New pool owner here. (Pool itself is about 20 years old.. just got it replastered a couple months ago). Anyways, my skimmer has 2 holes. I assume one of the holes is attached to the main drain at bottom of pool (there’s 2 down there). Doesn’t this mean then that the skimmer pulls main drain water vertically through the main drain hole into the skimmer which then sucks that water into the pump? If so shouldn’t I feel water coming up out of the main drain hole? I don’t feel anything when I put my hand over it so I’m concerned the main drain plumbing might be blocked or is this normal? My pool equipment has total of 2 jandy valves on suction side.. one for the spa drain and the other one is for pool vacuum cleaner/main drain/skimmer combination. Thank you!

I am considering switching to SWG. I noticed, however, that some pool companies seem to market above ground pools as “saltwater” or not with SW being more expensive because of anti corrosion items like special paint and stainless steel, but that seems like a marketing gimmick.

I don’t see how salt at the required concentrations does anything more than liquid chlorine. I’m not saying salt doesn’t corrode in the abstract. It does. But so does Chlorine. I don’t see how salt should corrode more than chlorine assuming same ppm free Cl2–especially at the salt ppms we are talking about.

I tried searching for a post on this so apologize if it’s already been addressed.

Anyone familiar with Jandy top spacer R0357700 (part #7 in diagram)? I'm opening our pool for my first time and the pool company who closed it didn't leave this part with us. Obviously, it exists for a reason, but I'm not sure what it's function is? Everyone wants $30 - $40 for it when all it looks like is a piece of PVC pipe with 2 holes drilled in it. Possibly 1 1/2 inch diameter? Maybe I could make my own if I knew the dimensions?

I had an easy 15 ft blow up intex pool that is gone now , but I kept the inlet valves. Will they fit into a Bestway 15x48 outlet and inlet holes or does Bestway make a set of valves? . My Bestway pool did not come with any and unfortunately i filled up the the pool before remembering about the valves to try them.
I am new to this forum and would appreciate your thoughts . Thanks a bunch
Ps. The intex hoses from the pump fit so loose on bestway that i really have to clamp it thus pinching and restricting the water flow.

I like to take my water to Leslie’s to test to “verify” my test results. However, they are often significantly different than mine. For example I measure my CH at ~320 but Leslie’s says it’s 242.
I measure TA at 60-70 and they say it 52. Is this normal? Is the K-2006 not that accurate or is Leslie’s also not that accurate. (I’ve repeated my test results to confirm my results are at least consistent. I would like to feel more confident in my test results. Do I need a better test kit? Any advice would be appreciated. Thx.

Hi folks! We recently bought a new home in Winnipeg, Canada, and became the proud owners of a 20x34 vinyl liner kidney shaped pool built in 1978.

All the neighbours have said that the previous owner, an elderly man, loved his pool and kept it in great shape. But now that the snow is starting to melt we're worried about the cost and scope of repairs that we'll need to do.

For starters, it doesn't have a winter cover on, but the equipment seems to have at least been disconnected at the pump so I'm hoping it's been properly winterized.

The decking is cracked in quite a few spots and appears to be pulling away from the pool in some areas, sloping away. This has caused it to pull back the original PVC coping with it, which has cracked significantly in some spots.

Instead of replacing the original coping, which is integrated into the deck, the previous owner simply installed a new liner track immediately below it which is holding in the current liner, which was last replaced in 2015. The liner appears to be in decent shape, other than some fading presumably from chemistry issues.

We are assuming that we'll need to replace all the decking and coping. However, we'd prefer to wait until the liner fails and have a couple years to save for this.

My question is — how bad is this? Can I get away with running the pool as-is and dealing with these issues as cosmetic problems so long as the liner remains intact and the pool holds water? Or should this all be done ASAP with the decking pulling away like it is?

