Hi all -

My Hayward SwimPure Plus system is not producing chlorine and I'm trying to figure out if it has finally died or if it's fixable. The unit is from 2013 based on the serial number (3A13081-xxxxxx). I did the thermasistor fix 2 summers ago and they look fine. The cell itself is about 4 years old and has been recently cleaned. Pool is 20x40, 36,000 gallons.

What I'm seeing:

- TC and FC are both zero - which is how I know it's not producing chlorine - and the pump has been running 24x7 at 2500 RPM this week. I've triple checked with a trip to Leslies, some test strips, and my Taylor kit. Flow is good, sand filter has been backwashed in the last week, pressure shows clean.
- The SWG is showing the Power and Generating lights green, all others off.
- Knob is set to 75%
- Instant salt is 3000
- Average salt is reading 3300 (Leslies tested at 3200)
- Temp is 81
- Volts is 24.7
- Amps is 5.61
- Cell is T-15 (which is correct) and AL-0 and r-1.58

It's been set like that all week. What's interesting, is when I move the SWG to Super Chlorinate (100% essentially) or move the dial to 100% and leave in Auto, the Generating light goes dark and the Super Chlorinate light does not light. Amps drops to zero. Based on the above, it looks like the SWG is generating - volts, amps, and salt are all in the right range and the controller PCB is doing what it's supposed to do - which confounds me. Any suggestions?

A friend has a T-15 cell I can go get and troubleshoot with if it sounds like it's worthwhile, but it's a couple hour drive to get it.

TL;DR

Just getting started on this as an Owner/Builder. I’ve been reading the forums a ton the last few months, trying to get an idea of what to do, what works, best practices, etc. I’d love to get any additional input on my plans.

I just got the engineering plans back, and submitted for permits earlier this week. Want to get the dig started in the next couple of weeks if the weather holds so I can get it done early next spring/summer and have some time to swim! Would love to get anyone’s feedback.

I’m relatively handy, so will be doing as much of this as I can myself, which ultimately may just end up being plumbing, tile, pavers, some of the electrical and gas.
Many of the build threads have been extremely helpful to see, so I plan on updating this throughout the project.

Going to be a 22’ X 46’ gunite pool, right around 40k gallons.
6’ wide tanning ledge (1’ water depth)
4’ to 5’ Shallow end (3.5’ - 4.5’ water depth)
9’ Deep end ( 8.5’ water)

Would like to put in a jumping ledge(s) and am planning for additional strength on pool walls for that, but haven’t finalized anything there yet. Have also looked at doing a rope swing, but there’s not a lot of info on that, especially on anyone that’s done it themselves.

Pool Equipment:

• Pump: Pentair Inteliflo VSF 11056 (maybe IntelliPro 23056 for 2-½" port size??)
• Filter: Pentair Quad DE 100
• Salt Water: Intellichlor IC60
• Heater: Pentair MasterTemp 400k BTU gas heater
• Automation: Intellicenter with power center (hoping to find the IntelliCenter i8PSIC60 Kit)
• Lights: Pentair Microbrite (3 on tanning ledge, 6 in pool)
• AutoCover

Would like to do 2-½" suction lines, but may end up with 2”. Below is my initial plan for plumbing, with some questions.

Plumbing Questions

• Was planning on 2-½" suction side. Intelliflo 11056 only has a 2” port. Do I upgrade to the IntelliPro 23056 instead? Just use 2” pipe?
• Is there a ‘best’ skimmer? Does it matter?
• Do I need to use the equalizer line on the skimmer? Or just cap that?
• Should I move some returns to the short wall on the deep end? (same wall as the cover)
• Contemplating deck jets – what's everyone’s experience with those? Are they worth it or a waste of time? They’re not terribly expensive, and may not use them a lot, but it seems like they could be fun occasionally.
• Is it worth it to have separate runs for all the returns? Or combine all of them on each side together to simplify things? If I do that, do I need to loop it? Returns would be 1-½ runs.

Any other thoughts/suggestions/changes? What other things am I missing?

Edit: Adding a better picture

Hello all

I'm stuck. We have a 13,000 gallon above ground 24' pool in Southwest Ohio that gets direct exposure to the sun for every second the sun is out (which is a lot in the summer). Last year we had an unusually hot summer and we sat in the upper 80's. This year is a different story. We're camping around the low to mid 80's and with the solar cover (16mil gray) we're floating 75-77 degrees.

Our goal for a heat pump (propane is not an option - too expensive to run) is to be able to get the pool to sit at 80 degrees or higher for ALL of June through September. Hayward indicates that I need a pump around 65,000 BTU. Unfortunatley, the only ones I can get my hands on are 47,000 (for $2,299) or a 90,000 (for $4,000). I really would prefer ot not spend the extra $1,700 (especially since it's 4-6 weeks out on delivery and the smaller one is in stock).

