Pool newbie and frustrated already

[Alwolf76]

Hi guys, this is my very first post on this troublefreepool forum.

We went ahead and bought a house with a lap pool in the backyard. We both are utterly clueless when it comes to pool maintenance.

i actually had someone from the pool cleaning service to "show me the ropes" yesterday. I thought I learned enough. NOPE! I'm still trying to grasp what I need/shouldn't need to do. Needless to say, I will be here often!

My major major major questions are (been searching all over the Internet for an easy answer):

what is the best pump schedule for my programmable pump? Just a baseline to begin with.

And the the pool heater is being finicky. I cannot determine which rpm will actually turn on the heater. It's driving me bonkers. This morning, I turned up the pump from 1200 rpm to 2200 and the heater started working. Then I came home from work and it was off! Why? I did all the troubleshooting and still couldn't figure out why it stopped. I was wondering if it has to do with water flow rpm.

Any my feedback or advice will greatly be appreciated.

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello and welcome to TFP! To answer your first questions, start the pump at 8 hours and go from there. You may want to read this page: Pool School - Determine Pump Run Time. I'm afraid I'm no help in the heater department, but someone else should be by shortly to help with that.

Feel free to post pics if you need to, and make sure to review our Pool School page (link below) as well as the other vital links you see in my signature. Those will serve you well. Great to have you with us.

 

[kimkats]

Hi! You have found the right place for all of your pool questions! So glad to see you here!

Pat has you covered with the pump run time.

How about you take a picture or two of your equipment and maybe we can help you figure things out. Someone may see something that will tell us the whole story.

How are you testing your water so far? How does the water look?

Kim :cat:

 

[pooldv]

Welcome to TFP! Congrats on the new pool!

I run my pump at 1100 rpm for skimming, filtering and making chlorine with the saltwater chlorine generator. I would start with a timer that runs 2 hours in AM and 2 hours in PM. If the pool is clean then you're good. If not then add an hour.

Heaters that are working properly should only stop for two reasons, low flow and the pool has reached the set point temp. Howmis your filter pressure? A dirty filter can reduce flow after running a while. We recommend backwashing the filter when the pressure rises 25% above clean pressure, use a high RPM to check pressure, like 3000 rpm. Other than that I would have to call a gas heater repair company to check for proper gas flow, burner cycling, temp sensors, etc.

Start here for testing and maintaining your water, Pool School - ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry