I currently am having a in ground pool installed. The soil is a heavy clay mix, and the pool builder is only backfilling the soil to the pool and is not compressing the fill at all. Originally I was going to have them do concrete around the pool but knowing that it would crumble without the soil being compact I decided to just live with the mud.

Is it a industry standard to just loosely backfill the overdig for the supports or does the fill usually get tamped down when it’s being put in?

I unfortunately will have to wait until next year for concrete since I know the un compressed clay soil will settle.

Last question- should the soil be compacted or would there be a reason it is not compacted?

Thank you for any insight in this very exciting but stressful life event.

So I am replacing my diving board (SR Smith Frontier II) and my bag with my bolt kit for attaching the base to the three bolt jig has been lost (kids!). So I need to get a new kit for bolting down the base. Looking at the kit (S.R. Smith 69-209-033-SS), they just look like regular bolts and nuts and washers. Buying the set of three bolts, nuts, etc. is close to $100, a lot for a few bolts, nuts, and washers. Can I go down to Ace Hardware and get the same bolts, nuts, etc. or is there something special about their bolt kit?

I have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on looking at the quality of plumbing by several potential gunite pool builders in my area. The photos attached are from someone that comes recommended, but wanted to get input from this group. What I have found is that the builders around here vary wildly. I have really liked dealing with this particular builder but want to make sure I’m not stepping into potential issues down the road.

Hello everyone , new here to the forums and also a first time pool owner. I have been reading this site for the entire summer now and have learned a ton of information.

My pool is a 14ft x 8ft bestway pool with approx 1900 gallons in it. I have the TPF 100 pro-kit for testing and have been logging all my tests all year long as I’m a bit nuts. The pool has been just awesome. My kids love it. To my question. I have been struggling with keeping my FC chlorine in the range of 1-3ppm all year long. I had been given 3” tablets which I was breaking up into smaller pieces to fit into the self chlorinator that the pool comes with but it’s all over the place. I just recently got a pool floater as of about 2 1/2 weeks ago and just put one tablet in with just half of one slot open. Now I can’t keep the levels below about 6ppm. I can’t close the dispenser window any further. Should I just be using 1” tablets instead next year? I feel maybe the 3” just has too much surface area. I know the consensus on the site is to avoid the tablets at all costs but I just want to set it and forget it. All of my family and friends all just use the pucks so I followed suit. I check chlorine levels about 3-4 times a year. Thanks

As of my last full test about a week ago:
FC : 6ppm
CC: 0
PH: 7.5
TA: 110ppm

Hey everyone,

When it comes to manual vacuuming it is advised to start it from the shallow end of the pool and then slowly move towards the deeper end of the pool.

Why shallow end is advised first rather than starting from deeper end?

Thanks

I'm a first year pool owner. I've been getting my liquid chlorine from Menards. It's super cheap and always very fresh... within days usually. I was afraid this might happen, but my store is done selling this "seasonal" item. My pool is staying open for another 5-6 weeks. I don't want to buy from a pool store - in my experience they are expensive and dated. Are there any other big box stores that sell liquid chlorine further into the fall?

I’ve read/scanned through most of our (Virginia) pool code and can’t seem to find a couple clearances. Just starting research on an inground pool. First how far is a pool supposed to be from a house wall?

And we have underground power lines and I just had them marked, how far does the pool wall need to be from a power line? Looking like I need to move our pool design over about two feet to clear the line by 6”. Can’t tell if that is enough looking through the codes I found. Underground fiberglass is what we are considering.

Can anyone with the CircuPool CJ2750 filter talk about experience? Mainly interested in how often the cartridge needs to be cleaned and how that process goes - fairly simple?
Thanks!

Ph 7.8
CH over 100
Cya 0
I just added enough granulated dichlor to get FC to 6, but cya is still 0. Am I supposed to add stabilizer to raise the cya like I do in the pool? Or do I continue to add dichlor to raise the cya? If I continue to add dichlor, should I wait until until the fc drops and bring it back up to 6ppm? My plan is to switch to liquid chlorine once the cya reaches 30, as suggested by tfp.

Edit to add it’s a 7 seat South Seas Artesian spa. I don’t know if that matters to my question, but I can’t figure out how to add my hot tub info since I already added my pool info.

Is it recommended to put O Ring lube on the Oring on the plug (see photo) when closing/winterizing the pool ?

Thanks
Rich

Hi all,

I’ve seen some professional looking equipment pad layouts online if you Google pool equipment CAD drawings. Would like to try and learn to do this myself.

