I've got a Sta-Rite System 3 S7M, and my 2 cartridges are about 3 years old. I'm not sure if it's just correlation with us getting a black lab that LOVES to swim last year, but I'm literally hosing off the cartridges every 2 weeks this spring/summer if we let him swim. They're filled with brown water and clumps of dog fur. I did the Cascade overnight soak for both of them, and am trying to determine if they're toast, or my dog is just clogging them up super quickly and I just have to deal with it. I started using skimmer socks for when we let him swim, and it'll catch some, but it doesn't seem to be making a significant difference in how much fur gets into the egg.

I did get lazy last year and start pressure washing them to help speed things up. I used a 25-degree nozzle and made sure to stand 3-ish feet away. I never noticed any tears in the fabric, so I assumed everything was just fine. I recently switched back to just using a regular hose nozzle just to make sure though.

Another thing is that if I have people swim for a couple hours, the water gets pretty cloudy, even with the pump running at 30 or 35GPM. It takes about 24 hours of the pump being on before the water is crystal clear again. All my chem levels are in line with Pool Math recommendations (CYA 80, FC 10-11, pH 7.6, TA 70, CH 350, Salt 3800). I'm just not sure why it gets so cloudy so quickly, and if it might be an indication of the carts being toast. I'm really not looking forward to dropping $500+ on a new set, but it's looking like that's my next step...

Hi new to pools and this community site. I recently built a pool first time for me owning a pool. We got the prowler 930w robot but we could net never get past the qr scan on the Pentair home app. Pretty much add device click prowler 930w and it says scan QR code to connect however no camera or anything happens to allow the actual scan. If I select the continue button it searches and after while fails to find robot, every time. My wife and I work and can’t ever seem to be available to talk to Pentair tech support during their business hours since we are on the west coast. I’ve reached out to them via email but they say we need to contact them and talk over phone for troubleshooting. The robot works and we use it However it’s just not on our Pentair home app and we can’t monitor the robot and other things you’d be able to see and control on the app. Any help would be appreciated.

I recently adjusted my auto fill level raising the water level above the top of the skimmer weir. Around the same time, surface skimming essentially stopped. Is this an expected result? The top of the weir is under water, so surface debris aren't sucked into skimmer?

I have a 20,000 gallon above ground pool. It is installed on top of a Gorilla Pad, which is directly on top of the ground. In 2020, we had a large number of pinholes in our liner (dozens of them) and it was suggested that I damaged the liner with too much chlorine. (I was trying to get rid of algae that wouldn't go away). We paid someone to replace the liner last year, and before the summer was even over, I was pretty sure we had a leak again. Now that the pool is open, I took a closer look and can see there are more pinholes again. Now I'm thinking it's ants or temites, because I've been very careful with my chlorine use. My question is, if we install a concrete pad under the pool, will this help with the insect problem? Have any of you had this issue and if so, what did you do? We love our pool, but we can't afford to replace a liner every 3 months lol.

Realized my Jandy Hi-E2 heater isn't even trying to turn on this morning even though I'm telling it to turn on through the iAquaLink app (and temp setting was HIGHER than the water temp). I did some troubleshooting and found this when testing voltages.



Step #1 -- I passed, 24V at transformer.
Step #2 -- I passed, 24V at the red wire terminal block
Step #3 -- I failed, only 6V at the white wire terminal block

Note -- in the above diagram it shows a BLACK jumper wire between the terminal block. I do NOT have that because I am controlling my heater via my Jandy iAqualink RS control box. (the black wire is ONLY if you have no automation/remote controlling it).

So at the fireman switch terminal block, I have this: (crude drawing, note the black/wire wires from Paint3D that I added)



And at my Jandy RS unit, I have these voltages:



So it seemed like the issue wasn't the heater but the Jandy RS controller box/board?

To verify my heater isn't the issue, I removed the 2-wire connection FROM the fireman switch/junction terminal TO the Jandy RS control box, and put in a JUMPER like this again (pic right below), so now the heater is ONLY controlled at it's own control panel and NOT by the Jandy RS control box (and iAquaLink):


And of course, my heater fires up as it's getting 24V again and sends it along to the pressure switch etc. So does this mean my Jandy RS control board is bad since only 6V is coming back out instead of 24V? Ugh.

Just upgraded burnt out VSP Pentair to Inteliflow 3HP, set 24 hr/day, “low” I believe, by Tech. Electrician’s wife, the pool savvy one who purchased pump for me didn’t come with him, couldn’t ask her questions!
My Cartrdge filter is operating at much lower pressure: 5 vs 15 on old one. Skimmers don’t have much in them either but water looks clear. Is this normal?

