I have a fiberglassSWG hot tub. Borates are 45. TA is 30, Ph is 7.8. When I add baking soda to raise TA, Ph rises too much. Any suggestions on raising TA without raising Ph?

Having trouble getting the 24' above ground pool crystal clear....and suspect the 11 year old filter is losing it's grip. DE does not (stay) on the tubes. When I take the unit apart the DE, except for a few clumps at the very top, has gone to the bottom. I'm thinking it might be age has worn them too smooth? I'm using 10-1 muriatic acid to soak it in over night before each new batch and it still falls off. Is this aged out of usefulness?

Recently installed a variable speed pump. I have 2 skimmers, 1 has the creepy crawly in it and the other is open, but with this new pump, if I have both open, the creepy doesn't have enough power to move unless I have the pump on a higher speed. When on the lower speeds (2400 or lower) it doesn't even skim. With the old 1 speed pump it worked fine.

The question is If I plug one of the drains and just use one skimmer will that cause the pump to work harder and lower it's lifespan? Plumbing is 2" 60sqft DE and its a 2hp B&D pump. Pool is roughly 50' x 25'

Against all better judgement, we bought a house with a pool. It has been fun, and I've learned a lot about pools since, partly thanks to the resources on this site. Mainly I've noticed a large discrepancy in the advice scattered about the internet, so I'm happy to have a resource that crowdsources the best methods for maintenance.
I put most the relevant info in my signature, and here are the results from my last test (yesterday):

pH - 7.7
FC - 2.4
CC - 0.2
TA - 140
CH - 320
CYA - 60
NaCl - 3000
Phosphates - ~1k
However, the water quality looks cloudy and blue and I'm hoping to get some help returning it back to clear water again. I'll make a thread in the appropriate forum with more details.

Hi there! New to the forum and hoping for some advice from other people who have built/owned homes with pools. I know very little about pools having never owned or lived in a house with a pool l, so in getting bids from a few local pool builders in Phoenix area , I am somewhat overwhelmed. Most of the quotes are within $5k-$10k of each other with the exception of one, but even the cheapest is kind of at the top of my budget.

Some things that i could adjust to improve the cost of the project are the type of pool decking/coping (acrylic lace Vs travertine) and whether to get an in-floor cleaning system Vs a suction pool cleaner. Other options that are adding to the cost are a water feature and smart phone automation for lights and control of the water feature.

I’d really like to get a pool for my new house, but don’t want to spend more than I can afford and don’t want to have regrets about not getting certain features. Can anyone give me feedback on some of my options to help me decide which options might be best on my tight budget.

Here are the basics of my design that are common for all of the pool builds in my small yard:

- 75’ permitter rectangular pool- roughly 28’x9’ fee, 3-5 foot depth, Baja shelf in one end and bench in deeper end, pebble sheen interior, and a small wall water feature .

My original design before I saw the cost was to try to build a pool similar to a client’s pool of mine with a similar small yard which included the above basic design and having travertine coping and decking that would extend up and over my existing patio. The build would also have an in-floor cleaning system.

Well with one pool builder it was significantly more expensive to do the travertine so we switched the coping and decking to Acrylic Lace.

For another pool builder he said switching to the acrylic lace wouldn’t make his build cheaper and said I could take out the in floor cleaning system and do a suction cleaning system (Aquanaut suction side pool cleaner) to cut costs.

Another option is to lose the water feature.

So I guess what I need help deciding are the following:

For my small size pool that I will be trying to maintain myself without a pool service, do I go in-floor cleaning system or suction side cleaner? Two of the pool builders said I will probably really want the in floor cleaning if I don’t have a pool service. Another said he thought the suction cleaner would work fine and didn’t think I needed the in-floor pop up system based on the lack of debris that I would have falling into my pool and it’s size. Another builder said I could do either and both would work well for me but if it were him having worked on pools all over the city, he would probably do the in floor system .

For decking and coping- do I do the acrylic lace or the travertine? What are peoples thoughts on the two? I have heard travertine is nice because it doesn’t get as hot in Arizona summer sun. To me it also looks nicer. But some people say it is really slippery.

Another consideration I have is this, salt system or not. One of the pool builders doesn’t offer a salt system. Only one quote I have includes the salt system.

Any feedback appreciated. Thanks!

Attached are photos of my friend’s pool so you can see the design I was going for.

