Completely new to the pool world. Our pool builder has 2 returns in the proposal but will be asking for another 2-4 to be added. Are returns generally split once a main return line is ran from the pump/filter back to the pool? I’m just having trouble visualizing how several returns are plumbed. Also, are all wall returns generally preferred over any floor returns today? Thanks all!

Pebble finish was installed Thursday. Acid wash and pressure wash today and ppool is filling. Far from done. Sheer wall is leaking. Guy showed up now to fux after a year and is cutting rock adn all teh dust is flyign into my new pebble. Should I stop him!!!

Usually I gently set the unit in the pool. But being pretty disgusted with its stupidity (not even random) I gave it a good arching toss into the pool. The thing seems to behave like my old Active 30 now so far. Did I dislodge some orientation mechanism for the better?

Hello everyone, I’m looking forward to learning from this site!

Hi Everyone,

My pool is relatively new (9months) and something happened to my aqua link last week. It froze up and then it basically turned off my swcg for 1-3 days (not sure) and when I checked the cl level I was at basically zero. I boosted the pool running the swcg for 100% at 24 hours and it got the chlorine back to 2-3ppm.

When I went out today, CL was still in that same range but I noticed this spot along with some white stuff on my bubbler tube. I swear the bubbler tube used to be clear but it is all white and chalky now. I have never seen this orange spot and I think it had some black/green edges until I scrubbed it with a brush. Any further scrubbing does not affect it at all.

Can you guys tell me what you think…is this spot rust/algae and is the white stuff indicative of anything? The water is crystal clear and I can see all the pebbles on the pool bottom.

We woke up this morning and the pool filter said it was on but no water was moving in the pool and the pump nor filter were running. We checked the breakers, turned them off and back on and it didn't help. There was a bit of a burn smell but not positive where it was coming from. Don't know how old the pump is but we know it's at least 4 years old. Just got new sand filter last year. We have a 3 year old birthday pool party Sun and hoping we can get it working by then. Any ideas on what we should check or look at would be appreciated. I've already called several pool people to come out, but it's a holiday weekend. Thank you so much!!

I wanted to share an experience I had with Maytronics.

I was fairly disgruntled after the M600 I purchased in November 2019 failed (completely dead) in January of 2023 of course just after the 3 year warranty expired! I disassembled the unit after being told it was out of warranty and discovered that the motor unit showed signs of having moisture in it and I believed the circuit board was ruined due to the moisture it had been exposed to.

After searching for a new robot I began getting ads on social media about Maytronics. I started commenting back with negative comments advising people not to purchase their product and I wasn't alone.... One of their reps asked me to send them a personal message and explain my situation. I explained a prior negative experience I had while trying to use their warranty service as well as my disapproval that a unit cost as much as it did and only lasted slightly longer than the warranty period. After much discussion they offered to repair the unit for free IF it was indeed the motor unit. I wasn't sure it was worth it, but I reassembled the unit and mailed it to their service center. They pretty promptly looked at the unit and said that it was the motor unit and also needed new tracks and climbing rings. I had to pay for those, but for only a little over $100 it seemed worth it. The unit was sent back and is working perfectly!

I also noticed that if you look on their site now, the M600 has a 4 year warranty instead of the 3 year it had when I purchased mine. I think if I get another 3-4 years out of it then I'll be much happier about the money spent on it! I'm very pleased with how the M600 works as long as it's working! It is a HUGE improvement over the Polaris 280 that I had been using since my pool was built.

If I keep the chlorine level at the higher end of the range for the corresponding CYA level, will I use more chlorine over the course of the summer? For example, at CYA level of 40, the recommended chlorine level is 3-7 ppm. If I maintain the FC at 6-7 rather than 3-4 will I end up using significantly more chlorine? Or will I use approximately the same amount (except for the initial higher dose)?

Hello all,

I had a bad winter, tons of leaves and algae to greet me (cheap cover which has since been tossed), so I added 6 lbs of shock to clear things up. Lots of vacumming, etc and here is where I'm at today with a Taylor test kit.

TA - 130
CH - 210
FC - 7.8
CC - maybe .5? There is a hint of red at .4 and it's clear at .6
CYA > 100 as the black dot cannot be seen before the gauge starts.
My PH reading is yellow so it's below 7 after adding one bag of soda ash.

