Moved from HERE

PB sent a leak detection company over today and the guy scuba dive around the pool and said the leaks were around two of the four returns and epoxy it. We'll now wait and see. He also said evaporation this time of year should be close to zero.

Hello,

We have a remodeled pool with fresh electrical which was all installed by a professional licensed electrician. I will spare you the details on having to hire a 2nd electrician and move to the issue. We tried to get the electricians to install GFCI breakers to both the pump and the pool light. The pump is a Jandy VS 165 and we have a Cutler Hammer breaker Box. This can not utilize the recommended Siemens GFCI BR breaker. The first breaker our electrician used kept tripping after some time however, it has stabilized with an Eaton CH breaker. That leads to the light which was also completely rewired. The light is on a Eaton CH GFCI breaker that connects to a couple of j-boxes then to an Intermatic PX300 12v transformer. The transformer is brand new and the breakers are brand new. The transformer then goes to another jbox on the pool deck and then down to the light itself. We have swapped to a 12v blub. Every time we try to use the light it trips. I started isolating the issue and opened the deck box and removed the pool light from the equation leaving the 12v wires open and it still tripped. I then removed the leads from the deck j-box at the transformer from the black and white (for 12 v) and it still trips. This means the transformer is somehow where the fault is located. I removed my 120v wires from the transformer and they do not trip. It is also worth noting that along the way back I used a multimeter to test continuity for any shorts and none were found in the wiring and nothing alarmed until connected to the transformer. I suspect my breaker box is the actual issue. After watching several guide videos and reading up on the documentation for the pool pump, the transformer and some general wiring I noticed that my breaker box does not have a separate common and ground bus bar. This means all of my grounds and commons are connected at the breaker box. I am pretty sure this is what is tripping my pool light GFCI however, that would lead me to question why it is not tripping my pump GFCI as well. I have some photos attached. This was the result of 2 separate electricians after asking them to make sure that it is up to code and done correctly. I am not saying it is not however, there appears to be a few glaring issues. We want it to be safe and would like to be able to use the light while we swim. I am sure I left some stuff out but would appreciate any information as to why the light GFCI is tripping but not the pump.

Main Breaker Panel

Close of GFCI Breakers

J-box exiting garage

j-box at pool equipment.

Switches for pump and light

Transformer and J-box at equipment

Close up of Transformer

My newly acquired pool has two plugs and no open holes in skimmer bottoms. So no water is drawn in through skimmers. Is this normal? Should I remove a plug? Water seems to get to pump.

Our pool was resurfaced about 18 months ago. Everything has been great. A few months ago I have noticed these light black lines, on the bottom of the pool. They all seem to be originating from the main drain on the bottom of the pool, looks like a sold line and seem to run for about 4-5 feet. Don’t see these lines anywhere else in the pool. It is pretty light in color but it is there.I run a automatic cleaner nightly and the only thing I can come up with, logically, is the suction cleaner is sucking something out of the main drain and is causing these lines? Does this make sense and has anyone ever heard of this occurring.
Thanks,
Gary

The Donate button and Support TFP links go to Become a TFP Supporter, but that just redirects back to Home. Is there a new article on donating?

Hi,

I’m a new pool owner and it’s been stressful. I’ve had four tests run by Leslie’s and out of pocket each time (3wks since I started having the pool). Just wanting some opinions on the latest tests and what steps to do next. The store recommended buying their Leslie’s weekly maintenance bottle, nophos etc I’m about done buying to be honest.
I hope I can get some cheaper alternatives. I’ve checked the pool match and it has different ranges to Leslie’s. So now I’m really confused.
In 5 days my FC dropped from 6.28 to 0.68 is that normal? Any help will do. Thank you.

FC 0.68
CC 0.81
pH 7.4
TA 73
CH 201
CYA Water temperature 50
Pho 131

Anyone else have roaches in their laminar holes? If so how do you deal with it, I pulled one out today to try and clean it out and work on it and there was at least 3 roaches. Call me a baby but I don't like roaches. I pulled up the other one yesterday or the day before and there was a roach crawling there too. I thought it was just a one off at the time.

