Trophy Club, Texas
Pool Pump Repair in Trophy Club, TX
The pump is the wet end of the circulation loop: the housing, the impeller, the shaft seal, the strainer basket and the prime that holds it all full of water. This page covers what fails there and how the right pump is sized for a pool.
How a pump repair visit is approached
1. The fault is found before anything is ordered
A pump is diagnosed at the pad with the system running, because the same complaint of low flow can come from the basket, the impeller, the seal, the plumbing or the filter, and only one of those is the pump.
2. The wet end and the motor are judged separately
The two halves of the assembly fail for different reasons and are replaced independently, so a sound motor is not thrown away with a cracked housing and a sound wet end is not discarded with a dead motor.
3. You hear what was found and what it needs
What has failed, what has to be replaced against what can be resealed, and whether the rest of the pad is in a state that will bring the same fault back are described before any part is fitted.
Pump or motor? Which half of the assembly failed
What sits on the pad looks like one machine, but it is two. The pump is the wet end: the housing, the impeller and diffuser, the shaft seal, the strainer basket and its lid, and the suction and discharge plumbing that connects it to the pool. The motor is the dry end bolted to the back of it, and it does one job, which is to spin the shaft.
The plain-English test is what the fault does. If the problem is WATER - a drip or a puddle, air in the pot, a basket that will not stay full, a pump that runs but moves nothing - the fault is on this page. If the problem is NOISE or ELECTRICITY - screeching, grinding, a hum with no rotation, a breaker that trips, a motor that runs hot and cuts out - the fault belongs to the motor, and that page covers it.
One symptom sits on the boundary and is worth naming: water running from between the two halves. That is the shaft seal, which is a wet-end part, but the water it lets past runs into the motor bearings above. It is a pump fault that becomes a motor fault if it is left, which is why the two pages cross-reference each other rather than repeating each other.
Common pool pump faults and what they usually mean
The pump will not hold prime and the basket keeps emptying
A pump that fills, runs for a minute and then sits with a half-empty pot is pulling air in on the suction side. The suspects, in the order they are usually checked, are the lid o-ring, the lid itself, the drain plugs, the union fittings, the suction valves and the water level at the skimmer.
A pool that has dropped below the skimmer throat will do this on its own with nothing wrong at the pad at all, so the water level is checked before anything is opened up.
Water leaking from between the motor and the pump housing
This is the shaft seal. It is a wear part, it fails from running dry, from heat, and from water that has been left out of balance, and the leak follows the shaft downhill into the motor.
It is repairable while the motor above it is still sound. Left running, the bearings take the water and the job stops being a seal job.
A cracked pump housing, pot or lid
Plastic pump bodies crack from freeze damage, from over-tightened fittings and from age in full sun. A hairline crack in the pot will not always drip while the pump is running, because that side is under suction, and then weeps once the pump shuts off.
A cracked lid is a common cause of a prime problem that looks like a seal problem. Freeze damage in particular is worth reading about alongside the freeze protection that is meant to prevent it.
Debris or a blockage in the impeller
The impeller is the vaned wheel inside the housing that actually moves the water, and its passages are narrow. Small leaves, twigs, hair, pebbles and pieces of a broken basket lodge in the vanes and choke the flow.
The tell is a pump that runs at normal speed and normal sound but delivers weak returns and a low filter pressure. A clogged impeller is cleared; a worn or eroded impeller is replaced.
A damaged or missing strainer basket
The basket is the last thing between the pool and the impeller. A cracked basket, or one left out because it was broken, lets straight through exactly the debris that then jams the impeller.
Baskets are cheap and the damage they prevent is not. A split basket is replaced rather than persevered with.
Cavitation, a rattling pump and air in the pot
Cavitation is what happens when the pump is asked for more water than the suction side can deliver. It sounds like gravel in the housing, it shows as bubbles in the pot, and it damages the impeller over time.
The causes are a blocked skimmer or pump basket, a partly closed valve, an undersized or restricted suction line, or a pump that was oversized for the plumbing it was fitted to.
The pump runs but the returns are weak
Weak flow with a healthy-sounding pump is a restriction somewhere in the loop, and it is worth checking in order: baskets, impeller, valves, then the filter. A filter due for cleaning will starve the returns while the pump is entirely fine.
The filter pressure gauge separates the two cases. High pressure with weak returns points downstream at the filter; low pressure with weak returns points upstream at the suction side or the impeller.
How a pool pump is sized
Sizing is the part of pump work that gets skipped, and it is why a replacement pump sometimes performs worse than the one it replaced. Three numbers decide it: the volume of the pool, the flow rate that volume needs, and the head pressure the plumbing puts in the way.
