Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 52,395
While emptying the water tank on the old tub for sanitizing, the water pumps ran too long and completely emptied the tank. The result was that they would not prime. After a little coaxing, including cleaning out the filter attached to the pump and opening a faucet, one pump primed, but the other refused. We were hooked up to city water for the weekend, although we could have run on the one functional pump.
I was convinced it was a damaged diaphragm until some friends had a similar problem this weekend. Their issue turned out to be crud that had been in the bottom of their fresh water tank getting sucked into and blocking the water line from the tank to the pump. They merely blew out the line and were back in business.
I was going to do the same thing until someone mentioned that, when he had the same non-prime problem, he was unable to get the pumps to prime due to the back pressure from the accumulator. This morning I disconnected the output hose from the non-functional pump and voilla! It primed just fine and all is back to normal.
One lesson I learned was that, when disconnecting the line from the pump, the water that gushed out was quite warm - backflow from the water heater. Had I tried to do this when we got home yesterday and the water was still hot, I would have had a nasty surprise.
I was convinced it was a damaged diaphragm until some friends had a similar problem this weekend. Their issue turned out to be crud that had been in the bottom of their fresh water tank getting sucked into and blocking the water line from the tank to the pump. They merely blew out the line and were back in business.
I was going to do the same thing until someone mentioned that, when he had the same non-prime problem, he was unable to get the pumps to prime due to the back pressure from the accumulator. This morning I disconnected the output hose from the non-functional pump and voilla! It primed just fine and all is back to normal.
One lesson I learned was that, when disconnecting the line from the pump, the water that gushed out was quite warm - backflow from the water heater. Had I tried to do this when we got home yesterday and the water was still hot, I would have had a nasty surprise.