jdunning

Hi Mari, I'm dealing with a similar issue to yours. Any luck with the inspection? What did the pool company find? Thanks, -Josh

Here's todays update. Checked the backwash tube, no water leaks there. Started playing with the valves again, and if it's worth noting, they're brass hayward valves, amd realized that the middle valve (the dead deep end skimmer) was rough and grainy to turn. So, I opened and closed it a few times to try and clean off the threads and it worked, sealed up the valve, the swirling air dissapeared from the pump skimmer, and the bubbles stopped shooting out of the deep end jet. When I shut the filter off, it keeps its prime, and there's a small 2" bubble in the pump skimmer. I can live with that. Still have a water loss somewhere though. After closing that valve, I opened both the shallow skim and low sucker for about 4 hours. During that time I lost about an inch of water. So, tonight I'm going to vacuum, backwash, and run the low sucker only to see if the leak is there or in the skimmer. Will continue to advise. Thanks again for the two replies.

Here's an update if anyone's following the thread. First, I haven't killed myself yet. Over the past three days I've been trying various things and here's what I've found. Day one: Plugged the shallow skimmer with a gizmo skimmer plug. Ran filter for 4 hours, lost some more water. Tightend all clamps, valve fittings, screws, etc. and reduced the puffing bubble effect to a small steady stream of bubbles. Air still visible in skimmer basket. Day two: refilled pool to test level, plugged low sucker, ran shallow skim only. Lost water in the pool. Small stream of bubbles from return jet. Last night, refilled to test level, plugged both low sucker and shallow skimmer overnight. This morning, no water loss. Unplugged shallow skimmer, left filter off to see if its a gravitational leak. Will continue to update. -Josh

Hello to all, thanks for taking the time to read this before I either fill in the hole in my back yard or blow my brains out. Rewind to a couple weeks ago. We close on the house which has an 18x36 in-ground that's been "meticulously maintained" according to the REA and the inspection company that looked at the pool and pump. It's got a Hayward Superpump, Hayward sand filter, a shallow skim, deep end skim (that was previously blocked off) and a low sucker. The filter is on a timer that has it run from 5pm to 8pm daily. The pool itself is 25 years old or so, the pump and filter less than 10. Filter and pump are inside the pool house, out of the elements. A few days go by and the pool quickly turns cloudy, so we stock up from the pool store and that’s when the problems start. First, I realize that the shallow skim isn't pumping, only the low sucker. I mess around with the brass valves and get the low skimmer to start skimming. In my inexperience, I think I left the middle valve open (the blocked deep end skim) and don’t' realize it until the next morning when I turn the pump on and there's no prime. Before I realize this though, I call two pool stores and after a trip and $70 in pump parts, everyone is confident that my problem is an impeller and the seal kit. So I crack open the pump, replace the basket O ring, the big O ring on the back of the case, the O ring on the front of the impeller and the mechanical spring/rubber/ceramic gasket on the impeller shaft. The impeller was fine (to my untrained eye) so I left it. Each gasket got a healthy helping of the Jacks lube too. After reassembly I flip the pump, confident that my hard work will pay off, but it doesn't. Still not pumping. Next step was to play with the valves some more, so after much opening and closing I decide to close them all, fill up the basket with a hose and try to prime it that way. It worked, kind of. With all the valves closed except the low sucker, I could fill it up and start the suction that way, then gradually ease the shallow skimmer open and I'd be back a full operation. Now the problems I have are 1. the basket has a lot of swirling air in it, which it did before, and the pool inspector said was indicative of a problem, but nothing to worry about too much; 2. the deep end jet (closest to the filter) blows air bubbled like a spa. There's a constant stream of little bubbles and every few seconds a big puff of air. With this happening, the pump will lose its prime when it shuts off overnight and I have to play the hose/valve/skimmer basket game to get the pump going. all that I could live with, if it were the only issue. The other main issue is, and it seems to be a big one, the pool is losing water at an alarming rate. Last night after work I get home to find that the water level has dropped to an inch above the lower lip of the skimmer. So I vacuum the pool (yes, it's still murky/algae because of the filter issue) backwash, rinse and jump in to inspect the liner. I find two old dry patches that were poorly done right around the low water line, so I pull them off, redo it, and throw the garden hose in for a few hours. All the time the low sucker is running, and eventually around 10pm I start the shallow skimmer and get the system back up to full speed. Still have the bubbles in the basket, and shooting out the deep end jet. (might be worth noting that the shallow end jet has only minute traces of bubbles.) Wake up this morning, and the level has dropped roughly 2-3"overnight. So I shut off the filter, leave for work and start wondering how much a dump truck full of dirt and a weekend bob-cat rental would be. So what should I be looking at? The valves? Skimmer? Sucker? Turning off one or the other never gets rid of the air leak. Should I check with my neighbor to see if my pool water ended up in his basement? Think he'd give it back? Thanks again for reading, let me know if you need any more info, I'm sure I left something out. jjd