Thanks so much — we are so excited to get our pool up and running for the season and hope we don't run into too many headaches in our first year

As posted in a previous thread at the end of last season I was battling white water mold as a result of high cya/chlorine issues. My scheduled opening is early May. Took a look at things today. The entire pool is COVERED with white mold. I did test chlorine, ph and cya today .
Fc basically zero mayyyybe 0.5
Ph 7
Cya 50

Is there anything I can or should prior to opening to try to get a handle on this ?
Thanks in advance

We have a small pond in our backyard with an Aqua Ultraviolet UV sterilizer and Ultima II filter as the only sanitizing and cleaning components. The UV unit was incorrectly installed (upside down) by the installer. The We may be selling the house this year and would like to make the pond functional with clean water.
Is it possible to rebuild the UV system?

Hello,
I stumbled on this website while looking for some advice about my pool. I have an inground plaster deep pool aprox 17,000 gal. I do my own pool care and am retired so I am able to keep up with it pretty well. i have 2 huge live oak trees in front of my house and they create a lot of work in the spring as they shed their leaves. I have lived here for 27 years and had my share of problems with the pool but always managed to figure things out. I just came back from Lesles for a water test and it said it was high in Copper. A couple other readings were just a little bit off, but I have never seen this copper reading, 4.3 this high since i lived here, and the pool looks great. the guy at leslies tried to sell me some stuff to get rid of the copper but I did'nt buy it. Or he said I could drain it and refill it. The pool is old but the water looks great. Just looking for a little advice here besides don't take your water to leslies to test anymore. thank you!!

Well when it rains it pours for me. Not only is my saltwater cell probably needs replacing but I’m afraid my Pentair pump is also on its last leg. I purchased this in April of 2016 and has pretty much run 24/7 ever since. It developed a leak about two months ago, but more concerning that it now has started making some concerning noises and as old as it is, I don’t know that it’s worth repairing?

Pentair 011018 IntelliFlo Variable Speed High Performance Pool Pump, 3 Horsepower, 230 Volt, 1 Phase​

If I do need to replace it, wondering how big of pump I really need? I have ~13K in ground pool, only water features I have or some small waterfalls and a little fountain I can divert water to in the shallow wading area. I saw them use either and when I do, it’s just a matter of simple valve manipulation at the pump. My pump equipment does sit quite a bit above the pool water level so it has to be self priming. Probably 6 feet higher. Looking for recommendations. Thank you.

My first pool opening. Pulled mesh cover, ran robot twice, and have 5 pucks trichlor floating until turn on SWG. Other than water only 52, it's basically swim ready. So thank you everyone for your expertise, advice, tips, and tricks.

I'm sure CYA much below 50 it was in fall at close. Will check full chem levels on Sunday and adjust accordingly (salt and Borax). But for CYA, assume I account for the 5 pucks... Do I then continue using trichlor or just add powder at that point to bring me to level (PoolMath = 70 target)?

Uncaged, salt water pool in SW Florida. Travertine that I don't like, pebble tech surface that I love. Hoping to educate myself so I can carry on an intelligent conversation with my pool service person and/or learn how to care for the pool myself over time.

Hi, a branch fell and hit my SWG and knocked the cover off. In the process 3 of the 4 wires connected to the power switch were pulled off.
Does anyone have a manual or can provide a picture of how to reconnect the power switch?

Thank you.

I tried SLAM this 15k gallon green pool, SLAM level over 20 and ph 7. I ran the pump at full speed overnight changed 48g filter DE today morning, pressure doubled to over 20psi within 3 hours. This is the first time I am seeing this green stuff not die after so long. If this is pollen do I just need to drain and refill at this point?

April 14 6pm SLAM 20, Ph 7 - green water
April 15 8AM change DE in 48g filter - still green
April 15 12PM filter pressure double water still same green color

(Lot of scrubbing with wire brush last 24 hours.)

I've read many postings and understand that TFP are adamant against using the pool store testing and for us to do our own testing.

What if my local store actually utilize the Taylor pool testing equipment, model K-2005C, would that be acceptable?

I watched them. They use my water that I bring to flush out the equipment before testing to avoid cross-contaminations. Then I take the results, bring them home and check it on the Pool Math calculator and adjust the chemicals accordingly.

