Hello,
I have a plumbing question for the experts out there. I've recently replaced my old hayward superpump that burned out with a doheny VS pump for my in-ground pool. The old hayward pump had 1.5" in/outlet fittings. This new doheny pump has 2" fittings. Here's where things get confusing for me. The piping that is now there for the system is 1.5" so I had to put reducer bushings to size down from the 2" pump to the existing 1.5" plumbing. Upon starting the pump it seems to prime ok but it never completely fills the basket chamber. There's always air. My guess is its not drawing in enough water to complete the prime. I inspected the original plumbing further and saw this: The pool has two suction lines, one from skimmer and other from floor drain. Both are 1.5" they meet at a valve that balances/closes the suction lines then from there it goes into the pump. The piping from the valve to pump is ALSO 1.5" It looks like the fitting on the valve was 2" but the original installer put a reducing elbow and changed it to 1.5". I'm not a plumber but my common sense is telling me when you're combining two pipes of one size into a third that the third pipe should be larger than those two to handle the volume. The suction side isn't the only issue. The return side piping has also been reduced to 1.5". The filter, backwash valve, chlorinator, and pool heater are all 2" fittings that have been reduced down to 1.5" via reducing bushings/couplings with 1.5" pipe running between them. After the heater there is a final valve that T's off to both return lines back into the pool (1.5" for both).
My question is should I redo all the plumbing in the system after the first valve all the way to the last valve to 2"? Would that take care of the priming issue with the new pump? Hayward superpump was the original pump on that system from when we purchased the house 30 years ago. It would always run hot. I replaced the hayward w/ the same model about 7 years ago when the original burnt out. But both ran very hot. I switched out to a VS because I figured it would run cooler and not as hard but then this priming issue occured.
I have a plumbing question for the experts out there. I've recently replaced my old hayward superpump that burned out with a doheny VS pump for my in-ground pool. The old hayward pump had 1.5" in/outlet fittings. This new doheny pump has 2" fittings. Here's where things get confusing for me. The piping that is now there for the system is 1.5" so I had to put reducer bushings to size down from the 2" pump to the existing 1.5" plumbing. Upon starting the pump it seems to prime ok but it never completely fills the basket chamber. There's always air. My guess is its not drawing in enough water to complete the prime. I inspected the original plumbing further and saw this: The pool has two suction lines, one from skimmer and other from floor drain. Both are 1.5" they meet at a valve that balances/closes the suction lines then from there it goes into the pump. The piping from the valve to pump is ALSO 1.5" It looks like the fitting on the valve was 2" but the original installer put a reducing elbow and changed it to 1.5". I'm not a plumber but my common sense is telling me when you're combining two pipes of one size into a third that the third pipe should be larger than those two to handle the volume. The suction side isn't the only issue. The return side piping has also been reduced to 1.5". The filter, backwash valve, chlorinator, and pool heater are all 2" fittings that have been reduced down to 1.5" via reducing bushings/couplings with 1.5" pipe running between them. After the heater there is a final valve that T's off to both return lines back into the pool (1.5" for both).
My question is should I redo all the plumbing in the system after the first valve all the way to the last valve to 2"? Would that take care of the priming issue with the new pump? Hayward superpump was the original pump on that system from when we purchased the house 30 years ago. It would always run hot. I replaced the hayward w/ the same model about 7 years ago when the original burnt out. But both ran very hot. I switched out to a VS because I figured it would run cooler and not as hard but then this priming issue occured.
