Southwest Indiana - kit was delivered today

[swilk]

I took the easy way out and am having a PB do the install instead of doing it myself ..... I will still be doing the electrical and equipment pad myself.

Anyway, the big truck showed up today with a whole lotta stuff ..... kind of exciting.

18x36 Inground steel wall liner pool. 6" radius corners. Hayward colorlogic LED light. Under track auto cover. Full length steel steps that have a 4'x8' bench at the same depth as the top step ....

Hayward automation, swg, VS pump. Tan Sierra / Gold Pebble liner. 3 deck jets. Sport bottom.

Supposed to start digging on Monday.

Figured I would keep an online journal of the experience from beginning to end .....

 

[jblizzle]

Congrats!!!

Have you ordered the all important test kit yet?

While you are waiting, go ahead and add the pool and equipment info to your signature and your general location in you profile

 

[swilk]

Will do ....

I do have one question before it is to late to change ....

The PB is using 1.5" pipe for everything .... each of the two skimmers and the main drains have a separate pipe back to the pad. There are 2 returns, each with a separate 1.5" pipe and 3 deck jets each with a separate 1" pipe.

Should that concern me at all?

Also, it looks like my Hayward Superpump VS is not really controllable by the Pro-Logic unit??? That sucks I guess I can still do most of what I want but it kind of makes that expensive pump seem like its not worth it.

 

[jblizzle]

Since you have 3 separate suctions lines ... assuming you are usually using at lest 2 at the same time ... I would think the 1.5" should be fine. And those should be fine on the return side as well.

You are right the new small Hayward VS pumps are NOT controllable by the Pro-logic. In fact, I would almost suggest you see if you can switch to a 2-speed pump as at least then the speed can be automatically changed if needed (like for solar). At first I was disappointed that I bought my 2-speed right before those VS came out ... but knowing this, glad I have the 2-speed.

The VS will be a little more efficient, but at the cost of the loss of automated speed control. Kind of a dumb oversight by Hayward in my opinion.

 

[swilk]

No kidding ....

My "master plan" was to make operation as easy as possible for my wife and kids .... wireless remote, push a button and the deck jets come on. Push a button and the light does its thing.

Those couple little things arent complicated at all ..... but it would be nice to be able to adjust the pump speed when the deck jets are called for. I can likely still make it do what I want with a constant speed and playing with the automatic valve actuator but still seems kinda silly they didnt include control with the pump.

If I didnt already have the pump I would most definitely buy a 2 speed. I have a feeling my pump will spend most of its life running a single speed.

 

[jblizzle]

They are not even a "true" VS like the Intelliflo or EcoStar. With them you can program in various speeds and set start and stop run times.

With the Superflo and Max-flo VS pumps, I think you can only set 2 (sort of 3) speeds. And whenever the pump turns on it will run a Speed 3 for a set amount of time and then switch to Speed 1 until it is turned off. I think you have to manually select Speed 2. Maybe I have the numbers wrong, but I think that is the extent of the programming.

 

[swilk]

PB showed up this morning (he ahd let me know over the weekend it woudl be Tuesday instead of Monday) and got to work. He thought he was a little slow but the progress seemed plenty fast to me. The excavation is done. Walls are set.

Concrete collar is tomorrow and supposed to get the bottom done as well.

I am having my own concrete guy do the flat work so once plumbing is roughed in it will be the concrete guys turn .... liner goes in after concrete for some reason.

Pictures to follow this evening.

 

[swilk]

PB is done for a few days .... my concrete guy is supposed to get started this evening. We will be doing a stamped concrete around the pool to match what we already have on our existing patio and in our "sunroom" that is directly off the patio.

Steps and shallow bench.

Looking down into the hopper .... pool has 6' of shallow (4' walls 3.5' water depth) on each end befor dropping off to a middle depth of 6.5'.

A lot of backyard work left to be done. Feathering out the dirt and landscaping around the pool and existing patio. Pictures are terrible but getting anything decent from ground level is impossible. When there is water in the pool Ill take an aerial pic from the roof.

I will be ordering a TF100 test kit .....

 

[Blueskies21]

Where'd you end up getting your pool kit from? Any problems with them? Did you get a quote from the builder you're using with him getting the kit vs you doing it?

I've wondered if I could ask to see my builders kit price and/or offer to get the kit. I suspect but I'm not sure that the guy that I'm leaning towards, since he is fairly low volume, may not be getting an awesome price and I think he's just marking it up a percentage so there's little incentive for him to minimize cost. I'm pretty frugal (or maybe "cheap") and so it's not worth my builders time to get it from a couple hundred cheaper but it totally IS worth my time.

 

[swilk]

I didnt get the kit myself .... I basically just went through the PB. I bought the pad equipment myself and used my own concrete sub.