My pool is an 18' round, 48" deep, salt, and is covered when not in use.

Looking for advice on how to raise PH, after adding 4# already the PH didn't move.

Because we have a pool, we've been having my 2.5 year old doing Infant Self Rescue swim lessons. This is the 4th week.

The instructor emailed tonight to cancel for everyone tomorrow, because she went to urgent care because she has some kind of itchy bumpy rash. Wife told me that last week she said she had a bit of a rash at one point too. (Though she was initially attributing that to the rash-guard type shirt she wears. I was already starting to suspect chemistry.)

The pool is an indoor residential pool. (Instructor is renting the time in the pool; she's not the homeowner.)

I've been getting in and participating with my son's lessons last week and this week, and on Tuesday noticed a little itchiness, and also did one day last week. I have also noticed the water is a little murky some days, and some days the combined chlorine smell is pretty strong in the building.

Not at all surprising to me, she told me that the local pool store says that the water is testing fine... I told her I didn't want to just throw them under the bus, but that I wasn't surprised. And I'd bring home a sample on Friday (assuming she's feeling better then and we have lessons then) and run it through my kit.

Just curious what could be so out of whack that would cause a rash? She is in the water for a few hours each day, but I'm pretty sure even that shouldn't cause a rash in a well-balanced pool!

Pool room has some sky lights and lots of windows, but I seem to remember seeing that indoor pools shouldn't have much, if any CYA, right? Edit: I see the comment about a little CYA being necessary to buffer the chlorine. That makes sense.

I have a

Hayward TriStar VS Variable Speed Pool Pump W3SP3202VSP​

I brought it last year but didnt install until last week. Ran fine for 6 days. Today I lowered pool through waste setting on Filter valve and drained pool for about 10 minutes on 2200 RPM.

Water was going down drain just fine. I went to panel to shut off pump and switch valve and there was a burning plastic smell. Breaker at pool area was tripped so was breaker in the house.

Reset both, and now nothing at the pump. the screen is blank. I have good voltage to the pump. Measure 122v on each line in and 244v across them both.

The smell seems strongest at the black cylinder both wires go into before disappearing into pump and maybe I see a little soot.

What is this piece?
Is it a fuse block of some kind?
Is it likely the "cause" of the issue or the result of another issue?
Can I simply replace this piece ?



Thanks in advance

Jim

Good morning guys, I am new here. I have a skimmer that needs replacing. We have access to the skimmer now. The concrete deck has been busted up and the skimmer is in view. My question is do I have to use the same skimmer. I was told that this is a Waterway Venturi turbo skimmer and it has jetted plumbing. The company installing the vinyl liner wants to charge us $4000 to replace the skimmer. We already have our concrete guy doing the work. Cutting the coping and the concrete work. Can I use another skimmer that is better than this one? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

So my pool plumbing runs up my house to the roof for solar heating. I need to mount it to the side of my house which is stucco. I want to avoid any vibration because my bedroom is on the other side of the wall. Any suggestions?

Hi all -

My Hayward SwimPure Plus system is not producing chlorine and I'm trying to figure out if it has finally died or if it's fixable. The unit is from 2013 based on the serial number (3A13081-xxxxxx). I did the thermasistor fix 2 summers ago and they look fine. The cell itself is about 4 years old and has been recently cleaned. Pool is 20x40, 36,000 gallons.

What I'm seeing:

- TC and FC are both zero - which is how I know it's not producing chlorine - and the pump has been running 24x7 at 2500 RPM this week. I've triple checked with a trip to Leslies, some test strips, and my Taylor kit. Flow is good, sand filter has been backwashed in the last week, pressure shows clean.
- The SWG is showing the Power and Generating lights green, all others off.
- Knob is set to 75%
- Instant salt is 3000
- Average salt is reading 3300 (Leslies tested at 3200)
- Temp is 81
- Volts is 24.7
- Amps is 5.61
- Cell is T-15 (which is correct) and AL-0 and r-1.58

It's been set like that all week. What's interesting, is when I move the SWG to Super Chlorinate (100% essentially) or move the dial to 100% and leave in Auto, the Generating light goes dark and the Super Chlorinate light does not light. Amps drops to zero. Based on the above, it looks like the SWG is generating - volts, amps, and salt are all in the right range and the controller PCB is doing what it's supposed to do - which confounds me. Any suggestions?

