Rob: Hey pool owners is
Rob with inyourpools.com. Today we're going to show
you some common methods on how to find an air
leak in your system. Some symptoms of an air
leak in your system could include air in
your pumps strainer. You could have low PSI on the
pressure gauge on your filter, you could have air bubbles OR real
weak flow from your return jets. Some common areas where you
might get an air leak would be the pump lid, O-ring on
the lid, it could be from these valves in front, on
the suction side of your pump, there is going to be
anything before the pump. Any of these diverter
valves they have O-rings in there that can go bad
and they can draw air. Any of these joints and the plumbing
or areas you would want to check. If you have a suction cleaner,
sometimes the hoses will get holes in them and they will
draw air into those hoses. Now, without further ado,
let's get to some of the methods that we can use
to find these air leaks. Okay, the first method
you can try is using some incense around the
suspected leak area. If there's a good leak
you'll see the incense being sucked in, we can see a
little bit going in there. The only downside of
this is if it's a real windy day,
it's going to throw a wrench into the
smoke here, but you can see some of the smoke going in. Alright, another method,
you can try a shaving cream, putting it around
the suspected area. If there's a good air leak there,
you should see some dimples in the shaving cream where
the air is being drawn in. All right. Another method would
be to get some dish soap, mix it up with some water, get some
bubbles going and put the bubbles like right where you
think the leak might be and you can easily see the
bubbles being drawn in here. You know exactly where
the leak would be. In that case, it's on the valve
you'd replace the O-ring. Okay, so of those three
methods, we saw the most reaction from the suds,
from the dish soap and the water, probably second
would have been the smoke from the incense, followed
by the shaving cream. We didn't see a whole lot of
reaction from the shaving cream. One of the things you can try is
if you have a garden hose, where the pump is running you could run
the water over a suspected area and let it run for about a minute
or so and if the bubbles disappear from your pump strainer, you
know that's where your leak is. That's worked for me in
the past as well, but if you have any questions
or another method you've tried that's
worked, leave a comment down below or visit us
over inyourpools.com. Thank you.
