Lawn pump losing it's prime

seabolt

New Member

Posts: 3

Friday, July 9th 2010, 1:39pm

Lawn pump losing it's prime

Living in Florida we have lawn wells and pumps, lately my pump is losing it's prime. It lost it's prime so I re-primed it and it worked for 20 days then lost it again. This last time which was today it had only lasted 10 days. To me this makes no sense, why will it hold it's prime for days then lose it.

So far I have tightened up all of the bolts holding it together and put silicon sealer on all of the PVC joints. Oh, yea, I also opened the wet end from the pump and found the one o ring was crimped and replaced that. All to no avail. On line I found things about a check valve and a foot valve, etc. It doesn't appear to have a check valve on the input to the pump, unless it's inside of the pump housing.

I am at a loss as to what to do next, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Seabolt

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Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

Saturday, July 10th 2010, 12:28pm

If you are pumping from a well point, then you would have a check valve on the pump inlet. You'd have to have a check valve somewhere, or the water would just run back down into the well point.

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Seabolt2

Unregistered

Sunday, July 11th 2010, 11:51am

Lawn Pump losing it's prime

I understand that there has to be a check valve somewhere, but I don't know where, it doesn't appear to be prior to the pump unless it is down in the well itself. And I have no way of getting to that. Is it possible there is one in the wet end of the pump as there doesn't appear to be one externally. I don't want to replace the pump unnecessarily, if it is something I can fix. Again as I said any help is greatly appreciated.

What ever is wrong may have gone now as it only retained the prime for one night this time.

I'm thinking that the check valve may be down at the end of the intake line because in order to prime the pump I have to feed water into the outlet faucet for about 10 minutes before it will start moving water. And if that is the case I'm think I'm going to have to call someone to fix it for me. Which I really don't want to do but don't see any alternative.

Again Thanks for any and all comments or help.

Seabolt

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seabolt

New Member

Posts: 3

Sunday, July 11th 2010, 11:54am

RE: Lawn Pump losing it's prime

Quoted from "Seabolt2"

I understand that there has to be a check valve somewhere, but I don't know where, it doesn't appear to be prior to the pump unless it is down in the well itself. And I have no way of getting to that. Is it possible there is one in the wet end of the pump as there doesn't appear to be one externally. I don't want to replace the pump unnecessarily, if it is something I can fix. Again as I said any help is greatly appreciated.

What ever is wrong may have gone now as it only retained the prime for one night this time.

I'm thinking that the check valve may be down at the end of the intake line because in order to prime the pump I have to feed water into the outlet faucet for about 10 minutes before it will start moving water. And if that is the case I'm think I'm going to have to call someone to fix it for me. Which I really don't want to do but don't see any alternative.

Again Thanks for any and all comments or help.

Seabolt

That post was from me I just wasn't signed in, sorry.