Anyone have any experience trying to heat a larger body of water with a slightly undersized heat pump? If I could get my hands on the HP70HA2 (70k btu unit) I would but I can't find it in stock anywhere.

Hey everyone,

we bought a house with a pool and we've been having issues with chlorine generation. We discovered that the system was set up with a Hayward Low Salt T-CELL-LS-CUL but the control panel is a Hayward Goldline Pro Logic and not a dedicated Hayward Low Salt system. Should I be replacing the chlorinator with a regular Hayward one because it is not compatible with our Hayward controller. This is the advice of my local pool shop, just want to make sure before $1600 purchase is made.

Thank you!!

Hi All - How do you all position your eyeball return. I used to have it where you couldn't really see any ripples in the water as it was positioned straight but down slightly. Then I took it off to plug to do some maintenance on the filter and when I put it back it was angled slightly up where it was creating some small ripples. Does it matter one way or the other for the pool/circulation? Or am I over thinking it? Thanks

So we added a heater bypass this last Spring before opening. It's just 2 manual Jandy valves that I close/open basically when I was to enable/disable the bypass. I thought it'd be nice to NOT send water through the heater if I'm not using it for long periods of time (especially as one of my two SWCG's is before the heater, which I know isn't ideal, but ugh, replumbing that one is going to be such a PITA). So, I have had the heater bypass enabled occasionally, but recently started wondering if it's a problem bypassing the heater and having that stagnant water sitting IN the heater?

What's the standard operating procedure when using a heater bypass? Should I also be draining the water in the heater? Or just leaving it there, or doesn't it really matter if my water chemistry is on spec? Thoughts one way or the other?

I went on vacation for a week from last wednesday to this wednesday. When I left I added 2 gallons of 10%. Then on Friday and Monday following I had the person staying here add 2.5 gallons. Tested wednesday when I got back and was clear so first thought is added too much. So got chlorine neutralizer to try and lower. Added 1 pound and retested and still clear. So added another pound of chlorine neutralizer and still clear for FC. FC has been clear since testing wednesday. So I went to the pool store and do drop based test and said I have no chlorine. Not sure of the exact test but they did a drop based test that if goes brown then it is too high but still clear. They said phosates were around 200 so not to really worry.

So I added some chlorine today and should have bumped from 0-6, and still getting clear.

I have tried to replace about 1/4-1/3 of the water to lower the level. So I have a hard time believing it is all gone. There is no smell of chlorine and not sure if the neutralizer is removing the cholorine I am adding. Pool is not green at all. So just at a loss and would appreicate some advice.

I thought my CYA was 40 but when I tested I got 20 and pool store got 30, but this is after some water replacement so not sure what it was prior.

Any advice would be helpful since if too high obviously do not want to swim. If the neutralizer is just eating up the chlorine I am putting in I have read it should be dissipated in a few days.

Hello all,

New guy here from S.E. Michigan, first post. Getting ready to hopefully have an operating pool in the next few days or so. Bought and installed a used 12x24 pool. Currently filling with hose. It came with a sand filter, of which I replaced the sand with new pool filter sand. Wondering what chemicals I should initially start with, and how much? I did search the site and couldn't find anything on starting up. I will be buying one of the recommended test kits so I can get help from this site. Thank you all for any advice.

Edit....pool test kit won't be here till next week, being a holiday weekend. Is there a a cheap test from local pool store I can do to get things rolling?

I'm ready to drain & refill (or maybe just fill in) I can't figure out what is happening. I thought it was mustard algae, so I did that version of SLAM, passed all the hurdles, then kept my FC 8-10. Everything was fine, until I woke up one morning and it was 5. Then the mustard spots showed up again. I caught early and it didn't take off like last time, but it's still not quite sparkly and there's still algae eating the chlorine. I'm wondering if it's black algae? Or whatever type trapped in a place I can't reach? Our light screws stripped, so we had to have someone come in last year to repair, and he permanently affixed them - they can be removed but not with any equipment we have. Was our best option at the time since no one really likes to see a light float to the top of the pool while you're swimming. I get they're still safe, but it's also still really unsettling: electricity/water. Our phosphates are crazy high as we never cover the pool which is surrounded by landscaping which sits and decompose through the off-season, plus everything that falls in through out the summer. We've treated with phosphate remover but not made much headway. Knowing that's a fuel for algae, wondering if it makes more sense (time, energy & $$) to just drain, clean & refill? We have a black bottom pool, so it's really hard to tell if maybe there's black algae somewhere. Even during summers when the pool did sparkle, any time I brushed small plums of dust (?) would rise & settle. I feel like there's just so much gunk imbetted in our pebbletec that just needs to be acid washed or however you clean it and then start fresh. I could replace our stripped lights once & for all as well. We also have a raised waterfall with a 3ft deep well. I do brush that when I'm SLAMing, but I just noticed how yellow the rocks behind (hidden by japanese maple) are. Could that be the source? We also have a bunch of black dots on the diving board - maybe that's the problem? They don't seem slimy. A pool toy or suit?