A friend has a T-15 cell I can go get and troubleshoot with if it sounds like it's worthwhile, but it's a couple hour drive to get it.

TL;DR

Just getting started on this as an Owner/Builder. I’ve been reading the forums a ton the last few months, trying to get an idea of what to do, what works, best practices, etc. I’d love to get any additional input on my plans.

I just got the engineering plans back, and submitted for permits earlier this week. Want to get the dig started in the next couple of weeks if the weather holds so I can get it done early next spring/summer and have some time to swim! Would love to get anyone’s feedback.

I’m relatively handy, so will be doing as much of this as I can myself, which ultimately may just end up being plumbing, tile, pavers, some of the electrical and gas.
Many of the build threads have been extremely helpful to see, so I plan on updating this throughout the project.

Going to be a 22’ X 46’ gunite pool, right around 40k gallons.
6’ wide tanning ledge (1’ water depth)
4’ to 5’ Shallow end (3.5’ - 4.5’ water depth)
9’ Deep end ( 8.5’ water)

Would like to put in a jumping ledge(s) and am planning for additional strength on pool walls for that, but haven’t finalized anything there yet. Have also looked at doing a rope swing, but there’s not a lot of info on that, especially on anyone that’s done it themselves.

Pool Equipment:

• Pump: Pentair Inteliflo VSF 11056 (maybe IntelliPro 23056 for 2-½" port size??)
• Filter: Pentair Quad DE 100
• Salt Water: Intellichlor IC60
• Heater: Pentair MasterTemp 400k BTU gas heater
• Automation: Intellicenter with power center (hoping to find the IntelliCenter i8PSIC60 Kit)
• Lights: Pentair Microbrite (3 on tanning ledge, 6 in pool)
• AutoCover

Would like to do 2-½" suction lines, but may end up with 2”. Below is my initial plan for plumbing, with some questions.

Plumbing Questions

• Was planning on 2-½" suction side. Intelliflo 11056 only has a 2” port. Do I upgrade to the IntelliPro 23056 instead? Just use 2” pipe?
• Is there a ‘best’ skimmer? Does it matter?
• Do I need to use the equalizer line on the skimmer? Or just cap that?
• Should I move some returns to the short wall on the deep end? (same wall as the cover)
• Contemplating deck jets – what's everyone’s experience with those? Are they worth it or a waste of time? They’re not terribly expensive, and may not use them a lot, but it seems like they could be fun occasionally.
• Is it worth it to have separate runs for all the returns? Or combine all of them on each side together to simplify things? If I do that, do I need to loop it? Returns would be 1-½ runs.

Any other thoughts/suggestions/changes? What other things am I missing?

Edit: Adding a better picture

Hello all

I'm stuck. We have a 13,000 gallon above ground 24' pool in Southwest Ohio that gets direct exposure to the sun for every second the sun is out (which is a lot in the summer). Last year we had an unusually hot summer and we sat in the upper 80's. This year is a different story. We're camping around the low to mid 80's and with the solar cover (16mil gray) we're floating 75-77 degrees.

Our goal for a heat pump (propane is not an option - too expensive to run) is to be able to get the pool to sit at 80 degrees or higher for ALL of June through September. Hayward indicates that I need a pump around 65,000 BTU. Unfortunatley, the only ones I can get my hands on are 47,000 (for $2,299) or a 90,000 (for $4,000). I really would prefer ot not spend the extra $1,700 (especially since it's 4-6 weeks out on delivery and the smaller one is in stock).

Anyone have any experience trying to heat a larger body of water with a slightly undersized heat pump? If I could get my hands on the HP70HA2 (70k btu unit) I would but I can't find it in stock anywhere.

Hey everyone,

we bought a house with a pool and we've been having issues with chlorine generation. We discovered that the system was set up with a Hayward Low Salt T-CELL-LS-CUL but the control panel is a Hayward Goldline Pro Logic and not a dedicated Hayward Low Salt system. Should I be replacing the chlorinator with a regular Hayward one because it is not compatible with our Hayward controller. This is the advice of my local pool shop, just want to make sure before $1600 purchase is made.