Good Morning,
I recently replaced my Waterways WVS003 sand filter valve. The filter part is working perfectly, it fit on perfectly, no leaks etc. However, when i try to backwash, there is almost no pressure out the backwash hose and there is still water flowing in through the water return when the filter is in the backwash position. I also noticed when I switch it back to filter that it will sometimes continue to leak out of the backwash port.

I've got a couple of weeks to return it and have already reached out to the vendor to see if they have any suggestions. Is there anyway I can fix it or should I just return it and have it replaced?

Thank You

Happen lately when I open the filter and clean those grids, the pressure is ok for 1 day and then start to raise again. Reach 20in couple of days. Somebody has un’idea why happened like this?

I am trying to decide on a pool builder and only 2 of 4 pool builders I have contacted will do a salt water pool. I have heard from this forum of Pentair products which people seem to like, but one of the pool builders doesn’t seem to have Pentair products. Here is the pump, cleaner, filter, and SWG that they have put in my quote. Anyone here have or know about these brands/ models?

Pool is a 75’ permitter pool, maybe 7000 gallons

Hayward Tristar 900 1.85 VSP

Goldline "Aquarite" T925 Chlorine Gen. (Salt Water System) Stand Alone Time Clock for (Salt System) if Variable Speed Pump

Automatic Water Leveler w/ 40' of 3/4"PVC "AquaNaut" Pool Cleaner with 25' of 1 1/2" Suction

Hayward 330 cartridge filter

I am going to ask them about Pentair products but if the above products are okay, maybe I am fine with what is in the quote. Any feedback appreciated.

Recently had a huge autofill leak repaired.
About to have Turf placed over the pipes.

Just to make sure I have no more hairline leaks of any kind, what is the easiest way to detect a leak in the autofill piping?

I see everywhere to use 1 cup per 5 gallons of TSP. So if using dry TSP, how many ounces are in 1 cup? I know 8 oz fluid =1 cup? Or am i over thinking it and just fill a cup's worth of dry TSP per 5 gallons?

I have a waterfall that runs about 5 hours a day and the aerator is on running about 4 hours a day (separate pump). I heard they both may affect my PH. Is this going to affect my PH? How much +/- per week? Currently I'm at 7.4 PH.

Title kinda says it I got this installed a year ago, I always suspected something was up with it since I have been getting unexplainable air intake and some issues with the basket gasket and handles. I noticed that today is is spraying water from the side kinda consistently. Anyone have a good resource to use for troubleshooting it? And any idea what caused the seemly premature failure? Lastly has anyone tried to use the Hayward warranty for anything?

Thanks everyone.

I've been reading the wealth of information contained here and from what I can tell I should backwash When my filter pressure is 25% above baseline. I have 1.5 inch plumbing with a 1.5 hp VS pump. I use 3200 rpm to gauge and post backwash pressure is around 18. Based on that I should be backwashing somewhere around 22-23 PSI.

It never seems to get that high, maybe I'm backwashing too frequently but it was about a month since my last backwash and the filter pressure was still 18-19, but I noticed significantly less flow at the return jets probably 50% less than previous for a given RPM my VS runs 1500-2500 max rpm. Is this normal? Should I just let the low flow at the returns ride until the pressure creeps up to 22-23? I didn't want to cause any damage so I have just been backwashing when I notice the flow is significantly less since the pressure never goes up. I don't think my filter is oversized for my pool so I wasn't expecting to get the 3-4 month frequency between backwash that some people here have reported.

Thanks for the help.

Greetings and salutations.

I've got my first pool pretty dialed in over 4yrs. I upgraded from the basic Hayward suction bottom crawler to the G3 shaker.

I'm looking into a suction that will climb walls and do stairs and benches.

My pool is about 11k gallons, so quite small. I can barely even "swim" 4-5 strokes, being 6'2".

Is there a decent suction robot to do walls, stairs, and benches or is that the plug-in feature set?

Lastly, if it's plug-in only capability, what do I do with the suction hose connector in the pool, just turn it off and leave it unused?

I am wondering what this second pipe (on the right) in the skimmer is. It doesn't seem to do anything and appears to just trap dirt/sand etc.
The pipe on the left goes to the pump, any ideas what purpose the one on the right serves?

thanks!

Hi all,

Not long ago I decided to take care of my own pool and discovered and issue with my main drain.

