New pump, no water flow
Ok, so I blew a 1.5 HP pump that pulled water from a lake behind our house to water our lawn for the last 7 years. The pump was down for 3 weeks before we realized something was wrong and could get it fixed (we water at night when we are asleep).
I installed a new 1.5 HP flowtec pump yesterday and it seemed to be a clean installation, no problems and easy to swap out. I am no plumber/electrician but I'm fairly handy.
So, I go to turn on the new pump after installation and priming according to instructions and it sounds perfect, like it is pulling a vacuum, no problem there. Indeed there is some bubbles/foam coming from the overflow valve, and pressure would build when I put my hand over the valve. The problem is that there was no significant water coming out. So, I primed again a couple of times, just in case...and nothing...same thing, motor runs fine, but no water coming into the system. Finally, I thought maybe my plumbing job was not perfect, so checked the pipes with soap and there was one small hole, which I filled with epoxy. I checked again and the hole appears to have been successfully plugged.
Even still, I am not getting water coming from the lake. I'm thinking that the lake-submerged filter could have clogged in the 3 weeks that the sprinklers were not turning on, is that possible? I don't really want to go swimming to see, but I will if I have to. If it is clogged, is there an easy way to unclog it?
Is there anything else that I could be missing, I am almost certain that I didn't introduce a leak in my pipes. How big would a leak have to be for there to not be any water? (the lake level is ~10 vertical ft below the 1.5 HP pump).
The other problem I was thinking is that the wiring might be backwards in the control box (I double checked my own wiring and there shouldn't be a problem there). What would happen if the wires were reversed? Would the pump run at all or possibly run backward?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't have a lot of money, so calling someone out to fix the problem is sort of a last resort.