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Ponds & Aquatic Plants

Priming pot, check valve question when pump goes off

12 years ago

When doing a water change yesterday I noticed a strange thing when shutting off the pump. I use my settling chamber for water changes to isolate the water and treat it. As the pond level was down I had to stop the pump to refill the chamber. When I stopped the pump water started spitting out from the lid of the priming pot even though I had shut off the valve before the pump and the valve after the pump. I tightened the lid and started the pump, then shut it off again and priming pot did the same thing.Is this normal? When the pump is running no water spits out the lid and there are no air bubbles in the lid. Is it possible when the pump box flooded that some of the flooding was due to the priming pot? I have a check valve after the pump then a ball valve to control the flow to the waterfall box on that line. When the pump box got flooded all the water from the waterfall box had drained back through the line and the pump. The priming pot was full of water though. With the power going off shouldn't the check valve have kept the water from draining back through the lines and the pump?

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Comments (4)

mike_il
12 years ago
Jadal,
Let me answer some of your questions backward. It depends on the check valve as to weather or not the check valve will hold back the water and what kind of shape the valve is in. If it is a swing check valve it will leak. How much depends on the valve and how it is mounted in the system. If it is a spring check valve it is less likely to leak but it will take head pressure from the pump to operate it. If it has a .5 pound spring in it you will add about 1 ft of head pressure on the pump not counting the additional friction.
When the pump is off there should be no water coming out the primer pot. If you have water coming out then that indicates that the lid is either not tight or the oring seal is not good. It could be a wore out oring or something caught in the oring. It also indicates that the valve on the output or the input is leaking water through the valve. And yes that could flood the pump box depending on how fast water is leaking out the primer pot.
Mike
jalal
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks Mike. Not sure what kind of check valve it is same kind used on sump pumps. Fixed the priming pot problem have two pumps running with a priming pot on each and had mixed up the lids. The one lid is a little smaller than the other but when switched them out no leak.
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amzabelle, I believe that the check valve needs to be lower. My reasoning is:- The pump is 4 feet vertically above the check valve. The check valve is about 15 feet vertically above the water level. When the system is shut down water is held above the check valve (4ft.) Below it the water empties out of the supply pipe. Upon restart the pump uses up the priming water quickly and has to work at establishing a full column of water in the supply pipe. I expect that if you listen to the pump during this time you will hear 'crackling' sounds interspersed with some surging sounds. This indicates that the pump is fighting to establish a full flow in the supply line. Of course, I might be all wrong; but it is the best I can do at present.
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Yes...I believe I had indicated that earlier as a concern. However, I think it might be better injecting here than pre-stream to the pump. I don't see anything in the pot, so its pushing the oxider directly into the filter now. When it was injecting just prior to the pump, there was a lot of mixing inside of the pump and more intimate/longer contact with the pump IMHO. Now I don't even see any oxidizer in the pump...so it must be instantly pushing it on. It is oxidizing a lot of other stuff though. I have a spring that looks like it was on a 4-5 year old pool but got that way in only a few months. It is what it is. The pump is under warranty and I have worked on pumps before. I have not found them to last more than a year or so past warranty anyways before starting to see small problems. Maybe I can get a premature failure under warranty this way. ;) I have so many other things to worry about this really is not as significant as everything else. This is one of two recommended installation methods by the vendor and not something I made up.
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mike_il
12 years ago
Patti,
You have a swing check valve. They are all going to leak some. The good ones will only leak a drop every second to every 4 or 5 seconds. At one one drop per second the valve will let one gallon per day through the valve or not much water. The poorer quality ones will do this when new but quickly get to the point where they let more water back through them. Also a check valve in the vertical position will work better than in the horizonal position.
Mike
jalal
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks again Mike. Both valves are vertical. You can hear them trying to stay closed or close(?) when pump is shut down. The ones on the sump pumps in the house are really noisy but the one sump pump is pumping 3600gph up six feet and out the side of the house to 40 ft from the house. I just had the one put in and I'm going to bury the pipes and make a rain garden at the end in front yard. In the winter I disconnect the pipes at outlet but sumps don't run in winter at -20F from October to April. The joys of living in Canada eh.

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