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Posted by on May 22, 2006, 1:15 pm
Hello,
We have an inground pool that was installed by a local dealer. It's a
vinyl-lined pool with concrete walls, and holds about 22,000 gallons of
water.
The dealer also provided a pump, sand filter, and chlorinator feed tank
(sorry if my terminology is incorrect).
We've had the pool for 4 years, and the pump/filter system seems to
have worked fine, except for 1 overheating incident when the water
level got too low in the pool.
This year, the pump motor, hummed, smoked, then quit, so I'm looking to
replace it.
Here's my question: This pump unit is a Jacuzzi S15LR-3. Most of the
Internet sites on which I've been able to find it list it as an
"above-ground" pool pump. I called a couple of places to find out the
difference between an "above-ground" and an "in-ground" pool pump.
One place said that above-ground pumps weren't self-priming, and
therefore depended upon being lower that the pool water level. This
confuses me a bit since every place I've seen it listed describes it as
a self-priming pump. My own experience as been that an inch or two of
residual water in the pump has always been enough for it to create
enough vacuum to fully prime itself. Only when the pump has been
completely dry have I had to prime it manually.
Another place stated that because it is an above-ground pump, it
doesn't have a "diffuser" (no explanation of what that is) and
therefore can't be used with in-ground pools.
Is this all hype? Obviously, this pump has worked for 4 years with my
in-ground pool (given that I've occasionally had to manually prime it.)
I've noticed that, at a given horsepower, all of the "in-ground" pumps
tend to be higher-priced.
Thanks for any info...
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Posted by Richard J Kinch on May 22, 2006, 3:47 pm
> One place said that above-ground pumps weren't self-priming, and
> therefore depended upon being lower that the pool water level.
There is a slight but critical difference in above- versus in-ground pumps.
However, an in-ground can still self-prime when there is a "head" of a few
feet of suction to overcome (because the pump is above the water surface);
an above-ground can't do that. So an in-ground pump primes reliably on an
above-ground pool, but not vice-versa. The in-ground pump pays for this
extra capability with slightly reduced efficiency.
The overheating incident you describe may indeed have been due to the
above-ground design not being able to overcome the suction head when your
in-ground pool level was a little low.
There are also non-self-priming pool pumps, but these aren't widely used.
> Another place stated that because it is an above-ground pump, it
> doesn't have a "diffuser" (no explanation of what that is) and
> therefore can't be used with in-ground pools.
The diffuser is just a surface in the pumping chamber that breaks up any
air pocket into tiny bubbles that get exhausted out of the pump, instead of
the air pocket staying trapped inside the pump.
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Posted by on May 22, 2006, 4:59 pm
Clear explanation. Thanks.
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Posted by on May 22, 2006, 11:15 pm
On Mon, 22 May 2006 14:47:34 -0500, Richard J Kinch
>The overheating incident you describe may indeed have been due to the
>above-ground design not being able to overcome the suction head when your
>in-ground pool level was a little low.
If the water falls below the skimmer it will lose prime.
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Posted by Richard J Kinch on May 23, 2006, 4:24 am
> If the water falls below the skimmer it will lose prime.
So you close off the valve (if you have one) to the skimmer, or put a plug
in it.
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