Im having problem with my Polaris 8050 Sport robotic cleaner. Recently it seem to be stalling (pump continue to run). If i pull it out and move wheels manually and putting it back in the water it will run fine for random period of the time(between 10 to 30 minutes) and then stall again. I receive no error on control box. Noticed when moving wheels manually i feel inconsistent (sometime more the other time less)resistance and its pretty noisy. I suspect it has something to do with the drive motor or gearbox.
Before i will get entire motor block replacement(pretty costly) i would like to give it a try to replace just a drive motor as this is where the problem seem to be.
Did anyone manage to replace motor in your cleaner or repair gearbox if motor seem to be ok? if so where did you get replacement motor/gearbox part and did you run into any issues while replacing/fixing it?

Any response and help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

Hi guys! I have option to buy Polaris 8050 with bad motor block for $90
What do you think, does it worth it? Does this motors is fixable or I need buy new motor block?

I grew up with a pool at my parents house and when I moved into my current house 16 years ago I immediately had an in-ground pool put in. I never had a solar cover for my pool until a few weeks ago. Now that I have had the cover for a a little while I thought I would post a few comments on the pros and cons.

One assumption here - I want my pool water to be at 84F when we are swimming. An in-ground pool and the landscaping associated with are a substantial investment. So the trade off in having a cover is not having to use my natural gas heater - I live in Toronto. To me the options are not heating the pool or not heating the pool. The only questions is how much does it cost me to keep the pool heated to 84F.

My pool is an irregular shape. I am not able to use a roller due to this shape. That is a big impediment. I now regret not having a rectangular shaped pool.

Pros of a Solar Cover
Save money on natural gas. This will depend on the year and gas prices, but the annual savings are probably from $500-$1000.
Save money on water - I assume that you will have reduced evaporation if you keep the cover on your pool. So you don't have to refill it as frequently.
Save money on chemicals. You should use less chlorine if your pool is covered. It is unclear how much this helps if you have a SWCG, as I do. But you can likely run it at a lower power level, which could potentially extned the life of your salt cell.

Cons of a Solar Cover
Cost of the cover - not a huge cost - mine was about $300.
Reduced propensity to use the pool - unless you have an automated system to take the cover off and put it back on there is now a hindrance to using your pool.
Hassle of taking the cover off - this is far easier if you have two people, but I am normally doing this myself. Taking the cover off by myself is a pain in the butt. My cover is cut into two 18'x18' and taking the cover off, and carrying it to where I store it, causes me to get rather wet.
Reduced aesthetics - IMO your pool and yard look less attractive with a solar cover on the pool.
Storing your cover - you need a place to store your cover. If it is on your deck it will be taking up space and look ugly. My understanding is that your should not store the cover in direct sunlight. So you should have a cover or put it someplace where it is not in the sun.
Obstructs pool cleaners - I don't have my Dolphin robot in when the pool is covered as the cover would interfere with the cleaner.

I guess the best of both worlds would be to have an automated system to put the cover on and off. But that is expensive and is probably a substantial investment that may not have a positive NPV.

I would be interested in heating the perspective of others.

Hello everyone,

My pool looks good from outside but when I open my eyes underwater is very cloudy and I can barely see. We are listing our house for sale soon and I am afraid my water may turn green when we have buyers coming to look at it. We cleaned the pump filters today and they were not too bad. I did an overnight loss test and it was 0.5. Here are some more numbers:

FC: 5.5
CC: 0
CYA: 30. I have been wanting to raise this a little and I had chlorine pucks leftover from the previous owner so I have been putting some pucks in the water to raise CYA. I am afraid I will get yelled at for doing this.
TA: 80
Ph: 7.8
CH: I haven't tested because I live in AZ and I expect high CH.

What could be the cause of the cloudy water? Thank you so much!

PoolPals:

I currently have a 16 year old pool that I love, which is in tip top shape. Thank you Pebble Sheen and Trouble Free Pool.

My Jandy Aquapure 1400 continues to function well despite its age. I have replaced the cells every 3-5 years like most folks. But I figure the day will come when the thing finally gives up the ghost. Or, perhaps the next time I need to replace the cell I would replace the whole kit and kaboodle. Jandy’s latest offering, the Truclear looks quite good actually, and looks like it would be an easy replacement for my current arrangement. Looks like prices are not bad, and replacement cells are currently under $500. So, if not that unit, what would you go for instead?

Besides my main pool, I also have 680 gallon spa with plumbing completely separate from the main pool.