Hi! New pool owner and I’ve been working on the pool for 3 weeks with Leslie’s testing. Back and forth. I did not know it took this much maintenance.

I have I guess like most people a drain and a skimmer with Jandy never lube valves that I can open and close to turn the skimmer/drain on and off. I noticed today some bubbles in the filter basket and my laminars were spitting so I"m guessing I have a little bit of a suction leak.

What I noticed is that if I have the skimmer on by itself, I'm noticing some bubbles getting into the filter basket, but if I turn on the drain, then the bubbles appear to go away. This would lead me to possibly believe that I have a leak in the drain never lube valve and need to change the orings? Theory being when nothing is coming through it, it can suck air through, but when the water is going through it, it eliminates most of it?

Is this sound theory??

My signature has most of the important stuff, but today I bought:

• Pentair 520554 SWG IC20
• Pentair 520556 IntelliChlor Controller
• Pentair 520670 IntelliChlor Acid Cleaning Kit

and from reading, I also bought a

• Pentair 350122 Comm Cable for my Pentair Intelliflow VS Pump to talk to the controller. Couldn't confirm it came with that cable.

Besides about 5 to 7 bags of salt, what else would I be missing hardware wise? I bought a Taylor Salt Chlorine kit too obviously.
I'm feeling somewhat confident to install. Read through the install directions several times. But might pick up new tester to confirm wiring.

My Pool
pool.jpg

I started a SLAM on July 30th. CYA was ~70 putting my SLAM level at 28. The night of Thurs, Aug 10 to Fri, Aug 11, I thought I was going to be done in a day - only had 1.5PPM of chlorine loss (it had steadily been decreasing every night). That day, for the first time in a week or more, I threw my vacuum in to clear up some debris and got a few pool floats out. The next night, I lost 4.5 PPM, definitely a step back. Saturday and Sunday had a heavy bathing load - lots of kids, lots of floats. I added chlorine regularly and definitely saw a big uptick in chlorine usage - where as I had been using 4 gallons of 10% a day, Sunday I used 6 gallons and Monday (yesterday) 7 gallons. Overnight last night I still lost about 4PPM.

This morning, I decided to re-test my CYA to see where it was at and it came out < 20 (I could clearly see the dot even with the container full). I ran the test twice to confirm. Same result both times. I am using the same TFTestKit.net test today as I was a week ago.

In the middle of my SLAM, I had a SWG installed. My salt level was ~2800 when first tested, I added a single 40lb bag of salt on Saturday, pushing me between 3000 and 3200. I turned on the SWG only on Sunday during the day when I was burning through Chlorine, it has been off otherwise.

My question - where do I go from here?

Do I add CYA to get back to 30-40, let me chlorine levels drift down below 10 to get accurate readings on PH / TA / etc. and get in line, then finish my SLAM and push CYA to 70-80 for SWG when done?

Also - what could have been the source of the new algae? In hindsight, should probably have left the sweeper in the pool throughout the SLAM to make sure it was cleaned, but I wiped it down good when my FC dropped after adding it and saw no visible signs of algae. The likely source seems like our pool floats - do I toss them and start over?

As always, thank you all for your advice! This is an invaluable community.

Hi all,

I just installed my intellicenter i8PS and everything is working well but I cannot get the Wi-Fi bridge to connect. The transmitting light won’t come on.

I’ve attached photos of my connections. Am i doing something wrong?

It is connected to my eero on the inside.

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share that we got a solar pool cover this season and it has made a HUGE difference in the water temperature. Last summer, we were consistently at 74 degrees (F) and this summer, using the cover, the water is generally 92-95 degrees (F). My wife wouldn't even swim in the pool last year, it was too cold for her. This year, she's swimming almost every day. Anyway, I looked on here before we purchased the cover and I wasn't sure if it would be a good idea, and I'm so glad we decided to do it.

I"ll share the link of the cover that we purchased, but I'm not affiliated, just sharing information.