Do any of you do such work today to advise on what software tools are used by pool builders? Is it AutoCAD or some other software? Are there libraries available for all the different valves/equipment used?

For the past couple months I have noticed this on the bottom of my above ground pool. I believe the liner is vinyl.

My chemistry ( taken weekly from a Taylor kit)
FC: 9
TA: 70
CYA: 50
PH: 7.4
CA: 70

It is a 12000 gallon 24 ft round pool.

My weekly strategy is to backwash my sand filter, vacuum bi weekly, brush weekly, and test chemistry weekly. I only use bleach and baking soda, cya, and acid to control my pool chemistry.

Things I notice.
- after brushing my pool the “marks” disappear but then slowly reappears after several hours.
- I thought it was black algae ( I know it’s rare in vinyl) so I added 4x slam and scrubbed my pool with scrubbers tied to my feet, and ran the pump for a week. Didn’t seem to change much.

Hello,
I've had great success getting help on this site -- and thank you in advance for any advice.

I have a Pentair Racer for my inground pool. It is just over 3 years of age. I've probably had to spend 50-100 in repairs over the past 3 years, which hasn't been too bad. Now, the Racer seems to be stuck in a straight path -- it goes forward, backs up, and eventually rests right close to where it began. Unless I go out there and play with it (straight the line, move it manually and drop it elsewhere) it seldom actually does what it use to do -- which was run around the pool in an unpredictable pattern, but eventually tried to get all of the surface area and tried climbing the walls, etc. Have never been "in love" with it's cleaning ability but it's been acceptable. With that, I have two questions :

1.) What might be wrong with it? What can I check? <Note - we did change our EasyTouch control board … so not sure if this has anything to do with the issue>
2.) People seem to like robots. Do y'all recommend them? If so, what's the brand of choice with a good warranty - and are there any places that are known for selling them at reasonable prices?

Thanks,
Mike

Does anyone sell weights and floats for the standard size pool hose? All I can find are the skinny ones for the kreepy krawley hose. Too skinny to fit standard pool hose.

I recently replaced the pulsator jets in my spa since the one of them blew out and scattered ball bearings all over and the other ones no longer spin. This is the exact part: Waterway 3-1/2" Deluxe Poly Pulsator Screw-in Jet Insert.

However, now it seems that any time my pool pump is on, the pulsator jets have bubbles coming out of them. The non-pulsator jets are fine. I tried closing all of the air control vales completely and still the bubbles come out. I've noticed the pH of my pool keeps rising and I've been having to add a lot of acid to keep things in check. What boggles my mind is, if I remove the jets completely and just leave the wall fittings, no bubbles come out. My previous jets did not behave this way -- they only had bubbles when the pool was in "spa mode" and never bubbled in "pool mode."

Any idea what might be going on here? Are my spa jets defective? Do I have some air getting into the system somehow? I don't get where those bubbles could be coming from if the air valves are closed but I also don't get why they stop when I take the jets out. Any advice is much appreciated!

I've put up my Intex Ultraframe 12'x24' above ground pool and everything works great (in large part due to the kind people on this forum). We are filling the backyard with chipped pea gravel which we'd love to come as close to the pool as possible (the pool is in a wood frame that's holding sand I leveled the ground with). I was thinking I'll get this foam tubing that's used for insulating wires (think black pool noodles) and run it around the pool so the pebbles to touch the pool... but that's getting pretty pricy. Is there a cheaper alternative people use that still looks good?

New Raypak 266A Nat gas heater installed May 2023.

Dedicated GFCI 2-pole 20-amp breaker.

Runs for an hour or 2 and then trips. I reset and run again for over an hour and trips.

Electrician came back to check and shrugged.

I assume I just need to get Raypack tech over, but wondering if anyone’s ever had this issue. Feel like this is out of my DIY skills…

No error codes.

Hello, my name is Grant. My spa is dropping water level after motor's shut off in the evening. Where do i start to look?
Pentair equipment

The water readings were from Leslie Pools (my kit is unreliable so I rely on pros for his). I used Clorox Pool&Spa Alkalinity Increaser for Swimming Pools, 5 lb Bag, and my pool is 10,000 gallons. My understanding is that alkalinity increaser is just baking soda, so I could probably just buy some in bulk and use that instead. But I don't understand how the total alkalinity could have gone down so dramatically after treatment.

Note I also used a Calcium Hardness increaser at the same time and that level increased by 17ppm and is now at 154. Other readings are in the ideal range. Note my CYA has been increasing lately due to the tablets I'm using--it's now at 74 from 55 last month so now I guess I'll stop using the tablets and start using liquid chlorine only.

Any ideas what's going on and what I should do?

