Loud Pump

14 years ago

I just bought a house is AZ and it has a pool. For some reason I can hear air (or what I think is air) inside my pump and its pretty loud. I cannot see air through the basket lid, but I can hear it. I replaced all the seals in the motor and pump housing, replaced the Jandy valve seals, replaced the basket lid oring, took my DE filter apart and cleaned it, poured water all over the connections to see if it would go quiet, and I still hear the air. My psi is at about 12. When I turn the sprays on in the pool, the pump goes quiet and the psi jumps to 30 and water comes out of this open pipe coming out of the ground next to the filter. What is that pipe? I have a robot that cleans the bottom of the pool and when I turn that all the way on, a massive amount of air gets into the pump and I can see it through the basket lid. But still when I turn the sprays on and the robot on full blast together, the pump still gets quiet.

Bottom line is the pump always gets quiet when I turn the sprays on and it doesn't matter what else I have on (robot, skimmer, etc.), but water comes out of this open pipe that I have no idea what it is. Is my pump too big for my pool? I am at a loss. Thanks

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Comments (7)

muddy_water
14 years ago
Can you post some pics of your equipment and plumbing?
mas985
14 years ago
Here is what I answered over at the poolforum but you never responded back:

"It sounds like it might be high flow rate noise to me as well. Most likely in the pump itself. Can you describe your equipment and plumbing? Pump size/model, plumbing sizes, lengths, numbers of runs to and from the pad, etc."

Here is a link that might be useful: Poolforum Post
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sgreiner1011
Original Author
14 years ago
Mas985, For some reason, I cannot respond over at the poolforum. The picture that was put up was put up by the admin after I sent it to him. I dont get why I cant respond. I have asked a couple times, and nobody said anything yet. I have "restricted user" access I just noticed now too. I dont understand.
sgreiner1011
Original Author
14 years ago
Here is a link to where the picture of my setup is with some info on the picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69039623@N02/6937462997/

The motor is a Champion by Waterway CHAMPE-115 and the housing part is a 56-frame. My filter is a Pentair DE filter 60. My pool size is around 15,000 gallons I think. The pipe that I have the question marks on is what water comes out of when I turn the sprays on fully. I still do not know what that pipe is for. The opening where the water comes out is behind the pipe so you cant see it. The way the valves are in the picture were the way they were when I moved in.

Thanks,
SG
sgreiner1011
Original Author
14 years ago
What is high flow rate noise? Pump too big?
muddy_water
14 years ago
1. What happens when you turn the valve marked 50/50 too 100% to the returns?
2.Do you have spa jets in this pool?
3. Is your equipment below your pool level?
4. You may want to take a shop vac and blow into that pipe and see where it is going with the system off.
5. When you say sprays are you refering to the eyeballs in the pool that shoot water? /returns
6. What is the other water feature
7.Was there a slide on that pool at some point?

It looks like with the current settings you are putting back pressure on the pump.
mas985
14 years ago
Because your normal filter pressure is 12 PSI and the noise goes away at 30 PSI with the sprays, this sounds like a situation where the lower PSI configuration is generating flow rate noise. Water makes a lot of noise when moving quickly through the pump. When configured for the sprays, the head loss goes up by a lot (30 PSI), so the flow rate goes down and the noise disappears.

But looking at your plumbing, you have three return pipes but only one suction pipe which can cause high suction head loss depending on the valve settings. So I have a couple questions as well.

1) For the filter pressure of 12 PSI, are both the sprays and waterfall turned off? The picture shows the sprays at 50/50. Try turning both the sprays and waterfall off and report the PSI and noise.

2) How far is it from the equipment to the pad?

3) When in the 12 PSI mode, is there air getting sucked into the pump basket?

4) How high is the pump relative to the pool water level?