Thank you!!

Hi All - How do you all position your eyeball return. I used to have it where you couldn't really see any ripples in the water as it was positioned straight but down slightly. Then I took it off to plug to do some maintenance on the filter and when I put it back it was angled slightly up where it was creating some small ripples. Does it matter one way or the other for the pool/circulation? Or am I over thinking it? Thanks

So we added a heater bypass this last Spring before opening. It's just 2 manual Jandy valves that I close/open basically when I was to enable/disable the bypass. I thought it'd be nice to NOT send water through the heater if I'm not using it for long periods of time (especially as one of my two SWCG's is before the heater, which I know isn't ideal, but ugh, replumbing that one is going to be such a PITA). So, I have had the heater bypass enabled occasionally, but recently started wondering if it's a problem bypassing the heater and having that stagnant water sitting IN the heater?

What's the standard operating procedure when using a heater bypass? Should I also be draining the water in the heater? Or just leaving it there, or doesn't it really matter if my water chemistry is on spec? Thoughts one way or the other?

I went on vacation for a week from last wednesday to this wednesday. When I left I added 2 gallons of 10%. Then on Friday and Monday following I had the person staying here add 2.5 gallons. Tested wednesday when I got back and was clear so first thought is added too much. So got chlorine neutralizer to try and lower. Added 1 pound and retested and still clear. So added another pound of chlorine neutralizer and still clear for FC. FC has been clear since testing wednesday. So I went to the pool store and do drop based test and said I have no chlorine. Not sure of the exact test but they did a drop based test that if goes brown then it is too high but still clear. They said phosates were around 200 so not to really worry.

So I added some chlorine today and should have bumped from 0-6, and still getting clear.

I have tried to replace about 1/4-1/3 of the water to lower the level. So I have a hard time believing it is all gone. There is no smell of chlorine and not sure if the neutralizer is removing the cholorine I am adding. Pool is not green at all. So just at a loss and would appreicate some advice.

I thought my CYA was 40 but when I tested I got 20 and pool store got 30, but this is after some water replacement so not sure what it was prior.

Any advice would be helpful since if too high obviously do not want to swim. If the neutralizer is just eating up the chlorine I am putting in I have read it should be dissipated in a few days.

Hello all,

New guy here from S.E. Michigan, first post. Getting ready to hopefully have an operating pool in the next few days or so. Bought and installed a used 12x24 pool. Currently filling with hose. It came with a sand filter, of which I replaced the sand with new pool filter sand. Wondering what chemicals I should initially start with, and how much? I did search the site and couldn't find anything on starting up. I will be buying one of the recommended test kits so I can get help from this site. Thank you all for any advice.

Edit....pool test kit won't be here till next week, being a holiday weekend. Is there a a cheap test from local pool store I can do to get things rolling?

I'm ready to drain & refill (or maybe just fill in) I can't figure out what is happening. I thought it was mustard algae, so I did that version of SLAM, passed all the hurdles, then kept my FC 8-10. Everything was fine, until I woke up one morning and it was 5. Then the mustard spots showed up again. I caught early and it didn't take off like last time, but it's still not quite sparkly and there's still algae eating the chlorine. I'm wondering if it's black algae? Or whatever type trapped in a place I can't reach? Our light screws stripped, so we had to have someone come in last year to repair, and he permanently affixed them - they can be removed but not with any equipment we have. Was our best option at the time since no one really likes to see a light float to the top of the pool while you're swimming. I get they're still safe, but it's also still really unsettling: electricity/water. Our phosphates are crazy high as we never cover the pool which is surrounded by landscaping which sits and decompose through the off-season, plus everything that falls in through out the summer. We've treated with phosphate remover but not made much headway. Knowing that's a fuel for algae, wondering if it makes more sense (time, energy & $$) to just drain, clean & refill? We have a black bottom pool, so it's really hard to tell if maybe there's black algae somewhere. Even during summers when the pool did sparkle, any time I brushed small plums of dust (?) would rise & settle. I feel like there's just so much gunk imbetted in our pebbletec that just needs to be acid washed or however you clean it and then start fresh. I could replace our stripped lights once & for all as well. We also have a raised waterfall with a 3ft deep well. I do brush that when I'm SLAMing, but I just noticed how yellow the rocks behind (hidden by japanese maple) are. Could that be the source? We also have a bunch of black dots on the diving board - maybe that's the problem? They don't seem slimy. A pool toy or suit?