Half the concrete was poured Saturday and the other half goes in this evening ...... assuming all goes well the liner should go in Wednesday.

I spent much of the day yesterday plumbing the pad area in preparation for the pad being poured .... so far I am pleased with the way everything is turning out.

 

[swilk]

Just about full of water .... now what?? Pump will be turned on by the end of the day. I do not have my chemistry set yet so i have no idea what is needed .....

Plumbing on the pad is complete ..... electrical is in the works.

Concrete has to be sealed still ....

Auto cover and some odds and ends will be done next week. PB left this box of chemicals .....

 

[jblizzle]

Should have ordered a test kit by now

Get some stabilizer dissolving in a sock and start maintaining FC in the pool.

 

[swilk]

I know ... I know ....

I can say that it is on order .....

I am taking a crash course in pool chemistry and am behind the curve at this time .... could you explain what you just said in laymans terms?

Should I add the chemicals the PB left?

Should I go and get the salt this evening and put it in the pool? I figure the pool capacity to be about 19600 gallons so i will need about 550lbs of salt (I think).

 

[swilk]

ok ... lesson for the day.

looks like I literally do exactly as you said .... I need to go and buy some stabilizer (local walmart I guess) and stuff a sock full of the stuff, tie a knot in the sock and put it in the pool. Once the pump is on I can put it in front of a return or in front of one of the skimmers.

It is a chlorine stabilizer .... so I assume that means I need to add some chlorine too?

 

[Blueskies21]

I don't know the answer but I wouldn't RUSH to do anything before you know what you're doing. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell you what to do. Seems like they're saying add CYA which as I understand is a stabilizer, one of the previous posters said you need to be maintaining your FC (Free Chlorine) which generally means bleach around here but it COULD mean shock too. Nothings going to turn green in the next 6 hours, just simmer until someone with more knowledge can tell you. Sorry I'm not more help personally.

 

[jblizzle]

You got it. suspend the sock out in front of the return jet. Since you are going to have a SWG, you can aim for 50ppm initially and verify in a week and then raise it up to the 70-80ppm for a SWG.

You should get about 1-2ppm of chlorine in the water pretty quickly ... and using the liquid chlorine they left is perfect. Just pour slowly and brush the pool down if you want to get some chlorine in the pool before the pump is running.

You can add the salt any time as well ... you can get solar salt from HD/Lowes for cheaper than any of the pool salt. Same stuff, just brush it around the pool to help it dissolve.

Have you learned to use poolcalculator.com yet? It will do the calculations for you.

 

[swilk]

went at lunch and bought 12lbs of stabilizer .... its a granular stuff. Filled two socks full, tied a knot in them and stuck them in the skimmer basket until this evening when I get the pump going.

The chemicals the PB left are 12.5%.... 4 gallons. Running my volume through the poolcalculator site it looks like I need to add 41oz to get to the 2ppm?

 

[jblizzle]

I would not set them in the skimmer with no water running. It is still an acid and could end up making the water in the skimmer very acidic. You also do not want it to rest against the liner either as it could cause fading.

That looks about right to me for the chlorine ... may want to try to stay around 1ppm until you get some of the CYA dissolved and once it starts to dissolve, start using the CYA/FC chart for bleach as the minimums, until the SWG takes over.

 

[swilk]

520lbs of salt over the weekend and my system says 3000ppm.

10lbs of stabilizer.

Waiting on the test kit to be able to measure the stabilizer but according to the chart on the container it should be around 50-55. PH and FC are good according to the cheap little kit that came with the pool start up kit.

Water is clear as can be .... and the floor is getting dirtier and dirtier .... no cleaner yet. Was going to try and wait it out and buy one over the winter but it looks like I will get pushed to make the purchase sooner rather than later.

A little system tweaking to do yet but everything seems to be working the way I want it to with one exception ..... I seem to be having some trouble getting the heater to run off of the controller. Its not really a big deal considering the heater itself has the ability to do basically the same thing but it bugs me nonetheless.

Water temp came up nicely without having to use the heater ..... 82-84* which is actually pretty nice.

 

[swilk]

Well .... my test kit came. Current CYA is right around 60 and FC is 3. I went ahead and put in another 3lbs of CYA and adjusted the SWG%.

The PB came Wednesday and installed the cover and my light .... all was well until I installed the light controller in my Pro Logic. For some reason it would not recognize the controller. I played around with it for a few minutes then it hit me .... the instructions say the Pro Logic needs to be on software 4.XX or newer and mine was only on 3.12. I called Hayward and they told me that version of code was a couple of years old and I needed to contact the vendor I got it from and get a replacement board. So .... i am waiting on the board to swap out.

I wonder if that might have something to do with the heater not working with the system too .....