Happy Swimming Everyone!

I'll be looking at filling up our new 18x33 hard sided AGP in the spring and wanted to get a ballpark idea of what amount of supplies I'll need to get everything going and chemistry stabilized. I understand it is probably impossible to give a precise estimate because of so many variables, but I'd like to have most of what I need before I start putting water in the pool. It will probably take 4-5 days to fill (13-14kgal) based on the flow rate from my hose bib (will be using city water) and not wanting to fill overnight.

So I put the solar cover on and neglected the pool for about a week. Upon uncovering I discovered algae. Looked like mud smudge marks all over bottom. When I vacuumed it up there was some green spots underneath the muddy stuff. I had this problem before last year. Both time my water stayed clear. Crystal clear honestly. How come my water never turns green ?

I have a 2" check valve that's starting to leak back to the pool overnight. The valve is about 20 years old, I'll post a couple of photos. The Brand name looks to be Flow Control out of California.
Anyone familiar with this brand? Can a replacement be found?
Can it be rebuilt??
Or is it better to replace the unit and replumb a new one in, if so what brand is recommended?

I have an above ground pool, and do not have a deck. I have a couple of confer products, one of which was purchased several years ago, so I pretty much have to go with what I got. I have a 6000x ladder which will be used in the pool. Then I got a Step 1x that I want to use on the outside of pool as an entry (for a couple of wobbly, elderly people. Me and hubby). Now I need an engineer to come up with a hack to connect them, over the pool rail, without drilling into the rail. I thought I had a smart guy at Confer telling me they had a kit for that. But he must have misunderstood me, because I ended up with a set of "pickets". I hope someone out there gets me, and can help me out. Thank you!

Another thread got me thinking - which is always problematic. What nice-looking and tangle-free solutions have you all found for the messiness of all the cords at your equipment pad?

I took out the filter to clean, put a different one in, and it won't stop leaking at the oring. The oring was deformed so I just bought a new one and its still leaking. Does anyone have any ideas?

I'd love some help from the experts on my new RJ60+ install...

Wiring: Below is a photo of my electrical setup at the pad. My SuperFlo VS pump is wired to a 120v plug (on the left) and stays on 24/7, mostly at low speed. My Stenner chlorine pump (going away) and my pool lights are plugged into an outdoor wifi receptacle and controlled via phone app scheduling. I have read that I can also wire the new RJ60 for a 120v plug-in. My question is whether it is prudent to somehow slave the RJ60 power to the pump so in case the pump somehow loses power then the RJ60 will also turn off? Is that easy to do when I'm not using an external pump controller/timer?


Below is a photo of my plumbing. I'm thinking of modifying the return line to resemble the orange line I've drawn in. This gives me 16"-18" on each leg before and after the 90 degree bend so I can install the flow switch on the first leg and the swg cell on the second. Unfortunately there's not enough room on the existing configuration to install the switch and cell side by side where I currently have the Stenner port. Thoughts on this approach?


Lastly, the manual for the RJ60 indicates an ideal salt level for operation of 3500ppm and to keep salinity between 3000-4000ppm. I've read in other posts that I should target 200-400 above the manufacturer recommendation to allow for some salt loss. That math indicates an initial target of 3700-3900ppm? This sounds a little high so I'm double checking.

Thanks in advance!
Neil

We built a new pool less than 3 years ago and we are having a lot of problems with the surface of the pool that we believe is Diamondbrite. My pool is getting dark spots and we are not sure if the installation was correct. Can some one help us?

We have an auto-filler and used it when we first filled the pool. It overflowed a couple of times, so we turned it off. We've been manually filling the pool since then.

I've been considering changing it out with a float switch that controls a an automatic water valve controller that turns the water source for the filler on/off based on the float switch.

Of course that adds other complications, but I can put some safety checks in (i.e. water valve on for more than X minutes, turn it off).

Before I go down this path though, I'm wondering how reliable are the normal, mechanical autofill/toilet valves and what is the likelihood I either have a bad valve or a bad setup by the PB? If they are generally reliable, I will skip the float switch method and instead add a sensor that tells me when water is coming out of the overflow pipe instead.

