Suction problem?

[cmcq]

I opened my pool yesterday. Everything was fine and I ran it all night. I vacuumed it yesterday and needed to finish that today. The pump basket filled with debris, so I opened it and cleaned it. I noticed the check valve was also full of leaves, etc. so I opened and cleaned it too. Now I can't get water flowing again. The pump is running but won't pull water through. I removed the pump basket lid and check valve and re-seated them several times, and I added water to the pump basket, but I can't get water flowing. If it matters, when I open the pump basket, the inner basket floats (the one you remove for cleaning). There is plenty of water in the pool, the skimmer basket is empty and I didn't change or touch anything else other than cleaning the items above. How long should I have to let the pump run to re-establish suction? What else should I check? Any ideas?

Thanks
Charlie

[CarlD]

I guess it depends on where the plug-up is. Can you pump to waste? If so, it's blocked in the return lines. If you disconnect the skimmer does your low drain work, or vice versa? If neither works you may be blocked further back. Sure you have all the valves on the the filter set to "filter" and not "winter" or "closed" mode?

Generally, diagnosis is by removing a section at a time and seeing if that fixes it. I did this all the time as a programmer.
Supposing you hooked a nice length of hose or TigerFlex to the inlet of the pump and the other end in the water and it NOW started working--you'd know that from pump to return is fine and the problem is from the drain/skimmer lines.
Or you unhooked the pump from the filter and now it pumped water like a fire hydrant! Then it's in the filter or the return lines.
Where does it work? Where doesn't it work?

[cmcq]

Thanks. Through some of the process of elimination you describe, it appears the issue is with the check valve. I removed it, turned in 1/4 turn so the valve isn't blocking the flow of water and everything is fine. Maybe something (age?) is making it too hard for the value to open? That would be strange since it was working yesterday, but who knows. Is it a problem to run without the check valve properly installed?

[Jason in Ky]

Don't know if it is possible to do in this application without seeing the check valve. But make sure you didn't put it in backwards during re-assembly.