Pump: Super Pump 700 High Efficiency 1.10 Total HP

Filter: SwimClear™ Single Element

Heater: Universal H-Series Natural Gas 150,000 BTU Low NOx

Chlorinater: Pentair R171096 320 Rainbow Feeder

Chlorine: 17.5
pH: 7.6
Alkalinity: 60
CYA: 30
Heat: 100 degrees

This pool sees about 1-5 hours a week where it is being used and uncovered. The rest of the time it remains covered.

I’m trying to figure the chlorinater out. When it was installed, they put in two 3’ chlorine tabs. This made the chlorine off the scale (10+) but I didn’t have the FAS-DPD test kit at the time to get more specific. Eventually, over a span of two days, it went from 10+ to 0 and the water was cloudy.

I did water changes to take care of that and this time I put in one tab and opened the dial on the pentair to 2, until the free chlorine got to 1.5, then I changed the dial to 1 until free chlorine got to 3.0, then I turned it off. All the way off.

I walked away for a 3-4 days without testing, and I got an FAS-DPD kit in the mail. I used the regular testing kit again today and the free chlorine was again, 10+, even though the dial was all the way off/shut. When I used the more advanced testing kit, it showed that my free chlorine is around 17.5! In all cases combined chlorine is <0.5, water is clear, everything else looks fine.

Inside the Pentair tube I can see that the tab has completely dissolved and the tube was full of water, even with the valve shut.

The adjustable valve for the chlorinater is good, I took it out and tested it, and the check valve doesn’t appear to malfunctioning, as I can see it is shut when I turn tue pump off and take everything out of the pentair fill tube.

What am I doing wrong here? My installer has either ghosted me completely or went out of business, and everyone else around here is understaffed and/or won’t send anyone out to look at it. Is it that this particular feeder is overkill for a 680 gallon spa that sees very little sunlight and people? Is there another way to go about chlorinating this spa if that is the case?

Thanks!

First time pool owner, so very green here. I received my TFPro test kit yesterday and ran my tests this am. Pool math says to add chlorine, salt and stabilizer. I added this salt this morning and then just added liquid chlorine and my stabilizer. Should I run my pool pump on high for 24 hours? Currently my pool pump runs from 8am-8pm. Should retest everything in the morning, or should I give it a couple of days? Thanks!

Planning to replace sand (300 lbs) in my Hayward filter. When tightening the dome back on, what is the torque to be used for the bolts?

Can someone check my math? I have a 5900 gallon above-ground pool. If I use Dichlor, each 10oz puck will raise my FC by 7 ppm and my CYA by 5 ppm. So, over the course of a month, consuming 3 ppm FC daily, let's say I use 13 pucks. That will give me 91 ppm of chlorine and will raise my CYA by 65 ppm. Since I started at 50 ppm CYA, I'll need to drain & refill at least half of the pool water to get the CYA back to 50-60 ppm CYA. That's at least 3000 gallons of water. Based on recent water bills, at $28 per thousand gallons (includes sewer and taxes), that comes to $84 per month, not including the price of the pucks. Last time I bought a 25-lb bucket of Dichlor it was $100 (price has gone WAY up since then), that's 25 cents/oz, so 13 10oz pucks would be $32.50? Total monthly cost is $84 + 32.50 = $116.50 per month?

If I use liquid bleach, I can get a gallon of 10% chlorine at the local Walmart for about $6. Each gallon of bleach will raise my pool 17 ppm FC, so I'd end up using 5.35 gallons of 10% bleach to get the same 91 ppm of chlorine, at a total cost of $32. Unless something happens, likely the CYA will stay at 50 ppm, so no need for further chemicals.

If my math is right, I'm saving $84.50 a month MINIMUM by using a Stenner vs buying Dichlor and dealing with massive water changes. Or is there another way people deal with the CYA buildup? I see a *lot* of pools with Dichlor feeders.

TIA
-Mark

Does anyone know if there is a difference in warranty support when you buy a Dolphin directly from a pool store vs. Amazon? The model i am looking at is Dolphin Sigma (https://a.co/d/3NZ0cyy) from ‘The Dolphin Store’, hopefully they are the original manufacturers (Maytronics) and not some reseller. I'm not sure about level of warranty support received from amazon bought pool robot vs a local store. Has anyone had any experience they can share regarding warranty claims from Amazon bought pool robot. Do i have to pay shipping when sending for repairs in case of Amazon? An advantage with Anazon is the ability to buy extended warranty via asurian which I don’t think will be available from a brick and mortar store. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

When pool company opened the pool recently they said the filter was very dirty the hoses it off with garden hose but said recommend new filter insert but that is $775 and a whole new filter is $900. Does this make any sense to buy an insert? If someone was buying a new filter altogether would a different one make sense to get - i.e. be better and/or cheaper for the say quality and /or cost less to run?

Thank you for your help! It seems so crazy to me the insert costs this much money!

