I have a pool which has solar panels for heating the water attached to my system. The panels are mounted on the roof and the solar equipment is connected to the pool pump and filter. It is 23 years old and has been working great. I put a new pump and motor in back in 2011. Everything was working fine until a few days ago when the pump came on in the morning. There was no flow at all. The pump comes on and I can see the water start to flow through the cleaner basket by the filter. About one minute later, the check valve by the front of the cleaner starts to close from no water flow. There is no dirty filter, dirty basket, leaks, or stoppages. I can turn the pump off, close off the valve on the filter, turn off the solar panel valve, and remove the lid on the cleaner basket by the pump. Water drains out due to the water coming down from the solar panels. I put the lid back on, turn filter back to normal, turn solar valve on and start the pump. It runs normal until I shut it off again. When I turn it on again, there is no flow again like mentioned above unless I go through the process again of turning valves off, taking lid off cleaner basket. Pool repair guy can’t figure it out. What is causing this?
Hello Ozzieview - It sounds like a check valve has failed and the pump is struggling to prime itself when it starts. Also, you mentioned that you didn’t find any leaks. Were you looking for suction side air leaks? This could create similar problems to what you are describing.
The check vavle on the solar discharge pipe had broken and the vavle portion was stuck in the pipe. Sometimes it would turn and let water pass and other times it would close completely blocking water flow. This was replaced and now it works great. Thank you.
That’s great news. Thank you for coming back and letting us know how you fixed the problem.
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