I have a hard time comparing the colors on the test equipment myself.

Anyone care to chime in? Thanks

I would love to find the connectors for the display and motherboard. I up grader from aqua logic.. I already had 6 strain wire ran from house to control panel. I don't have a room to have a (6) splice on side house where old display was
Any help

I’ve been fighting iron stains for the past several years, but it’s getting better every year with the combination of AA, polyfill, CuLator, sequestrants, and some dilution help via rain the past couple seasons where I’ve had to pump water out of the pool.

I was just looking at sequestrants on Amazon and noticed a new brand that I hadn’t seen before, Aquadoc. Is anyone familiar with them? They have a salt water stain and scale remover which is priced at $16 for a quart. It seems like a good deal but I’m not sure if it’s chock full of garbage I don’t want in my pool.

I reached out to the company and asked for the SDS and they were super responsive sending it over in under 45 mins. So initial impression is positive of the company but I still question the product.

I’ve attached the SDS; however, most of the info on it is labeled ‘Trade Secret’. I didn’t know if some of the more technically/chemically literate members might be able to tell if this is HEDP based or some other ok chemicals, or if this is going to create more headaches for me down the road.

Thanks!

Hey..

New to pentair systems (coming from omnilogic at my last pool), have the full intellicenter panel and apparently the 900mhz long range bridge that plugs into my network.

I had this unit running what I felt was running well for the first two months and all of a sudden I couldn't connect to the pool via the app... Turns out as I started troubleshooting, I could ping the intellicenter on the LAN but had extreme packet loss and latency.
What was odd, from day 1 it seemed flakey (app connectivity) and now I realize it was just some issue which appears as packet loss. Rebooting sometimes recovered but the other day no power cycle or reboot was restoring it.

I know the cables were all good (tested) but ultimately decided to move the network side directly to my core network switch to eliminate a network run. Plugged directly in and it came back to life.. but then started doing it again, significant packet loss and latency (like 3500ms) and ping loss of like 80%

I've rebooted it a few more times and it started working... mostly. It can run for hours without packet loss and once in a while it seems go bonkers again

Anyone see anything similar with these units?

The on/off switch on my Jandy 400n heater seems to have failed. If I bypass the on/off switch, my heater works fine. What is the purpose of that switch, can you buy that separately from the gas valve? And is there any harm in leaving that switch bypassed?

Hi all, pool guy recommended using this product because of the amount of debris that gets into the pool. I am maintaining the pool per TFP standards and CYA and FC are all fine. However, there is a lot of pollen and debris from leaves and so fourth that makes its way into the pool. I read this was okay to use, but was curious if this is the correct product for this application.

My heater is 10 year old and working ever since installation. I unscrewed the thermal regulator (TR) cap to check the condition of the regulator and discovered no spring or regulator in there at all. Could it be lodged in the Manifold or make its way through the outlet plumbing?

The symptom I had that led me to investigate the TR was the E05 code I get when attempting to run the heater. I replaced the stack flue sensor a couple weeks ago and the heater operated fine for a week but now the E05 code is back and replacing the sensor again hasn't changed anything.

I thought this might be of interest to some people -- I have a Pentair CCP420 filter on a concrete pad with the pumps, and opening the drain makes a big mess everywhere, so I wanted the ability to connect a hose to a better location when cleaning the filter or draining excess water from the pool. Other threads showed this for filters with horizontal drain ports, but the CCP series has the drain plug vertically in a recess under the filter, so putting fittings on is not as simple.

After browsing the local ACE PVC fitting aisle, I came up with:

- 1.5” -> 3/4" reducer
- 3/4" street elbow (male on one end, female on the other)
- 3/4" short nipple
- 3/4" ball valve
- Hose adapter (3/4" male pipe thread on one end, male hose thread on the other, plastic)

By reducing to 3/4" I was able to screw the reducer in, then the elbow into that with plenty of clearance before adding the rest. I used teflon tape on all of the male threads, and it doesn’t appear to be leaking at all.