First time pool owner, just looking for a place to get started. Waiting to get the back fill done on my pool and dirt hauled away, so I can start enjoying it. No chemicals have been added yet. Looking where to get started before the pool company shows up on Wednesday for orientation.

I have a 12k gallon white fiberglass pool.. Recently I had to SLAM my 12,000 gallon, white fiberglass pool that got away from me. My FC was reading zero and it was so cloudy I could not see the steps in the shallow end. Since we were having a bad stretch of weather forecasted for the
next 5 days I elected to slam the pool.

Within 24 hours things appeared to improve dramatically and within 48 hours the pool was crystal clear.

I maintained the shock level for another two days to insure a successful SLAM but then noticed a huge difference it the color of the fiberglass. The pool took on a brownish orange appearance almost like I had an iron issue.

I reduced the PH which did help lighten the staining but it is still very noticeable.
Is this now a permanent color caused by introducing the high chlorine content??

Really not sure how to handle it. I did put in a quart of Iron out but it did absolutely nothing.

Would appreciate any advise.
Gary Blizzard

Hi there! My husband and I are first time home owners and the home we purchased came with an in ground sand filter pool. Intimidating, to say the least! So we’re looking very forward to learning and interacting with those that have more experience & knowledge than we do

Hi all,

My Hayward H350FD gas pool heater (manufactured in 2010) has an interesting problem. After verifying that it worked when I opened it a few weeks ago, it now stays in standby mode. It seems to power on and enter standby mode as normal. I hear what sounds like relays clicking when power is applied. Standby light is lit. I push the mode button and it will briefly transition to pool or spa (and shows the water temp) but then returns to standby after a second or two. No error codes. I have already tried replacing the keypad with a new one, but no change. Any ideas what might be causing this?

Doing 5 gal bucket method. Checking every two hours.

Fill water
TA 150
CH 200
PH 7.2

1st Check
TA 180
CH 225
PH 7.5

2nd Check
TA 140
CH 225
PH 8.0

Do I base my calcs on 2000 gallons of water. I believe 1K went in at 2 hr. So, I am thinking 1K every 2 hrs. Then I would assume I need .98 lbs of baking soda. How do I determine acid needed?

Thanks

figured it out. Good advice, get a proper testing kit

New I’m still in the process of filling my pool and I it’s leaking from the collection basket. Help

Testing pool water that was just put in a month or so ago when new liner done. Multiple tests have shown PH at 8.2 (maybe higher in that the Taylor safety test only goes to 8.2?) and total alkalinity at 130. Added a gallon of muratic 31.45 -20 Baumé and still the PH remains consistently too high. Have had a ton of rain in the last month, but I would think that would have joy served to bring down the PH.
Can’t really figure this one out…. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
Jeff

Hi there! Here is the interesting scenario that happened:

• In the fall (due to other repairs going on), all my lines were pressure tested and passed, all good.
• The pool company closed the pool and blew out the lines.
• In the spring, there was a leak in one of my return lines (stair jets). Water could be seen and pressure test confirmed it.

The pool company said they would repair the leak at no cost if it turned out to be freezing damage. They just repaired it today and the guy said that a fitting had "popped off" (exact words). I believe the repair was just to re-secure the fitting. (99% of the work was digging and locating the line!)

Question: do you think a fitting coming off like that could be due to freezing damage (lines not blown out properly)?

I guessing they will say no, and I will have to cover the repair -- and I'm okay with that if it was due to something else (ground movement etc.). Where it gets tricky is if it MIGHT have been freezing damage but no way to be sure; maybe then I can bargain for a small discount or something.

Thanks for any advice! I appreciate it.

Mike

Hey all, I am looking at purchasing a robot pool cleaner and am curious if anyone has attempted to take advantage of a credit card extended warranty. They all have verbiage to exclude things like “Boats, automobiles, aircraft and any other motorized vehicles or water vehicles.” This seems to imply that a motorized robotic water vehicle would not be covered, right?

Hey guys is there a way to clear this up? I'm assuming it's calcium I just clean my pool and maintain chemicals I likely get in 5x a season. But gotnin today and noticed this.

I finally got my pool clear. Bought a new swg arriving tomorrow. Put the salt in tonight and smell something awful. My husband informs me a diesel can spilled on way home from lowes and got diesel on bags. Bags had sat back of truck for a week or more in this diesel. So... some must of absorbed into the salt. I can see a bit of oily film floating around. The pool now smells of diesel. The salt is still dissolving so i suspect there will be more. Is this a just wait for filter to sort it out situation or do i have to start over?
Im heartbroken. I've worked so hard.

Thank you for adding me!! I'm excited to find a site that helps with pool chemicals and