Hello, I am still a fairly new pool owner and still learning the ropes. I had my pool opened in early May and have noticed some issues since. They relate to a few different topics so I may need to make different posts in different forums.
Spa vortex - first time this has happened in the 3 years we've been in this house. First, I noticed that my pump was not filling all the way to the top when in spa mode. Valve was closed to spa skimmer while open to main drain. Fully opening valve to both seemed to solve the problem, but I lost prime after a couple days. Zero pressure. I couldn't get it to prime in pool mode or spa mode. I cleaned out all the baskets (pump/skimmer), manually filled up the pump with enough water to get it to prime. Then after another couple days, I lost prime again. I again played with the valves to see if I could isolate the problem. In pool mode, it was fine. Water fills up the basket leaving only some small bubbles. So I figured out that the skimmer needs to remain completely closed in order for me to not lose prime. Even if I open it 1/4-1/2 way, I still lose prime from the skimmer vortexing. I tried putting rocks in the basket but it didn't work either. Water is getting sucked faster than the rate of return back in to the spa. So as it is now, my skimmer is closed so I'm not losing prime but my pump does not fill up with water and I have debris remaining on the surface. I still feel that there's air getting in because there is still a significant amount of air I need to bleed out everyday running 4 hours on spa mode and 10 hours on pool mode. I want to figure out what the problem is and why it's only starting to happen now.
Spa vortex - first time this has happened in the 3 years we've been in this house. First, I noticed that my pump was not filling all the way to the top when in spa mode. Valve was closed to spa skimmer while open to main drain. Fully opening valve to both seemed to solve the problem, but I lost prime after a couple days. Zero pressure. I couldn't get it to prime in pool mode or spa mode. I cleaned out all the baskets (pump/skimmer), manually filled up the pump with enough water to get it to prime. Then after another couple days, I lost prime again. I again played with the valves to see if I could isolate the problem. In pool mode, it was fine. Water fills up the basket leaving only some small bubbles. So I figured out that the skimmer needs to remain completely closed in order for me to not lose prime. Even if I open it 1/4-1/2 way, I still lose prime from the skimmer vortexing. I tried putting rocks in the basket but it didn't work either. Water is getting sucked faster than the rate of return back in to the spa. So as it is now, my skimmer is closed so I'm not losing prime but my pump does not fill up with water and I have debris remaining on the surface. I still feel that there's air getting in because there is still a significant amount of air I need to bleed out everyday running 4 hours on spa mode and 10 hours on pool mode. I want to figure out what the problem is and why it's only starting to happen now.