Since cold water is corrosive, i.e., lowers CSI, is it a good idea to let pH drift up prior to closing.... maybe close around 7.8?

im having high CYA issues from pucks and want to drain some water but not sure how to. ive been told i can turn off my pump, unscrew the drain circled below on the pool filter and then turn pump on and water will leak out? is this ok?

Hi all, I am a relatively new pool owner and I'm having some real struggles with cloudy water this year. Everything was fine (water was super clear) until I followed the pool store's advice and treated for phosphates (I have since read here and other places that phosphates aren't that big of a deal if your Cl is fine).
The treatment turned the water a cloudy blue and it has not cleared up in almost 2 months now. Every test I have taken since shows proper chemistry (albeit with elevated phosphates), but I cannot get the cloudiness to go away!

I run my pump 24/7 on the following schedule, calculated to move ~60k gal. in 24 hrs.
60gpm x 6 hrs
40gpm x 3 hrs
35gpm x 15 hrs

Last test results:
FC - 2.4
TC - 2.6
pH - 7.7
CH - 320
TA - 140
CYA - 60
NaCl - 3000
Phosphates ~ 1000 (Taylor phosphate test kit, similar to what pool store test shows)

Things I have done:
Following pool store recommendations, treated 4k phosphates with Pool Juice Zero phosphate remover (turned pool from clear and nice to cloudy)
Following pool store recommendations, after 2 days circulating phosphate remover through filter, backwashed and treated with Pool Juice 911 (told it would clear the cloudiness)
1 week later, retest water at pool store, phosphates dropped to about 1.4k - told to basically repeat steps 1 and 2 above, which I did.
Another week passed, no clearing of the water, phosphates down to about 1k.
Overnight chlorine loss tests show 0.5 to 1ppm loss
Tried adding flocculant to settle the suspended particles, after two doses and waiting 48 hours with pump off, no settling occurred, no clearing happened.
Did a major deep clean of the filter using HTH sand cleaner (2 bottles added directly to filter sand, soaked overnight), then backwashed and then performed deep cleaning of sand using garden hose and really moving my arm through the sand to get all the dirt up and out.
Added a bit of DE to my skimmer basket per instructions on this site, opened filter later and observed DE atop sand bed.
Ran for another week or two, no change in water clarity. Was told by pool guy that I should continue to treat the phosphates, added another 4 oz of phosphate remover, waited, no change in clarity, phosphates still just under 1k.

Because the equipment was put in place in 2008, decided maybe filter sand was super old and should be replaced. Removed all filter sand and replaced with bed of pea gravel and 450lbs of new #20 silica sand, ran for 2 days, no changes. (I should note that the pressure and flow really didn't change from the sand change out, so I'm assuming my sand was mostly OK still)

I'm at a loss at what to do next aside from draining the pool. I've read about the SLAM process, and I'd like to try that, but I'm super concerned about the very high levels of Cl going through my heater, which specifically says high Cl over 5ppm will damage it and void the warranty.
The pool is covered almost all the time with an autocover. The dolphin pulls up small bits of calcium flakes ejected from the SWG, some bugs, and some small amounts of plant debris that falls in at the end of the cover, but that's it.

After the suggestion to raise FCL to 5ppm here I've put the SWG back into superboost mode and will test again tomorrow

First off let me explain why this is even an option. The pool is located on sandy soil, on a hillside, 80 feet above the water table. The pool is only 2300 gallons which only takes a few hours to fill from our well. The only cost is electricity. The pool can drain itself in less than 30 minutes. It just made no sense at all to keep all that water over the winter. No more animals and insects making their way into the pool over the winter. No more long winded slams to get old nasty water to behave. Starting fresh every time makes for fast and easy startup. I've done it this way several years now and it's made having a small pool so much easier. I also move all my equipment indoors for the winter. My first pump failed early due to being out in the elements under wet leaves.

So the question... I usually try to blow out the lines with a shop vac then I add some antifreeze to the lines. This is a hassle and it's a problem to remove in the spring. Is there any way to remove all the water from the lines using suction, air pressure be it high volume low pressure, or low volume high pressure? If all the lines are open, covered with plastic, but not air tight, can it be assumed any water in the lines that do freeze will not crack the pipes because the ice can move along the inside to expand? Can you remove all the water from the remaining underground piping?

Thanks!

Is it ok to use the Blaster Silicone Lubricant spray on O’Rings? Especially on the large O’Ring on the cartridge filter ?

Thanks
Rich

I ordered an $11 part from Amazon and they sent me a Hayward pump instead. Looks like the pump is around $300. I put in for a return, but if I don't return it, I am only out $11. Anyone need this?