Specifically, it doesn’t seem to be working. I put a leaf on it and it didn’t stick. I sprinkled some DE and it just sat on the MD cover.

I have a strong suspicion that when I had an addition built 2 years ago and they were moving my pool equipment, they capped my main drain pipe,l. Unfortunately, back then i didn’t know much about pools and pool plumbing…

Before I dig up my pavers and get to it, I was wondering if there is any way to troubleshoot it from the skimmer (to see if it’s even connected to the skimmer?)

See the image for the plumbing after it was moved. You can see two pipes are capped one 1.5” and one 3/4”. (i took a picture in case something wasn’t working, but pretty sure it’s out of warranty now…)

First, thank you all for the super useful info on this site. I wish I had discovered this site prior to having my pool built back in 2012, which leads me to these questions. I attaced a diagram of my pool layout. I "think" but not 100% certain is that the bottom drain was run with a 2" flex pvc pipe. All other plumbing was run with 1.5" flex pvc with the exception of the middle left return (it was a plumbed for a polaris pressure vac, but I repurposed it as an extra return. The pad is aprox 20 ft diagonally from the pool. Even though I think the bottom drain was run as 2", coming out of the ground the plumbing is all 1.5" PVC. To add to the cheapness of the PB they put in a 90sq ft cartridge filter.

I recently put in a VSP (SP3400VSP), and to get relatively decent/equal skimming action, I have it running @ about 2450 RPM with bottom drain 20% open, far left skimmer fully open and near left skimmer about 50% open.

Questions:
1. I feel like I should change the above ground plumbing to at least 2". Is it worth doing that? Should I go to 2.5"?
2. I feel relatively comfortable taking care of my parent's DE filter, so am thinking of moving to a 48sq ft DE filter, thinking 60 is overkill given my plumbing situation. Do you agree?
3. Should I try to dig down to where the 1.5 riser connects to the 2" bottom drain and go up with 2"/2.5" from there, or given that I am restricting the flow anyways to get skimming action I should not bother and just connect with the bigger pipe to the 1.5"
4. I may want to go back tho the presure vac in the futuere, would my 2x 1.5" returns be sufficient, or should I forget about the pressure vac and use the extra return?

Any other advice you would give?

thanks for all your help!

I'm trying to figure out how much calcium my pool will add daily due to evaporation and re-fill. Here are the variables:

Tap water 80ppm
I estimate I'm losing 167 gallons per day
My pool is 20,000 gallons

How many ppms will my calcium increase per day?

Do you take 167/20,000 = .00835 and multiply that times 80ppm? Or am I way off?

I cannot get my water clear and clean- please help!
I have an inground pool that holds about 35,000 gallons of water. It's painted concrete, safety ledge, then about 2 feet of fiberglass at top. OLD but solid. This year, no matter what I do it will not clear up, and only getting worse. At the beginning of the season, I emptied my Hayward sand filter, checked the inner equipment (laterals and center pipe) and replaced the sand, per filter requirements. Cleared leaves from pool and shocked very brown pool. Started out season fine but water was never completely clear. Cloudy white. Chemicals all fine. Phosphates a little high, lots of trees. Treated that quickly. Water improved for a few days, but not completely. Brownish green after a week but not algae. Scrubbed sides added shock again, and backwashed again, other chemical levels still appropriate, but pool store guys stated it could be metal in water from algicides. Treated that, but no improvement. Tested TDS, a little high so after a few more days of no clearing I performed a floc treatment with aluminum sulfate. Worked great, suctioned all debris on bottom to waste with main drain running so to not lose suction. Topped off water, adjusted chemicals and had clear water for the first time this season for about 3 days. Again, all tests still within normal limits but cloudy, green water returned after a few days. Started thinking it must be my sand filter and did a thorough inspection but found nothing.