Obviously this won’t drain as fast as a 1.5” pipe would, but it’s a clear 3/4" path and seems to work fine. It will vary with your pool size, pump speed and plumbing, but I can drain an inch of water in about 20 minutes, so I just set an alarm on my phone or watch to come back and close it up. It’s probably better to have a somewhat restricted flow to keep enough pressure in the filter that air doesn't enter the system.

Pictures:

Hi All,

I'm thinking about switching over to a SWG after 3 years of running pucks since the pool was finished in 2022. We recently just had our glass waterline tile salt blasted and pool refilled. With fresh water now in the pool it has me thinking that maybe now is the time to make the switch since like most, I've been fighting a losing battle against high levels of CYA, needing to buy liquid chlorine, etc. And it seems to me that after the initial purchase the long term savings are more than there especially since we live in AZ.

My only concern is that we have limestone freska decking and coping. Will those pose an issue? Depending on who you talk to some say don't worry about it, others say seal (which I do not want to do), and some say don't do it at all. After having read a few posts on here it seems like with most things having good pool chemistry is the most important thing.

Can anyone speak to having limestone while running an SWG and what your experience has been like? Thank you!

I have a Pentair system (Pump, Heater, Controller). Our former house had a default within its heater controller that would cut off the heater after a set amount of time (90 minutes). Our family is now forgetting to turn off the Pentair Heater and there have been times that it ran most of the night. Is there a way within the Pentair Intellicenter App to create a maximum run time and automatic shut off?

Has anyone turned up a source for the original or a new version of the perimeter fiber optics for Pentair Fiberstars system? I do repairs and restoration of the head units yet have not been able to unearth a source for the fiber optic cable.

I am planning on a heat pump. I cannot place it close enough to the panel or anywhere else to use a 6 foot liquid tight whip (9 feet from panel). Is my only option to run pvc or rigid conduit underground close to the heater? If yes, do I transition to liquid right through a junction box? (Underground pvc -> junction box on some type of post -> liquid tight -> heat pump). Thx

Newbie with salt water pool and still trying to figure out what to use. We live is KS and opened our pool a couple of weeks ago. We have been fighting PH, but finally have it up to 7.4. Our pool has turned cloudy and upon testing today we have FC of 9.5, CC of 0.5 and CYA is not even registering. Here's my question, is it liquid chlorine we need or stabilizer? I'm getting confused when reading through the different forums. TYA Dennis

See picture

I know someone posted years back about pulling these apart and not sure if the rubber went back on or what was done. As can be seen the rubber is either gone or deteriorated at the bottom. Is there an easy way to fix asi believe new ones are insane. I would switch to Iaqualink with my phone but they don’t warranty if you buy from eBay or wherever and my luck it would be doa. Regardless fixing this would still be way cheaper

I have the rooftop solar heater panels for my pool. They were replaced recently due to age deterioration and work well. They put in air bleed valves such that they drain when the pump turns off (I don’t believe the previous system had them as I never heard them back then). When my system turns ON, I get a lot of loud banging and gurgling through the pipes on the roof and in the equipment, and big bubbles at the pool jets as the air is pushed out. Sometimes it seems as though some air remains in the panels as I see bubbles for quite a while afterwards. Why are these valves necessary? Why must the water be drained out each time? I have no freeze issues here. Thanks.

I am in the middle of replacing my sand for the first time. I have all the sand cleaned out and removed the laterals for inspection. The laterals look fine, saving some staining on one, and a tiny amount of debris on the inside of each one. I have eight brand new laterals ready: I can install them or return them to the pool store. The filter was manufactured in 2018 and I think was installed in 2018 or 2019. If they look good should I just continue using them, or are they typically swapped out in the interest of precaution when you change the sand? They were $14.99 each at the pool store, totaling $112.92. Don't want to go cheap here, but don't want to drop that money unnecessarily.

Secondly, from a couple youtube videos I saw, both of them liked to use a silicon lube on the threads and the o-ring on the cap. Would a standard bicycle synthetic grease (silicon), such as Park Tools or Pedros be ok to use? A few pics to follow.