new plumbing, pad, pump question

[roth79]

So I am now on a mission after reading here till my eyes bleed. I am redoing my equipment pad and the old pic is below. I have a question I need some advise on. My plumbing is 1-1/2 from pool to pumps. I will replace the piping above the ground to 2". However my pad is below the pool where my piping is. It has 2 return line 1 is a pool vacuum line that's capped threaded and I have skimmer line, the main drain is plumbed to the skimmer. So to stop water flow for quick plumbing for 2 way jandy valve do I get a freeze pug for the skimmer or what. Also the return lines as the equipment is below a few feet below pool level?

I am redoing the pad also as I picked up a generator pad today, its plastic but it will do fine.
I also need to add a switch box on the wall for the pump in case I need to turn off power and in reading here my old intermatic turn wheel timer can not be used with the new pentair VS is what I read here.I don't have any other equipment as there's no spa, solar, heater or water features so just a on off electrical box for my 220v line.

I thought about the old bread trick quickly regarding the water flow, any suggestions are appreciated immensely.

Thanks,

Roth

 

[JasonLion]

You should use winterizing plugs to seal all of the inlets/outlets at the pool end. The bread trick can work when you need to make a single quick connection, but isn't good for major plumbing work. You are going to want everything sealed off for a least a day, possibly much longer, and winterizing plugs are the way to do that. Optionally, you could do the bread thing while you quickly installed shutoff valves at the pad end, and then do everything else with those valves closed, but I really think the winterizing plug approach will be simpler in the end, even if you need to go out and buy the plugs.

Technically, an Intermatic timer could be used with a VS pump, but most people wouldn't want to. The pump has a much fancier timer built-in, so there is little point in using the Intermatic. In the interests of simplicity, you might want to keep the Intermatic as an on/off switch and remove all of the on/off tabs so it doesn't do anything on it's own. It is certainly better to get a nice emergency shutoff switch instead, but different choices are available.

 

[roth79]

I have a older baker skimmer, should I use one of those gizmo deals that prevents freezing or juts a freeze plug, I assume the pipes are 1-1/2 like the rest of the pool. I thought of making a 5 footer threaded to what ever the bottom of the skimmer is and that pipe will be higher than the plumbing, in essence a seal for the skimmer that way, or am I over thinking this and just use a freeze plug?
Can I use a threaded pvc plug for the returns, just remove eye ball and install it threaded?
I do want to pretty up the electrical so I am going to look for a decent box that will work with the VS pump.


Thanks JJ.

 

[jblizzle]

I actually struggled plugging up my skimmer when I redid my pad. I could not find any winterizing plugs that fit at the hardware stores and no pool store carried them (it is Arizona). I think I ended up with a large sink rubber stopper that I could jam into it. Although I only had 1 connection that was below water level and already had shut off valves in the return side.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short