Then did a sand filter test that I read about online. 2 cups of DE poured into skimmer to test filtration efficacy of sand filter. The test stated that the DE should get trapped in the sand filter rather than return to pool via return jets, if sand filter is working properly. DE DID RETURN TO POOL VIA RETURN JETS IN ABOUT 1 MINUTE. I discussed this with a friend who has experience with pool care, and he did not think this was an accurate test to check sand filter function. He suggested I check my TDS again and he stated that the only fix for high TDS was to dump and refill. TDS was high again. So, I dumped about 1/5 of pool water and refilled. 24 hours later with filter running, and with all levels appropriate but FC sltill reading high, still no change. Very yellow, green pool! I truly feel at this point that it is my Hayward sand filter not removing dead algae, bacteria, debris etc., but nothing appears to be wrong with it. Also, when I backwash my filter, the water is barely dirty/cloudy. In the past seasons pressure would go up and I'd get a good backwash/rinse of dirty/green water that would then turn clear, via sight glass. Now it barely looks dirty when backwashing, despite the filter running for hours and a very green pool! Below are all my numbers. PLEASE HELP.
Inground pool- 35,000 gallons
Hayword sand filter 300 lbs of sand
Pool temp 80
PH- 7.2
Alkalinity- 10
Calcium Hardness- 120 (changed light pink to clear, not pink to blue)
Cyanuric Acid- 80
FC- 11 (high from continuously trying to shock out the green).

-when looking at pool steps I can see green sediment in shallow areas. (skimmers and filter not removing)

-sand filter pressure around 10-12psi when filtering. Rarely goes up.

-also ran sand filter cleaner through skimmer recently with no improvement

I'VE DONE EVERYTHING.

Baking in the heat here 102°F and been using our 4300 gallon pool. Been quite a learning curve, but we've had good balance for many months now. We hate our Pentair IntelliConnect system and links here are showing us some options to get real control over our pool and automate more things.

DAV from Watkins Glen, NY

I have a polaris 280 and I was wondering if adding more swivels to the feed hose would keep it from looping and twisting up. I think there are 3 in the feed hose line now but it seems there is too much hose between the swivels. I have played around with the number of floats and the positioning but it doesn't seem to change it. The swivels I have turn freely and don't leak. Only concern is would more swivels actually impart some additional flow restriction.

Pool is inground 16x32 vinyl liner.

Background:
I recently brought this cleaner back to life. It came with the house but had been sitting for a while and appeared to be junk. Had to replace the pump volute and seals, and replumb it with flexible piping since the hard pipe was broken. Needed things like o-rings in the reverser. a wheel screw, and new catch bags and after all that it works quite well. I had to fine tune the head float to get it to climb the vertical walls. No thruster repositioning necessary. It operates fine on the blue restrictor plate which is what it had originally. I also reduced the flow on the tail whip a bit but I still have to verify wheel RPM.

I had planned on using something like the Polywood Adirondack chairs on the sun shelf in my new pool. Is there any concern for the plaster (WetEdge) with these kind of chairs versus a Ledge Lounger product or something made specifically for the pool?

Pic of pool (still in progress on decking).

Hi,
First post, after a lot of reading.
After 8 years of working normally, the relay that controls aux 5 started clicking on and off rapidly yesterday. Which caused my equipment to shut off. There is nothing connected to the aux 5 relay. After doing some troubleshooting, I found that the problem was actually the remote. Aux 5 was also flashing on the remote. When I took out the batteries of the remote, everything went back to normal, and worked properly. I left the remote over night and put new batteries in it this morning. The aux 5 light started flashing again and the pool equipment stopped again. My question is…Is there anyway I can stop the signal from aux 5 from being sent to the remote, since I don’t use it anyway, or do I need a new remote. Thank you for your help.
Steve

Our stainless steel walls are deteriorating and I'm trying to figure out how to repair them. They've been painted over, had a rust converter applied, and then primed. I was looking to glue sheets of plexiglass over the entire walls, which was successful at spot patching in the past, but the walls are so uneven and bowed that I'm not able to get a good seal with larger sheets.

Is plaster an option? The floor is probably fine, the walls are the concern, but would it adhere okay? Would prior coats of paint and everything need to be stripped off?

The picture shows patched and freshly painted, but then after a year the rust bleeding through and more holes forming. The drawing is the profile, I'm wondering if we can plaster just the walls to help seal/protect them.


If not plaster, are there any other options other than a custom retrofit liner (or would that even work)?

Currently strongly considering a SWG, but having a little trouble figuring out the correct size, and the differences between the various models. Currently 10k gallon pool is very stable/clear and no issues with chemistry. keep CC at 8ppm with CYA 50, add 32oz of 10% bleach daily to replace ~ 3ppm chlorine loss, and 8oz muriatic acid a week to take it from 7.8 to 7.5. TA pretty stable at 80, CH around 400. Currently run our main pump 10 hrs day at 1750 rpm.