Thanks.

I have a Hayward SP1070B skimmer. Everywhere I look I see the float valve for it is SP1070-FV. But the float valve diameter is too small. It just sits on the bottom and doesn't leave enough room for bottom drain suction.

I see a channel for an O ring in the bottom of the skimmer that's a larger diameter than the float valve and would leave enough room for bottom drain suction. I think I'm either missing an adapter piece or I have the wrong float valve. But I have no idea what this adapter piece would be called and can't find anything, nor can I find a float valve that is a large enough diameter. I keep getting directed to the float valve that is too small diameter.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I bought my TF 100 Salt test kit and got it last week. I started to use it this week and everything was cool until I got to the CYA test, and discovered the
"CYA Clear View Tube" was missing. There is nothing in the kit which seems to remotely resemble anything like what's specificed in the instructions. I've got two cylinders only, one marked the 'Chlorine Only' and the other clear graduated tube for the other tests. I've contacted support at [email protected], but so far, no response. Can anyone here help me out or point me in the right direction.

This feels like such a basic question, but help me out. Our pool builder installs Frogs on all of their pools. I understand everyone in here is against them. How do you regulate chlorine if you don't have something like a Frog? Do you just dump small amounts of liquid chlorine into the pool on a regular basis? Do you install some other system into your plumbing that releases small amounts of chlorine at a time? I've seen things that float around the pool, releasing chlorine. What would my long term solution be if I were to get rid of the Frog next year?

Hi there, I have a hole in the pool wall around 6 inches below the water level. It is not an equalizer line and not connected to my skimmer line in anyway which appears to have one connection at the bottom going directly to the pump. See the enclosed pictures this hole has what looks to a valve deep say just over 1 foot down a 1.5 inch pipe. I have no idea if its connected to any plumbing. When blowing air down it nothing comes out anywhere else than the hole being blown into. My pool has no overflow pipe yet it does not overfill when it rains so believe its that. I can block it up but when I do the pool still drains lower than it should with no signs of leaks anywhere else.

Can you please give me an idea of what it is and how it will be plumbed? How one would go about isolating or fixing it if it is causing the pool to over drain? Pool 10 years old built 2013.

Cheers,

New here!

I operate my SWG at night from 9pm-8am since power rates are a lot more expensive to run during the day. When testing my free chlorine, should I be testing it before my SWG starts, lets say 8pm. Or should I test it at 8:30 am after my SWG stops (sun is not hitting pool at this time)? I'm unsure if your free chlorine target number should be at the highest reading post SWG operation in the shade, or at the lowest reading, after the pool gets hit with all the daytime UV rays. Thanks!

Is there an article somewhere on the proper way to change out filter sand?

My spa was draining back into my pool so I replaced the flappers and during my post repair check I found the check valve housing leaking from a tiny split around the screws.
Is there any old school pool guy trick to remove and replace the housing without having to totally reconstruct the manifold or even better any leave it in place repair options?

We had a Christmas in July (in August) party today!

The idea originally came when, back in early April as we were taking the cover off the pool, my kid randomly started singing Wham's Last Christmas.

Things have been really difficult in our family this summer so we didn't plan as much as we'd have liked and didn't do all the ideas, but it was still fun!

I was able to cut some cedar trees so we had Christmas trees, I drug the Christmas decorations out of the attic, baked the traditional red velvet cake with green frosting along with key lime pie (was strange and fun listening to baseball on the radio while doing Christmas baking!) made a Jamaican rum punch and pina colada at the request of my kid- (adults had to add their own rum).

Asked guests to bring either summer-fied Christmas treats or Christmas-fied summer treats, and my mom wrapped up a bunch of pool toys to put under the tree so the kids could open the presents to play with in the pool.

It was a great time!

My favorite Christmas movie is Christmas Vacation, which inspired my wife and I's swim outfit choices for today.

We took down most of the decorations after the party, but I did decide to leave the lights along the fence up.