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The gas company is in the process of installing natural gas in our neighbourhood. We currently have an oil-fired pool heater (Laars XL) that is pretty old and will likely need replacing in a couple of years anyway, especially if the chipmunks keep nesting in it over the winter, so it seems like...

Like they do, the cable from our Dolphin Active 30 got twisted in the pool and ended up with some lumpy bits. I had been untangling and stretching out the cable on our (brick) pool deck to sit in the sun and then letting Wall-E the robot just pull it back into the pool as he was moving around...

I'm going to close our pool and spa by myself for the first time this year, because each year that we've owned the pool the various companies have each left me dissatisified in a different way. One of the things that none of them has done however, is plug the jet returns in the spa. Looking...

First time in the pool and Wall-E decided to get a bit creative on our sun shelf. At least it meant that I got to keep up my streak of being the first person in the pool every year as I waded in to turn him upright (I wasn't sure if pulling on his cord would be the right thing to do in this case)

Since my various pool upgrades over the past month I'm left with 2 valve handles for my old valves , a spare bag for Polaris 360 and 2/3 of a pack (8) of Polaris tail scrubbers . If anyone wants any of these items then I'll give them away for just the cost of postage since it seems silly to...

I've read both here and in the Dolphin robot instructions that the power supply is water resistant not waterproof and so shouldn't be left out in the rain. I'm planning on putting our new Maytronics Active 30 in the pool tomorrow for the first time. However, we're expected to get rain on and off...

We bought a house in 2016 with a pool. The first year we realised that one of the return valves for the spa at our equipment pad was leaking. We've tried to get pool companies to quote us on fixing it, but none of them seem to want to do it - it seems to be too much effort for a quick visit but...

I seem to only ever ask questions rather than providing advice and I apologise. However, I've got another one. We have a Teledyne/Jandy Laars XL-3 oil pool heater that's 14 years old (as best we can tell). It's stopped working so we had our heating company (as we have oil heat) take a look -...

We have a terrible problem with biting flies by our pool. We suspect they're coming from the wetlands on the unowned land next to us and they can ruin time spent by the pool as they dive-bomb anyone swimming. Last year we tried the fly bags from Amazon that, while they obviously caught lots of...

I have a Hayward pump (I know, because it has a sticker on the side) that is leaking, which is particularly upsetting because my pool was just opened for the season yesterday and I'm in the midst of scooping leaves and was hoping to vacuum. It appears to be leaking from between the pump and the...

We've had a terrible summer in NJ. It was incredibly hot the last week in June, then ok the week of July 4th, and then we've not had more than 2 dry days in a row since (we sanded our deck in late June but are still waiting for it to be dry enough to stain it). Due to this I've not been able to...

We have an oil-fired pool heater, our Swedish friend Laars XL-3. I was reading over the winter about fireman's switches, and then I discovered that we already had one fitted to our pump timer, so I thought I could set Laars to always be "on", and he'd start when there was enough pressure and...

I may need to replace a valve this summer as it was slowly leaking all last summer (it's to the spa, so it wasn't a major issue, but I'd like to get it fixed). However, I have no idea how you replace a section of PVC pipe - as I try and picture it in my mind it gets more and more complicated...

I had a letter from our local pool store last week, now that they're re-opened for the season, telling us to call to book in our pool opening. One of the big points in the letter was about how important it was to keep your water properly balanced and it said you should have your water tested at...

Since it's winter and all the hardware stores have ice melt, I figured I should stock up on Calcium Chloride rather than buying it in tiny pool store containers and high cost next summer. I saw that BJs warehouse club has their own brand of Calcium Chloride ice melt (50lbs for $20), but the...

I've had a pool for just over a year now (bought a house with a pool last September) and we've paid the pool store to open it (once) and close it (twice). I've done all the rest of the maintenance myself, thanks to TFP. Because of the size of my pool (30,000 gallons freeform pool), it seemed...

Thanks to TFP my water is super clear (it probably helps that no-one's been swimming for days because it's been so relatively cold here - the pool had dropped to 69F overnight). I remembered someone on the forums saying that you can tell if you've got clear water if you can tell if the screws on...

I'm still figuring out how our pool works. We have an oil fired heater and I'm having the complete opposite issue to what I expected. Last fall, after we bought the house, we turned on the heater to try and get at least one use of the pool before it was closed for the winter. I started it in...

We bought a house with a pool last fall and so we've only been able to use it (in NJ) since late May. As time's gone by I've noticed the little things that probably aren't right. This week it was that the "return jets" aren't actually jet like and are just the ends of 2" pipe sticking out of the...

Just wanted to introduce myself. Last year, after 12 years in the UK, we moved back to NJ (I'm British, my wife and the kids are American). One of the things on our home buying list was either a house with a pool, or one with a good location to build on. We ended up with a wonderful house, with...