a lot of air in the from somewhere. Where do those 2 branches go to? Is the flexible PVC glued and then clamped or just clamped? If just clamped, I would think you could remove one branch and cap it for a test to see which one of those lines is your culprit.
 
PoolGate said:
Wow you are getting a lot of air in the from somewhere. Where do those 2 branches go to? Is the flexible PVC glued and then clamped or just clamped? If just clamped, I would think you could remove one branch and cap it for a test to see which one of those lines is your culprit.
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If you look at my profile pic, the hole I dug is by the far back wall in the middle. The branches go to the left and right of the pool since I have skimmers on both sides.

I believe it is glued and clamped, but I am hesitant to rip it apart since based on my test of that whole area, none of it is leaking in air. I did just read this from another post:

"Its OK, just watch the air bubbles on the strainer. Too much vacuum may produce air bubbles which you may interpret as leak on suction. Keep the inlet pipe that goes to pump suction port at least 15" straight pipe. Pump suction side does not like bends/elbow close to the port/fitting."

Could my problem be my 2HP pump is too much power, especially considering my main drain is plugged and it is only sucking from my 3 skimmers? Perhaps I do not have a leak underground...and my problem is I am sucking in air from the inlet to the pump basket? I believe it is possible to have an air leak without a water leak, since air molecules can move through holes water molecules cannot.
 
Or, does my video make you think there is air getting in somewhere between that T joint and my skimmers? I don't know what a 'normal' sound should be of water rushing through that T joint, as opposed to water and air bubbles. If it sounds like water and air bubbles, that my reasoning would be that there is an air leak further up the pipe toward the skimmers.
 
Water alone in the pipes you will not be able to hear. What you are hearing is the air bubbles in the water. As far as suction and air, air has to come from somewhere. So just "too much suction" by itself is not going to create air. You have to have a significant leak from everything you've posted. If I starved my pump of water it would probably collapse my pipes before air appeared since my plumbing is 100% water tight. My pipes were pressure tested for 3 weeks when first installed only losing about 2 lbs of pressure during that time. Finding a leak is a tough job for sure. But if your filter is filling with air and your pump is losing prime due to the amount of air, you really have no choice. Perhaps you could pressurize the pipes and look for the leak that way. That's how the plumber leak tests everything.
 
Yea I was worried you'd say that, lol. It is just really weird that the day I changed my pump basket lid to the correct one (the pool company that opened the pool last year accidentally swapped the lids on the spa/pool pumps), and lubed 1 union O ring on the suction side right by the pump basket, everything was water tight for over a week. Now all of a sudden an underground leak.

I'll keep digging though, because now that this T joint was tested and doesn't seem to have any leaks, it has to be where I think 1 more T connection will be found...where the suction line breaks out into 2 for the 2 skimmers on the left side of the pool (right side in my photo).
 
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.
 

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