For now, I'm planning to just try to maintain the high FC. Should I continue to let it drop and do it's thing during the daylight and bump up again when it's dark? Or raise now knowing I’ll lose a lot just to sun? Should I do a phosphate treatment to try to cut food source? Or quit and find a new hobby?

I'm attaching a few photos from yesterday to hopefully better explain (plus one from when it’s “normal”) Will try to add a current shortly

FC: 23
CC: 0
TA: 90
pH: 7.5
CH: 300
CYA: 60 (<--had been 40 and after I "finally" cleared the last algae outbreak few weeks ago I slowly started to raise, aiming for 70-80, but have stopped now)
Salt: 3700
Phosphates: over 4000 (yes thousand)

We are wrapping up the build of a new pool and while the kids were out night swimming they were all trying to figure out how to change the colors of the lights. So we call the builder and he sends out his guy. "I see why it won't change colors, you have 500w incandescent lights". Well this was a surprise to us but the builder is insisting that it wasn't discussed nor in the contract. They quoted $1800+ to upgrade them so I am here to see what my options are. We've got the pentair intellitouch controller with pentair "Pentair AM SS 500w" lights (78458100). What options do I have for color changing lights? Can I replace just the bulb in the existing housing or do I need an entire new housing? Do I need a different controller or will they work with the easy touch?
Thanks

I’ve read a lot of the posts here regarding the reasons to run the CYA at about 80ppm if using a SWCG. It seems that a primary reason is because the SWCG doses Cl very slowly. I’ll be installing a unit rated at 3.1 pounds per day of capacity. Doing some math for a 28,000 gallon pool gives me the ability to dose up to 13.3 ppm in a 24 hour period if I had the thing on full blast. I obviously would not do that, but is it still recommended that I increase my CYA from 40ppm where it is now up to 80ppm?
Thanks in advance,

Hey TFP,

I had an automatic water filler installed, and had a different guy run the water line for me a few months ago. He put in 2 manual valves, one right before the pool and one on the other end near the water supply. This is nice because I can seal it off from either end. But, he did not install an anti-siphon valve to prevent water from being sucked from the pool back into our house lines. I'm not clear exactly what is needed...is the attached photo the proper product for this?

cheers!

We bought a house with a pool 2 years and it's been nothing but a headache. Previous owners didn't open it for a few years and allowed the gutter run off to go down into the pool. We had them make it swim able before we bought it and they did but we continue to have issues and i'm just not sure what it is. We have added a new heater, a new variable speed motor, a new multiport valve as the gasket was bad, we had the sand redone end of last year, and we did a salt cell generator the IC40 for our 27k pool. We had the IC30 and it wasn't generating enough or any salt not sure and we had our pool shop swap that out.


TDS: 5000
Salt: 3600
Ph 7.4
Alkalinity: 95
Calcium Hardness: 180
Free chlorine: 1.2
Total chlorine 1.7
CYA: 104
Phosphates: 4000
Metals (specificially copper) .3

We just can not get this pool clear. Oddly when we opened it up earler this year it was perfect really clear, once the season wore on it's been cloudy espeically after i tried to do a phosphate treatment because we couldn't keep chlorine in it. It's been cloudy for almost a month now and it was cloudy for most of last year. It's like a milky haze almost. I can most days see the drain otherwise its always cloudy. We had issues maintaining chlorine levels and i'm not sure if it was the old generator and the new one fixed it or all the chlorine is being used. We have shocked the heck out of it and still super cloudy.

I'm honestly not sure if i should care about the phosphates or not. I hear people say ignore them, and i hear people say that ours are so high we need to treat. I did a metal treatment and that seems to have helped with the staining i'll know more when i get that tested at the pool store.

We run the pump 24x7 at either 2250 or 3150 rpm. I have the 4ppm culator in the basket as well to help with the metals.

Bought house in December, still figuring out all the pool stuff.

