Frame Pool Pump Question..

[C0ffin D0dger]

Council thread alert!

I recently bought a Bestway 10ft Frame Pool for the kids to play in over the summer, we put it up last week.

It comes with a 330 gallons/hr filter pump which seems to behave a bit strangely, when you first switch it on it makes noise but no water flows, seems to do this for about five minutes then suddenly bursts into action. Seems like it's flowing normally after that though I guess it's difficult tell if it's running at full tilt or not. It's been bled as per the instructions etc. and both the inlet and outlet pipes have water in them when it's started.

If anyone has got one of these or similar can they let me know if this is normal or not?

Thanks.

[Steve Campbell]

When it bursts into action, do you get a stream of bubbles initially ? Sounds like it's an airlock.

When you say inlet / outlet pipe have water in them, do you mean "full" all the way from and to the pool ?

Edited by Steve Campbell on Monday 5th June 12:30

[Jonboy_t]

I have exactly the same pool and pump (council buddies! Fancy some cider on the park bench later?). My pump does the same and I think it's because it's just not quite powerful enough.

We're just about to put ours up for this year and will be getting a bigger pump so we can run it through a homemade heater (coils of black pipe). Is definitely recommend the higher capacity one, £50-odd quid well spent!

[Andehh]

Have you primed the pump/filled it with water before running it? They need to be fully water filled to pump properly, any air will create an airlock & create odd behaviour not dissimilar to what you describe.

[C0ffin D0dger]

Jonboy_t said:

I have exactly the same pool and pump (council buddies! Fancy some cider on the park bench later?). My pump does the same and I think it's because it's just not quite powerful enough.

We're just about to put ours up for this year and will be getting a bigger pump so we can run it through a homemade heater (coils of black pipe). Is definitely recommend the higher capacity one, £50-odd quid well spent!

Thanks, probably stick with this pump then and perhaps look into a stronger one for next season.

Thanks for the other helpful posts, yes the pipes to and from have no air in them (i.e. full of water) and the pump has been bled of air so it seems unlikely to be airlocked. Only really saw it start the first time I used it so didn't notice if bubbles came out, now I just plug it in and go off to do something else checking it's actually running sometime later. I plan to run it on a timer anyway just need to sort out a waterproof junction box and extension cable.