I only visit here occasionally each year so this may have been posted before.
I have been troubleshooting a small air leak on the suction side of my pump for over a year. It causes occasional issues with pump priming, and I almost always have small air bubbles in my return vents.
Since finding leaks on a suction side is very difficult as you are looking for an invisible hole that is pulling in air, I just lived with it for a while. But today I was having an especially frustrating time with getting the pump primed. I had a sudden epiphany.
I grabbed my drain cleaning bladder. (Link) and put it into my skimmer basket pipe. I made sure the return was only pulling from the skimmer and turned on the hose. Within about 5s I found my small air leak as water started pouring out of the specific pipe connection where the leak was. 5 minutes later the leak was fixed, my pump primes almost instantly, and there are zero bubbles in my return lines. Obviously you would do this without the pump running so that pressure builds on the suction side.
If anyone else is looking for a leak on the suction side, this might be a possible solution for you. Obviously it won't work on a main drain plumping, but if the leak is somewhere closer to the actual pump basket, then this can save tons of frustration.
I have been troubleshooting a small air leak on the suction side of my pump for over a year. It causes occasional issues with pump priming, and I almost always have small air bubbles in my return vents.
Since finding leaks on a suction side is very difficult as you are looking for an invisible hole that is pulling in air, I just lived with it for a while. But today I was having an especially frustrating time with getting the pump primed. I had a sudden epiphany.
I grabbed my drain cleaning bladder. (Link) and put it into my skimmer basket pipe. I made sure the return was only pulling from the skimmer and turned on the hose. Within about 5s I found my small air leak as water started pouring out of the specific pipe connection where the leak was. 5 minutes later the leak was fixed, my pump primes almost instantly, and there are zero bubbles in my return lines. Obviously you would do this without the pump running so that pressure builds on the suction side.
If anyone else is looking for a leak on the suction side, this might be a possible solution for you. Obviously it won't work on a main drain plumping, but if the leak is somewhere closer to the actual pump basket, then this can save tons of frustration.