Hi Guys,
For the past season being a first time pool owner I've been living with priming issues and air bubbles in the pump basket. Everything leads back to the suction side and sucking in air. I've done everything from running water over the pipes, replacing all the piping above ground, water bucket test to ensure i'm not losing water and inspecting all my gaskets. I have not yet done any pressure testing on the suction line. As part of figuring out where my issue lies something occurred in the past couple of week with all the rain we had up here in NJ. So here is my scenario:
I first had the water level half-way and have been ask if i have a weir door. I did not and someone on the forum said if I don't have a weir door the water should be 2/3 up the skimmer. I brought the water to 2/3 and still had priming issues. Then the rain that we had raised my pool water level to the very top of my skimmer opening. Basically my skimmer opening was below the water line. With the water level this high priming the pump was very easy, I just needed to turn on the pump and it would prime in one try, although i would eventually get air bubbles in the pump basket after an hour of the pump running.
So my questions are Why does my pump prime easily when the skimmer opening is completely under water? Could i potentially have a leak underground and since my skimmer is completely full that compensates for the leak?
For the past season being a first time pool owner I've been living with priming issues and air bubbles in the pump basket. Everything leads back to the suction side and sucking in air. I've done everything from running water over the pipes, replacing all the piping above ground, water bucket test to ensure i'm not losing water and inspecting all my gaskets. I have not yet done any pressure testing on the suction line. As part of figuring out where my issue lies something occurred in the past couple of week with all the rain we had up here in NJ. So here is my scenario:
I first had the water level half-way and have been ask if i have a weir door. I did not and someone on the forum said if I don't have a weir door the water should be 2/3 up the skimmer. I brought the water to 2/3 and still had priming issues. Then the rain that we had raised my pool water level to the very top of my skimmer opening. Basically my skimmer opening was below the water line. With the water level this high priming the pump was very easy, I just needed to turn on the pump and it would prime in one try, although i would eventually get air bubbles in the pump basket after an hour of the pump running.
So my questions are Why does my pump prime easily when the skimmer opening is completely under water? Could i potentially have a leak underground and since my skimmer is completely full that compensates for the leak?