An Introduction: I visited - and was helped here - many years ago. I am now returning. I should have visited more often as my pool adventures were not trouble free.
Seventy-nine. Married 44 years, living a bucolic lifestyle in the Sierra Nevada foothills with cows, goats, dogs, cats and a variety of wild critters nearby. A good day is when I can make my wife laugh or get some seat time on my tractor. A great day is when I can do both, and most days are great.
I know I will gain much from hanging in here, and hopefully at some point I can also be helpful to someone else. We have had our pool for about 20 years. A simple rectangle - 36 L x 18 W with 4 foot depths at each end sloping to just over 5 feet in the center - perfect for volleyball and the visiting granddaughters. We will be refinishing the plaster soon - long overdue. Equipment: Pentair quad 60 sq ft filter, just installed Pentair Superflo VS variable speed pump, Polaris 360 pressure side cleaner.

My pool was uncovered when a contractor sawed retaining wall block nearby, and it blew fine dust/sediment into my pool. It's now flowing through my system and settling on the pool floor beneath each return jet. I'm vacuuming it as I see it, but it keeps coming back. I've tried a filter bag over my skimmer basket and cleaned/replaced the filters, to no avail. My pump is an older Pentair Clean & Clear cartridge based filter. This is very stressful for me and the local pool service provider isn't much help. Any help would be much appreciated! And before anyone suggests it, I'm certain it's not algae. Thanks all!

UPDATE - I can't vacuum to waste as I don't have a waste/multiport valve.

We love our pools,
And dream our dreams,
and hope for a flood. [from the sea].

I currently have a 30 ft above ground pool, but am thinking about getting rid of it. I bought it used and set it up myself 5 years ago. The main problem with it is water temperature. I live in northeast Ohio. It's in direct sunlight. I use a solar cover (major pain in the butt) and homemade solar heater with 300 ft of black PVC pipe, both of which help, but we typically can't start using the pool until the third week of June and then by the first week of Sept it is too cold again. A conventional above ground pool heater would not do much on a pool of this size. I am on well water and adding water to this pool (due to its size) is always a challenge if I use flocculant and have to "vacuum to waste to clear up the water.

We recently visited a relative who had a small inground pool put it in...it's kind of something in between a large hot tub and a small pool. About 9ft x 17 ft and 4.5 deep on one end. It is heated with natural gas. Something like this would fit our lifestyle better and we can take our kids to a real pool when they really want to swim laps.

Here is my plan to build it. Just brainstorming for now. Let me know what you think:

Size approx 9ft x 17 ft x 4.5 ft deep (and 2 ft deep on shallow end).
Concrete block construction with 8"x16" blocks, built ABOVE GROUND (this works better for me because of the elevation of my backyard and I can use the existing deck that I already built).
"Surface bonded" construction, no mortar between the joints. Rebar and grouting in every hole, and some horizontal rebar as well. The walls would have a few "bump outs" (not sure what they're called) where two blocks are turned 90 degrees on the bottom course, then built up to be like a reinforcement column. I've done this before on foundation walls.
Floor would be 4" thick concrete with mesh reinforcement, rigid foam underneath. Inside would be coated with hydraulic cement that is made for waterproofing pools.
Outside would have rigid foam insulation against the block with mesh and stucco coating on the outside.
Homemade folding insulated cover and solar cover. Heater would be electric heat pump and wood fired heat exchanger (I have access to unlimited firewood for free).
I am hoping for something that could be used 9 months out of the year, instead of the current 3 months.

I am thinking that building it above ground would be easier, cheaper, and avoid many of the problems that DIY in-ground pools have.
I have previously re-built the concrete foundation wall of a 2,000 sq ft bank barn and poured a 10ft x 16 ft slab by myself (with a rented mixer). I found it to be a lot cheaper to buy the aggregate, sand, and cement separately and mix them myself, compared to buy pre-mixed bags.

We installed a pool starting last fall;this was our first season using it. The Pebble Tec application was mottled and didn’t improve over time and so the pool was drained to acid wash to correct the mottled coloring, acid wash deemed ineffective and Pebble Tec certified group determined they would re-coat it and chisel along underside of tile to blend it to tile line. Our issue is this: without permission or discussion the plastering company took these samples (see photos) to send to lab for analysis. Is this normal? Do we need to be concerned about the integrity of the Gunite with this sample removal? One of these samples was 13 inches long, 5 inches tall and 2 3/4
inches deep. We are trying to gauge if this is a serious issue or not in terms of Gunite structure and integrity.