Water trickling(streaming) out of the backwash pipe while on filter setting

[Kimderrick]

This is our 2nd year living with a 17 year old pool. It was very well maintained prior to our ownership. We’ve done our best. This year we replaced the motor to the filter when we opened it 3 weeks ago. We battled algae, and won. Now, we’ve been battling acid and low alk. We’ve adjusted chemicals as needed based on our computer analyzed water test. Today, we noticed that our water level was dropping quite rapidly and then looked to see that water was streaming from the backwash pipe even though the filter was set to filter. One other thing we noticed was that when we turn the filter on it takes extra long to start running through, what we call, the bubble basket and it seems like it’s going through with a lot of pressure and then once again, water is going out the backwash pipe. This is maddening!! I feel like we have sucked so much money into this pool the last three weeks and haven’t been able to set a foot into it. Not to mention after adding alkalinity up and ph up today, the pool water appears unchanged. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Richard320]

Sounds like a bad spider gasket. They're relatively cheap and easy to replace. You can probably find a youtube video with your exact valve to show you how to replace it.

Incidentally, you probably wouldn't be chasing acid and alkalinity if you had your own test kit instead of relying on "computer analyzed water test." Pool stores don't do that testing as a public service. They do it to sell chemicals. Sounds like you've bought a lot.

 

[mariane]

Years ago we had the same problem and it was the gasket. Also, we found out with Doughboy filters, you need to make sure the backwash cap was in place or else water would trickle out the backwash port while running in filter mode.

 

[Kimderrick]

Thanks for your responses! I’ll let you know what I find out.