Trying to find the right size SWG and lb/day capacity needed. Best I can figure, i need to add 4oz of SWG chlorine a day to maintain the 3ppm loss? so a CORE 35 is 1.4lbs/day so i'd need to run it 4.28 hrs/day to get the 4oz? Is that correct? Any issue supplementing heavy pool days (dogs+extra people) with liquid chlorine on infrequent basis?

And really can't figure out the difference between the various model #s for circupool. Due to my DIY skills and the controller/display built in i'm leaning towards using a CORE model (it looks idiot proof installation wise). I notice a lot of people go for the RJ model. Any particular reason?

I am from central Indiana and I just bought a hot tub and the water clouded up after a few days. High alkalinity, hardness and pH - it took me a bit to find my way to lower the alkalinity to around 50, add some borax and I now have stable pH. Turns out the groundwater here is about ~350 ppm for both hardness and alkalinity. I'm glad that is solved and I know my way around for next time I fill.

However, my combined chlorine is stubborn at 0.6ppm. I raised the FC to 15 yesterday, confirmed with my Taylor test kit. Today the FC is at 5 and CC is still at somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0 (I used a 10 ml sample). I suppose I just will raise the FC again and see if the CC budges. I have some Ahhh Some on order, along with borate test strips, and an extra set of filters. How high should I be raising my FC? Do I repeat this procedure until I see some movement?

ph 7.4, FC 5.0, CC ~0.6, CH 200, CYA 30. Ozonator is running.

I'll have to add a photo later, but basically at each of the T joint spots on the pool, most of them on left or right on the underside i have rust. I have had this before, i used rusteoleum to cover it up, but now the rust is back but with degradation in the metal, holes etc.

On one of them i sanded and coated it again as best i could, then wrapped a bicycle tube around it and sprayed over that with plasti dip. Rough job but it seemed to be ok.

Any suggestions on what to do now that i discovered quite a few more under there? I'm thinking some sort of silicone tape and wrap em tight, but i dont know how long that will extend things short of tearing it all down and replacing the whole thing, liner included? I thought maybe there is some sort of wrap/brace i could also wrap around for strength

If this were to rust all the way to the top of the rail, this would put the structural integrity at risk, i would think, especially if theres more than 1 spot along the circle.

Thanks in advance

I started another thread asking about help with organizing my thoughts for pool construction. I am back with a follow up question. We have had our pool bid with an autocover and that was initially a non negotiable. We want the safety primaryily, but we also have lots of trees and a big dog. The autocover has some major drawbacks, however.

We want a rectangular pool, but would like some bump outs and that is not possible/easy with the autocover. Also, we have a sunshelf on one end and a slide at the other. Due to this, the cover lid will have to over the sunshelf. I am concerned the cover might look bad, or not retract fully in this area. Also, unless we want to spend $5,500 extra, we will have a large aluminum lid.

What are peoples thoughts on safety of the cover vs a specific pool fence? I think I would also get a winter safety cover (is that what they are called?). We could place this in the fall/winter when the trees drop or when we were out of town on vacation for peace of mind no neighborhood kids would get in our pool. Not sure how big of a PIA those are to take on/off.

Our kids are 6 and 4 now. Likely 5 and 7 by the time the pool is acually very usable. The 6 year old swims very well and the 4 year old can swim. Our inlaws have a pool about 15 min away so they have all been swimming since they were babies.

The cover seems like it will be better peace of mind, but in a couple more years I am not sure we would actually use it day to day.

Hello,
This is for a remodel with a brand new water feature wall. PB had mason build wall using cement block and same mason put on all the tile. Tile is from NPT large format 12x24” Slate color. As you can see from the pictures, there are dips and “lippage” from most of the tiles creating a very unattractive shadow pattern. PB says he sent a pic to his “normal tile guys” and they said its fine, expect variation. Mason said he did his best, blaming it on the tiles and showed me one tile that was flat and straight EXCEPT where it dipped in at the corner with a bend in the tile. They both want to move on as we are at pebble now but I cant get over how horrible it looks to me. Am I just crazy to expect flat looking tile? Is it operator error or did we get an obscure bad batch of tile from NPT? The pictures from NPT displaying this tile showed perfect flat tile which is what I expected. I also want to move on but Im going to be staring at the unevenness for years.