New Pool Owner, Lots of Questions!

[DanaR]

First off, thank goodness I found this site!! I first went to my local pool people and had them come out to fix a minor crack and tell me what I needed to know. Yea, they told me nothing, fixed the crack, and charged my $200!!!

Now, for my pool. We inherited this pool upon purchasing our house. I thought i was no big deal because I grew up with a pool. Of course the glisten of the water quickly made me forget that my dad took care of the pool and I had no idea what to do except swim in it!

All in all I thought I was doing ok. I let it get away from me once and it turned completely green! I decided to fight back and not let it get the best of me (after all, it is summer!)..... I balanced all the chemicals, shocked it, skimmed, and algacided it! It was crystal clear with a little cloudy sand type material at the bottom. Which when I went to vacuum it, turned the pool CLOUDY. Its blue, just cloudy. All chemicals are balanced to where they should be. Now for the worst part - my pool pump has lost its "power" - it still pumps, but with little strength and not enough to even get the vacuum going! When it comes to the pump, to me its just this fancy thing with lots of pipes and knobs, and it scares me. So i wrote down all the information I could find and hopefully someone here will know what I am talking about...

-From the pool to: Baquapure Filtration System (Workhorse Super Flow Pool Pump)... in small font on the label it reads"waterway insulated wet end pump)
-Then it goes to a, what I like to call, fire hydrant looking thing. Label says ProClean Cartridge Filter (which I assume means I am a cartridge filter not a sand filter?)... it says 75gpm, 50 psi
-Then it heads down a pvc to a small blue thing called Nature2 (nature squared)
-Then the previous owner of the house put in this home made solar heater thing where it heads down a pvc pipe to a black hose into a window box thing with lots of black hose...
- Finally it heads back into the pool!

All of the above is gibberish to me. But if you understand it I value any input you have! Basically I would just like to know:
1. The best way to maintain it.
2. Any suggestions on how to keep it from evaporating (yea, i know im dreaming)
3. Any clue on why my pump is barely pumping

I appreciate all your knowledge and thank you for taking the time to help me out!

 

[anonapersona]

Is there a pressure gauge on the top of that cartridge filter? If the filter is dirty, that might be the pump's problem.

My cartridge filter requires cleaning when the gauge gets to 21-ish psi. I know that right after cleaning it runs at 16 psi and you can let it get about 5 to 7 psi over that 'just cleaned' pressure I've been told. We have to clean it something like every 3 months although using the skimmer socks that I bought seems to have slowed that down. It was more like every month over the winter, pre-sock usage.

You may need to get someone to show you how it is done. When we bought this house, the brother-in-law of the seller had cleaned the filter and not totally tightened it so it was leaking a lot. We had the pool repair company come to do a lot of things, one of which was to fix that leak and so I got to watch him tap all along the band as he tightened the bolt. I never would have known to do that to get it tight. It is really a two person job, IMO, especially the first few times. I doubt that I could ever manage it alone though my husband maybe could.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Hi and welcome.

Okay, lets see. First, you need to find a manual for the cartridge filter, and figure out how to open it up. It sounds like the filter probably needs cleaning. Filter Cleaning Instructions.

If you could please post a full set of test results, and how you obtained them. Have you read Pool School?

So you had the pump/system running, including the water to the solar panels? Have you closed any valves during this time?

The Nature 2 is a worthless piece of junk, and the pool store loves them because they are big money makers. You need to open it up, and if the cartridge is in there, take it out and don't bother to replace it. In the future you may want to remove the cannister from the plumbing line - but in the meantime just make sure the water flows freely thru it and there is no closed valves or anything.

Okay, that's all I can think of for now but its a good starting point. Hope this helps.