Hello,
We moved into our house November of last year, so didn't get much of a chance to see anything around the pool and this is the first time we've started it up. Very excited to learn!
Been having some concerns with the suction side and wanted to get some thoughts.
The pool has 3 lines (skimmer, vacuum and main drain) that go to a common header and the into the pump. I get great prime out of the vacuum and main drain.
Each line has it's own valve on the header and I primed and circulated the water first through the vacuum line and then slowly opened the main drain to get it going.
When I get to the skimmer line, it starts to pull in way more air then with the other two. The skimmer basket in the pump probably gets about 1/3 full of air and the pressure inside the filter drops. Mainly cause there's air in it and air doesn't compress. I can vent from the filter but it seems like it's more than it can handle. The return jets are shooting out some air.
This seems to be the stable state. Pump is at 3000 rpm; more air gets into the system when the pump is running lower.
When I shut the pump off, water rushes back into the basket. But I've never left it off for very long. After a few seconds i turn the pump back on for fear of having to go through a reprime. It was a huge pain to get the skimmer line to even prime.
I've tried applying some marine silicon around the joints of the skimmer line on the header just to see if it was pulling some air there but doesn't doesn't seem to do anything.
I don't think the issue is downstream of the valve and on the suction of the pump because it seems to run fine if I isolate the skimmer system but will be checking the drain valves on the pump.
Any thoughts on what else I should try?
- No salt water generator; regular chlorine pool
- Variable Speed Pump
- Pentair Sta-Rite System 3
- I think the pool is 30' x 15', not sure how big. Deepest part I think is 10' and probably like 3' at the shallow end
- I think it's a Hayward SP1084 Inground Skimmer (only 1)
We moved into our house November of last year, so didn't get much of a chance to see anything around the pool and this is the first time we've started it up. Very excited to learn!
Been having some concerns with the suction side and wanted to get some thoughts.
The pool has 3 lines (skimmer, vacuum and main drain) that go to a common header and the into the pump. I get great prime out of the vacuum and main drain.
Each line has it's own valve on the header and I primed and circulated the water first through the vacuum line and then slowly opened the main drain to get it going.
When I get to the skimmer line, it starts to pull in way more air then with the other two. The skimmer basket in the pump probably gets about 1/3 full of air and the pressure inside the filter drops. Mainly cause there's air in it and air doesn't compress. I can vent from the filter but it seems like it's more than it can handle. The return jets are shooting out some air.
This seems to be the stable state. Pump is at 3000 rpm; more air gets into the system when the pump is running lower.
When I shut the pump off, water rushes back into the basket. But I've never left it off for very long. After a few seconds i turn the pump back on for fear of having to go through a reprime. It was a huge pain to get the skimmer line to even prime.
I've tried applying some marine silicon around the joints of the skimmer line on the header just to see if it was pulling some air there but doesn't doesn't seem to do anything.
I don't think the issue is downstream of the valve and on the suction of the pump because it seems to run fine if I isolate the skimmer system but will be checking the drain valves on the pump.
Any thoughts on what else I should try?
- No salt water generator; regular chlorine pool
- Variable Speed Pump
- Pentair Sta-Rite System 3
- I think the pool is 30' x 15', not sure how big. Deepest part I think is 10' and probably like 3' at the shallow end
- I think it's a Hayward SP1084 Inground Skimmer (only 1)