Step one: working out the gallons in your pool
Multiply length by width by average depth to get the volume in cubic feet, then allow approximately 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. Average depth means exactly that: a pool that runs from 3 feet to 7 feet has an average depth of about 5 feet.
A worked example: a pool 10 feet wide by 20 feet long with an average depth of 5 feet is 1,000 cubic feet, which is approximately 7,500 gallons. Every number after this one is derived from that figure, so it is worth measuring rather than guessing.
Step two: the flow rate the pool needs
A pool is generally turned over - the whole volume passed through the filter once - about every four to six hours. Take the 7,500 gallon pool and spread it over six hours and that is 1,250 gallons per hour.
Pumps are rated in gallons per minute, so divide by 60: 1,250 gallons per hour is roughly 20 gallons per minute. That is the flow figure the pump has to actually deliver, not the figure on the box.
Step three: head pressure, and why bigger is not better
Head pressure is the total resistance the pump works against, and it is the sum of the pipe runs, every elbow and fitting, the vertical lift, and the equipment the water has to pass through - the filter, the heater and any salt cell or chlorinator.
A pump is chosen to deliver its required flow AT that head, which is what a manufacturer's pump curve describes. Fitting a bigger pump to a plumbing system that cannot carry the extra water raises velocity, adds noise, pushes the filter harder, invites cavitation and burns more electricity for no additional turnover. Matching is the whole exercise; horsepower on its own is not.
Types of pool pump on a Trophy Club pad
Self-priming above-ground pumps
Mounted at or near the water line and designed to clear air from the pot on start-up. They are the most sensitive to a low water level and to a tired lid o-ring, because both give the pump air it then has to clear on every cycle.
In-ground pumps with a strainer pot
The common in-ground configuration: a large basket in front of the impeller, a centrifugal wet end and a motor bolted to the back. Most of the faults on this page are faults of this pump: prime, seal, impeller and housing.
Booster pumps for pressure-side cleaners
A second, smaller pump that runs only while a pressure-side cleaner is working. It is plumbed off the return line and it must never be run dry, which is what usually kills one - the cleaner line is closed or the main pump is off and the booster runs anyway.
Spa and water-feature pumps
Dedicated pumps for a spa, a waterfall or a bubbler, often on their own valves and their own timer channel. They are the pumps most often found seized after a season of not being run, and the ones most exposed in a freeze because their plumbing sits above ground.
Pool pump questions
Why does my pool pump keep losing prime?
A pump that will not stay primed is drawing air on the suction side. The usual sources are a lid o-ring that has gone hard or is sitting out of its groove, a cracked lid or pot, a loose drain plug, a suction valve not fully open, or a water level that has dropped below the skimmer throat. The pump itself is often perfectly sound.
There is water dripping between the motor and the pump. What is that?
That is the shaft seal. It is the mechanical seal that keeps pool water inside the wet end where the shaft passes through, and when it fails the water runs straight down the shaft into the motor bearings. It is a repairable part, but a shaft seal left leaking is what turns a small pump job into a motor replacement.
How many gallons does a Trophy Club pool hold?
Multiply length by width by average depth to get cubic feet, then allow roughly 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. A pool measuring 10 feet by 20 feet with an average depth of 5 feet is 1,000 cubic feet, or about 7,500 gallons. That volume is the number every flow-rate calculation starts from.
What is head pressure and why does a bigger pump not fix it?
Head pressure is the total resistance the pump has to push against: the pipe runs, the elbows, the height lift, the filter and the heater. A pump is matched to the flow the pool needs against the head the plumbing actually presents. Fitting a larger pump than the pipework can carry raises velocity and noise, strains the filter, and does not deliver the turnover the label promises.
Can the wet end be repaired without replacing the motor?
Usually yes. The pump splits into the wet end that holds water and the motor that spins it, and they are replaced independently. A cracked housing, a worn impeller, a failed shaft seal or a split basket are wet-end jobs. If the motor above is also worn, the two are often done together because the seal has to come apart either way.
What a pump repair costs
No published price for pump repair
A pump repair is quoted from the unit on the pad, because the same complaint can be a lid o-ring, a shaft seal, an impeller, a cracked housing or a complete pump and motor replacement. Those are not the same job and a single published figure would be wrong for almost every one of them.
No number is shown here rather than a made-up one. What the work involves is set out above so the scale of each repair is at least clear before anyone looks at the pad.
Trophy Club pool repair
The pump is the heart of the circulation loop, and it is one item on a pad that is covered as a whole on the Trophy Club pool repair page. Routine weekly service is where most of the faults above are caught while they are still small.