pump problems- LOW FLOW & BUBBLES

[craigrpeters]

Great advice. My 10 yr old pool had a suction side leak at the valves just before the pump for the first time ever this year. Leak was pulling in air from the skimmer line when pump was on, but after hours of troubleshooting I finally noticed it dripped water when the pump was off. Super simple fix too as that coupling was just hand tightened!

[lekmedm]

Thanks to PoolDoc for that long list of possible leaky suction sites. This thread is very timely for me as I just got around to opening my 16x32 inground pool with Hayward DE pump/filter. The water was pretty murky, so I thought the filter was getting clogged causing the system to somehow draw in air that I could see in the pump basket after an hour or two of running. After turning off the pump and giving the filter a bit of a shake (or backwashing), the pump would nicely re-prime and run nicely, but just for another hour or two.

I just ordered a new gasket for the basket lid, since it's pretty old. I hope that's it.

I do have some cracked flexible tubing on the return that doesn't leak if I don't touch it, but I can't imagine that's part of my drop in pressure issue.

Are there any other tips in identifying where suction leaks may be coming from? It's no big deal to throw money at a $6 gasket that takes a couple minutes to replace, but blindly replacing parts is certainly not efficient.

Many thanks!