New pool owner .. and don't know squat ...HELP

[fatcat07]

Hello All ,

Yesterday was the grand pool opening day !!!!! and of course my wife and I am attemping to do it on our own . A little about our pool, came with house, inground 33ft by 18ft, Hayward DE filter and super pump, was opened last year but not cleaned just shocked and DE added to verify pool in working contition.

PS - last year had a company come do these things

1st let me start with our successes:

Got the loop lock off with it falling to the bottom of the pool
Succuessfully connected pump to filter
Placed eyeballs in pool and baskets in skimmer

This is were the fun stopped .....ok i just want to go over some of the setting that I see on the filter and pump housing.

In front of the filter the is a knob the has the following setting :
Backwash
Rinse
waste
filter
recirculate
close

In front of the pump I have the following setting:
Close
1/2 and 1/2
Full port 1
Full port 2

The things I was told at the pool store:
Add about 5 gallons of water to the pump.
Release air pressure value on the filter, turn pump on, and when you see water squirting out of the value the filter the filter and pump is ready.

Ok let me stop here because I wasn't sure about setting on the two knobs I mentioned above , so them on the following settings : Rinse and Full port 2

So while the pump was running a felt air coming out of the air value but never saw the water squirting ????? but i waited about 20 minutes and changed the settings on the knob in front of the filter to "FILTER"

And just to let everyone know once I turned on the pump I did add some DE to the skimmer.

Ok ..... now I have everything running but I am not seeing any activity at the skimmer/eyeballs and the part that really worries me I am not seeing anything coming in on the input (from the pool) hole in the pump ???

It looks like to me that water is not cycling through the pump/filter ....

At this point I stop for the night .... sun setting and mosquito’s biting ...

Could anyone please help me, I tried to be as detailed as possible in my post ... but if anyone needs any more information do not hesitate to ask ....

I haven't taken water levels yet, put I willpost as soon as I do ....

Thanks in advance

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

You want the main valve, the one that chooses between backwash/rinse/waste/filter/etc, set to filter. This valve should only be moved when the pump is off.

To start with, you want the valve in front of the pump set to port 1.

Then do what the pool store said, open the air vent on the filter, fill the pump basket with water, turn on the pump, when water comes out of the filter vent turn the vent off.

If first air and then water does not come out of the air vent on the filter, turn everything off, refill the pump strainer basket and try again. If it continues to not work, try setting the valve in front of the pump to port 2.

Once it is working, with the pump running, move the valve in front of the pump very slowly from where it is to the 1/2 and 1/2 position.

Double check that water is flowing through the skimmer and coming out of the returns.

If everything is good at this point, now add DE to the filter.

 

[fatcat07]

Thanks for the reply .....

Ok I have been swinging between Full 1 and Full 2 to see if either one works ... no luck so far.

When I put water in the pump .. it get sucked up by the filter but I don't see anything coming from the skimmer ???

Not sure what to do at this point ... thinking I might have to have a service call, unless someone has a suggestion.

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

From what you said you accomplished, I didn't see anything about pulling winterizing plugs out of the skimmer (you put the basket in, but did you remove the plug first?)

Did you have to reattach the pump to the inlet plumbing - if you did, did you install the o-rings for the union?

Is there a valve after the filter for the returns? If so, did you open it?

If you can post a few pics of the system and the connections, we can probably save you that service call 8)

Have you read Pool School? (it's linked in both Jason and my sigs) It'll help get you 'up to speed' on some of the terms we use and is an excellent! primer for first time pool owners :-D

I think you can easily handle the issues you're having with our help, as long as we all get on the same page

*A quick note - the pool store advisers are morons - a superpump needs 1 gallon of water to prime it, adding 5 gallons only raises your pool water by 4 gallons *

If you would please provide me some pics of the system, I'm positive thet I can tell you where to check and what to do do get the pump primed and running

 

[fatcat07]

Hello all,

Found the problem/s - part of the problem was the O ring on pump, it seems to have come out of it's track while I was troubleshooting the pump ... the other part of the problem was the PVC connector between the pump and return from the skimmer/main drain, I had hand tighten it so it was taking in air. Once It was given a good half a turn with a wrench and the O ring was placed properly the pump started circulating the water.

Ok ... since I am still a pool owner who doesn't know squat but learning ..... thanks to "TFP forum", I now have the problem were I put to much DE in the skimmer and it circulated through and is now floating on the top of my pool. So my brilliant idea is to backwash and rinse but not add any DE so that the DE floating in the pool will hopefully get caught by the filter.

Is this sound thinking or is their is a proper way to deal with this ?

Thanks again ......

PS - Since the I had added to much DE, I have gotten the proper measurement for my pool size .... Pool store told me cup and 1/2 half

 

[JasonLion]

Adding too much DE won't get DE into the pool, it will clog the filter and slow down the water flow, but it won't go into the pool unless something else is wrong.

Further, no DE filter takes as little as 1.5 cups of DE. The smallest ones I am familiar with take around eight cups of DE, and yours is presumably much larger than that. Even if you mean 1.5 DE scoops, which are larger than cups, that is still less than any DE filter I have ever seen.