One thing that has/had vexed me is this electrical box. Is fed by the circuit panel. I even had a guy out and he couldn't tell me for sure what it was doing. (He was doing a quote for replacing my old stab-lok style panel. As I have been thinking about it this morning, it is entirely possible that the quote guy they sent may or may not be an electrician...)

Anyway, power goes from the circuit panel (one 15 amp breaker and one 20 amp breaker) into this box. There is a momentary switch on the side of the box. When you push the momentary switch, the magnetic coil is energized to close the connection. And it is kept closed by the power/connection itself being made. Stays connected until, for whatever reason, power is cut to the box. From the box, a single cable goes to the exterior of the house, into a not-great junction box outside, then into the timer, and from there the pump and SWG.

I took another, closer look at the insides of the box this morning. I think what it is doing is combining the two 110v breakers to make a 220v circuit to feed the timer and pump. Looking closely at the Romex cable, I am certain it is 12g wires. It is stamped, not printed but it looks like larger than 14g and I am certain I saw 12 on the jacket. I think the pool setup is old enough that the wiring was done before the jackets were color coded to yellow for 12g.

This is all well and good except for two things:
First, there is not yet any GFCI protection. I was originally thinking I had 120v going to the exterior (based on looking at the jacket before investigating deeper today) and was just going to install a GFCI outlet in that junction box. But now I don't think I can do that.

Second, if there is any sort of blink in power, the electromagnetic connection is broken and power is cut off to the pump and SWG. This happened Saturday night (we were driving home and saw the power blink as we approached a stoplight near the house) and I didn't even think about the electromagnetic connection being broken until I went to manually run the cleaner Sunday evening. Thankfully I went to do that, because it may have been several days otherwise.

That isn't necessarily a giant deal, except for if I don't notice it, or maybe it happened while we were on vacation. We're going to be gone Friday to Monday this weekend.

So that got me to thinking about other remedies.

Looking at the label on my pump, it appears it can be wired to operate off of either 110 or 220. I was thinking I could swap the wiring on the motor and run everything off of one 110 circuit breaker and install a GFCI outlet like I'd planned. But it appears the timer motor only runs on 220 (just looked at a pic I snapped a few weeks ago of the inside door of the timer). Blast!

I suppose I could still do the wiring changes and update the timer to one that would work with 110v?

Or, I do see I could get something like this to add GFCI protection.

The timer and the exterior junction box are under my deck and only accessible outside the pool area which makes things like manually turning the pump on and off to vacuum or empty the skimmer basket inconvenient, so I had been thinking of relocating everything to be inside the pool area.

One benefit of switching everything to 110v is then I could use one of the two pool breakers to run a more proper circuit to my garage, which would be super handy because it is also lacking at the moment. I see that there are actually GFCI breakers available for my stab-lok box, so I could either add GFCI there or by an outlet sending power to everything. (Is the breaker any better/safer than an outlet for any reason, there is a significant price difference.)

Are there any real drawbacks to wiring the pump to run on 110v? I do recall asking a friend about 110v vs. 220v on my air compressor and he said that it will consume more power at 110v. True? How much more? I wasn't worried about that with the air compressor, but it does seem like a consideration with the pool pump.


Do my suspicions of what this box is doing (taking two 110v circuits to make one 220v circuit) seem correct?

What are my real options to improve all this (e.g. adding GFCI and not having to worry about power accidentally getting cut and not realizing it) without spending an arm and a leg for a full panel replacement at this time? (I would like to have that done at some point down the road.)

Second pic is just the label on the electromagnetic device.

Greetings all, great site and very helpful since I had my spool built. Looking forward to learning from all y'all.

Sorry but I can’t find where to search because I’m sure this has been answered already.

Which product/brand is everyone’s favorite to increase calcium hardness?

Thanks so much! I’ve learned so much here.

I have a Jandy 2 way 4724 valve that has leaked around valve cover since installation. It’s a new valve that I just installed. I installed a 4717 and 7305 at the same time with no issues. I’ve taken apart checked oring and even replaced oring with a new one with no luck. I’ve lubricated the oring with magic lube also every time. I’ve tried tightening the cover evenly in a sequential pattern with no luck.

There’s no cracks or damage to the sealing surfaces but it still leaks.

Leak is 100% not coming from the stem.

Any ideas? I’ve emailed Jandy support with no response.