54 year old pool needs help.

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travelersrestpool

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Aug 14, 2012
3
Hello guys.
I am new to the Trouble Free Pool forum family, but I have been reading the excellent advice provided by the members for over a year. The best way to describe the pool I inherited from my dad is that “It is a 54 year old cement pond built by a pipefitter.”
For years to keep the pool operational I have followed the wise advice my dad passed along to me, but now I have a problem I can’t figure out. The pump is spitting out a fine dust into the pool. Over the past 25 years or so I have occasionally taken the top 3-4 inches of sand off of the top of the filter and added new sand back in. However, I have never completely replaced the whole sand layer. I am pretty sure there are no high tech filters to fail inside this pump, but the pump keeps putting a fine dust into the pool.
My question to the forum family, is do you think taking all of the sand out down to the pea gravel layer will correct this problem?
I look forward to hearing your informed opinions.
Thanks,
Barry Coleman
 
Welcome to TFP.

I doubt that replacing the sand is going to solve your problem.

What size is the filter?
How do you backwash it?
Do you know the brand and model?
Are you losing water from the pool?
Can you post some pics of the equipment and water?

Can you post a set of test results and how you got them?
 
Odds are that filter is cast iron. Those didn't last all that long. We went through two of them in forty years but our equipment room was very damp. Those things were huge and heavy because the sand went on top of gravel and then small rocks and then bigger rocks. Modern filters just use sand. Eventually the internals would corrode out and the structure would break down so that water could tunnel through without getting filtered. At 54 years, it doesn't owe you anything. Just replace it and move on. This is coming from an all-time champ at keeping old stuff running.

The hard part is getting the old one out of there. I just left two monster cast iron jobs 4 feet tall and three feet across sit in place from 1973 until 2003 after I replaced them both with something only 3 feet high and 2 feet across.
 
travelersrestpool said:
Thanks for the replies; I will post a picture of the pump as soon as I can figure out how to do that. Yes, the pump system is a monster with about 14 valves and standing about seven-foot tall.
Click to expand...

Seven feet in 1960? How many gallons in this 'cement pond'? I bet our departed pipe fitter built this custom from scratch, probably starting with a boiler or something. That's why it lasted 54 years. Yes, please post a pic. Any rivets on the tank?

My original 1946 pool had a WWII surplus ship's 8" steam valve for a main drain control. All brass and bronze. Never serviced in 56 years of operation. Had an 18" turn wheel. A thing of beauty.

You probably have no multi-port valve--that's why it has 14 individual valves on it. It takes a real pool man to run one like that. Our first filter had no multi-port. You had to think before you set up a backwash. Then turn about nine different valves.
 
picture of 54 year old pool needs help.

Here is a picture of the 54 year old pump. It actually has twenty bronze gateway valves, two pressure gauges and a whole bunch of other stuff I have no idea about.
 

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