Update - Over the weekend I went back through the system checking for issues. A new water sample was brought to the pool shop down the road to find that my levels were starting to even out nicely. At this point I had not ran my pool robot in a few days, and noticed that the water slowly began to clear at the shallow end. The next morning I was able to see the bottom and noticed quite a bit of (ok more like alot) of white media sitting at the bottom of my deep end. I do not have a low end main drain. I figured that this media was DE from the filter, given the fine cloud that developed after agitating.

Still dealing with pressure filter pressure issues, I bumped the filter only to notice the white cloud of DE being blown back into the pool after bumping. This is after visually inspecting the filter fingers for tears, rips, deterioration, etc. and finding nothing. I ordered a new flex tube assembly that should be coming this week.

It has wall returns, same thing. Still get air out in a burst every time actuator cycles. I've done every problem isolation conceivable, and it comes down to the solar system. It doesn't matter where else water comes in or goes out, what other valves are open/closed. If it goes through solar, there are bubbles.

You are correct about the pressure being a problem. When the actuator is rotating to a new set the pressure drops to close to 0. Then a burst of bubbles. Then it goes back up to about 2-3psi.

But, what is causing the pressure to be so low when solar is active?

The pump is running at 2500 psi. Default speed is 2000. These have been optimized based on calculations of energy efficiency and water flow. I.e. lowest $/gpm, rotate all heads at least once per day, and circulate all water at least once a day, and sufficient to operate the heads. Except when solar is active.

I could crank it up, but maybe that's a patch, not a solution.

Thank you @Rancho Cost-a-Lotta and @BillyMac96, I ran a temp hard line from the pool to the pump, and what do you know, the pump primed again! I've got water moving again - thank you again for your help! Although the pump does prime, it does not prime perfectly as there is still some air in the basket (pump basket gets 3/4 full with water), and it slowly drops to 1/2 full with water after running for half a day. My hypothesis is that I think I have a weak seal at the drain plug, as I inadvertently bought a non-oem replacement. I have the official Hayward plug arriving today which I will replace. Although I have seen no water dripping from this plug, I guess it can still pull in some air from it.

My next challenge will be to determine where the failure is on the piping from the skimmer to the pump. My first hypothesis at this whole problem was a clogged skimmer line (as I get tons of debris in the pool), but I had two different techs blow the line with compressed air and CO2, and no blockage was found. I guess it may be in the PVC joints/fittings above ground where it attaches to the pump (as I already replaced and lubed the gasket there?
My skimmer basket has two holes, and we think one runs to the floor drain in the pool, but the tech could not blow air through through that line and out the floor drain - so maybe this one could be clogged and causing this whole issue? He also mentioned that this line from floor drain to skimmer basket is sometimes capped (don't know if that is true), which is why I did not pursue cleaning this route initially. Don't know if I should try to snake this myself, or camera it.

Temp solution:

Yeah, the builder's plumber really hosed up the Glacier Chiller installation.

I have yet to see a pool plumber read an installation manual.

rcsupool said:

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After a couple busy weekends, I finally had a few hours to start digging into this project.

I knew what I was getting into when I decided to tackle this myself, but now that I've started the reality of just how much work it's going to be is starting to set in.

The first thing I did was worked my way around the walls and drilled holes in "all" the osmotic blisters to relieve the pressure and mark them. Doing this made me realize just how many of them there are. Some panels are worse than others, but they all have at least a dozen. I chipped out a few of the blisters while I was at it as well to get a better idea of how deep into the fiberglass they go. I have a lot of grinding to do...



I also got out my diamond grinder and spent some time on a section to see how much work it's going to be to grind off all the old paint. This is going to be a real process. I may hire a professional to come out and sand blast or something for the sake of expediency.



I also tried pressure washing to see if made much of a difference. It actually worked better than I was anticipating and took off the first couple layers of old paint and identified a few areas where I will need to do some minor surface repair in the gunite.



I've cleared my whole upcoming holiday weekend to focus on the pool, so hopefully I'll make some good progress in the coming days.

TinFoilHat said:

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jsygrls said:

at cya of 40....so here's the way me and a neighbor take this on (lets say MY pool indicates 96 oz for slam level) I add that , 3 days later repeat and on he is just dumping and running under your direction ....kinda like the pool service in the neighborhood

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This is good advice/approach…I may be able to convince a neighbor to do this… it’s not too much chlorine back to back? SLAM’d this past weekend…FC should come down this week and we’ll maintain it at the recommended level then basically back up to SLAM 7 or so days later?

Hey folks! My new skimmers have worked very well since I completed this project in 2023. I’m thinking about switching from liquid chlorine to a SWG and wanted to ask a few questions.

When I did this project I was very careful to bond all new rebar and metal (including the niche and j-box) together with the existing rebar. That said, I don’t really know if any of the existing rebar was actually bonded when the pool was installed around 1980. The builders took a lot of shortcuts. There is a bonding cable going towards the pool from the pad, but I get about 300 ohms from the ladder and railing sockets to the pad. I don’t think the aluminum coping is bonded at all: I didn’t see any provision for connecting wire when I had the extrusions exposed.

I imagine there are a lot of pools out there with poor or incomplete bonding. It’s not feasible for me to jackhammer my entire deck and repour it and replace the coping. Should I avoid adding a SWG because it requires increasing the conductivity of the water? Would there be any benefit to burying an eight gauge wire just outside the deck and tying it in to the existing bond?

Some system details:
30,000 gallons
Vinyl liner over concrete walls
No heater
1HP pump and Hayward sand filter
Plastic Hayward niche with water bond
Upper Midwest

Thanks!

Nope.

Do you have this box on the side of the heater? That is the Versaflo valve...

I feel like it was MORE work for the original builder to do it so poorly as opposed to just doing it right? Wowza.

Not much can be done about the cracks unless you want to chip off the old plaster and replaster the area.

I would watch the area and see if the cracks expand.

I suspect you may have some freezing water that got underneath the plaster causing the cracks.

ajw22 said:

Do you have the Versaflo on your JXI heater?

JXi heaters with VersaFlo factory installed receive a 5-year standard warranty on the heat exchanger.

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I don’t believe so. Builder didn’t say anything about it.

mknauss said:

Install a SWCG when you return.

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LOL on the list.

Do you have the Versaflo on your JXI heater?

JXi heaters with VersaFlo factory installed receive a 5-year standard warranty on the heat exchanger.

Another pic of valves

Dirk said:

Now the worse news. The thing showed up without an o-ring! That, apparently, is a separate part!! So I ordered the Pentair OEM o-ring and am awaiting its arrival before I can try out this new plug. Uhg. So in addition to the added expense of the OEM plug, there's the cost of the o-ring, too! I paid $6.98 for the ring, and $22.50 for the plug, so $29.48 total. But...

Click to expand...

Yeah welcome to the island of $8 (single) screws and $2000 lights. I know retailers need good markups to do what they do, but we are in Gucci territory with our pools. I'm guessing venture capital buyouts figure in somewhere, too.

Your speculation about tariffs is interesting. The manufacturing cost for that plug is tiny compared to retail. Quality injection molding, certainly less than $2. Probably a lot less (Gemini thinks $0.50 to $1) , but use $2 for the sake of argument... That design is decades old. Mold costs have been amortized by now. With tariffs the $2 becomes less than $3 or $5 at the original 145% rate for China. All other costs remain the same. But the price goes up by $12? Something does not compute.

Pic

Thanks for the info! So you are saying, add chlorine first, complete the overnight test (to make sure not being consumed by algae), and the increase CYA a bit at a time.

Should I add chlorine for FC levels at 50 (3-8) or 70 (I'm usually trying to be 7-10) ?