For now, I'm planning to just try to maintain the high FC. Should I continue to let it drop and do it's thing during the daylight and bump up again when it's dark? Or raise now knowing I’ll lose a lot just to sun? Should I do a phosphate treatment to try to cut food source? Or quit and find a new hobby?

I'm attaching a few photos from yesterday to hopefully better explain (plus one from when it’s “normal”) Will try to add a current shortly

FC: 23
CC: 0
TA: 90
pH: 7.5
CH: 300
CYA: 60 (<--had been 40 and after I "finally" cleared the last algae outbreak few weeks ago I slowly started to raise, aiming for 70-80, but have stopped now)
Salt: 3700
Phosphates: over 4000 (yes thousand)

We are wrapping up the build of a new pool and while the kids were out night swimming they were all trying to figure out how to change the colors of the lights. So we call the builder and he sends out his guy. "I see why it won't change colors, you have 500w incandescent lights". Well this was a surprise to us but the builder is insisting that it wasn't discussed nor in the contract. They quoted $1800+ to upgrade them so I am here to see what my options are. We've got the pentair intellitouch controller with pentair "Pentair AM SS 500w" lights (78458100). What options do I have for color changing lights? Can I replace just the bulb in the existing housing or do I need an entire new housing? Do I need a different controller or will they work with the easy touch?
Thanks

I’ve read a lot of the posts here regarding the reasons to run the CYA at about 80ppm if using a SWCG. It seems that a primary reason is because the SWCG doses Cl very slowly. I’ll be installing a unit rated at 3.1 pounds per day of capacity. Doing some math for a 28,000 gallon pool gives me the ability to dose up to 13.3 ppm in a 24 hour period if I had the thing on full blast. I obviously would not do that, but is it still recommended that I increase my CYA from 40ppm where it is now up to 80ppm?
Thanks in advance,

Hey TFP,

I had an automatic water filler installed, and had a different guy run the water line for me a few months ago. He put in 2 manual valves, one right before the pool and one on the other end near the water supply. This is nice because I can seal it off from either end. But, he did not install an anti-siphon valve to prevent water from being sucked from the pool back into our house lines. I'm not clear exactly what is needed...is the attached photo the proper product for this?

cheers!

We bought a house with a pool 2 years and it's been nothing but a headache. Previous owners didn't open it for a few years and allowed the gutter run off to go down into the pool. We had them make it swim able before we bought it and they did but we continue to have issues and i'm just not sure what it is. We have added a new heater, a new variable speed motor, a new multiport valve as the gasket was bad, we had the sand redone end of last year, and we did a salt cell generator the IC40 for our 27k pool. We had the IC30 and it wasn't generating enough or any salt not sure and we had our pool shop swap that out.


TDS: 5000
Salt: 3600
Ph 7.4
Alkalinity: 95
Calcium Hardness: 180
Free chlorine: 1.2
Total chlorine 1.7
CYA: 104
Phosphates: 4000
Metals (specificially copper) .3

We just can not get this pool clear. Oddly when we opened it up earler this year it was perfect really clear, once the season wore on it's been cloudy espeically after i tried to do a phosphate treatment because we couldn't keep chlorine in it. It's been cloudy for almost a month now and it was cloudy for most of last year. It's like a milky haze almost. I can most days see the drain otherwise its always cloudy. We had issues maintaining chlorine levels and i'm not sure if it was the old generator and the new one fixed it or all the chlorine is being used. We have shocked the heck out of it and still super cloudy.

I'm honestly not sure if i should care about the phosphates or not. I hear people say ignore them, and i hear people say that ours are so high we need to treat. I did a metal treatment and that seems to have helped with the staining i'll know more when i get that tested at the pool store.

We run the pump 24x7 at either 2250 or 3150 rpm. I have the 4ppm culator in the basket as well to help with the metals.

Bought house in December, still figuring out all the pool stuff.

One thing that has/had vexed me is this electrical box. Is fed by the circuit panel. I even had a guy out and he couldn't tell me for sure what it was doing. (He was doing a quote for replacing my old stab-lok style panel. As I have been thinking about it this morning, it is entirely possible that the quote guy they sent may or may not be an electrician...)

Anyway, power goes from the circuit panel (one 15 amp breaker and one 20 amp breaker) into this box. There is a momentary switch on the side of the box. When you push the momentary switch, the magnetic coil is energized to close the connection. And it is kept closed by the power/connection itself being made. Stays connected until, for whatever reason, power is cut to the box. From the box, a single cable goes to the exterior of the house, into a not-great junction box outside, then into the timer, and from there the pump and SWG.

I took another, closer look at the insides of the box this morning. I think what it is doing is combining the two 110v breakers to make a 220v circuit to feed the timer and pump. Looking closely at the Romex cable, I am certain it is 12g wires. It is stamped, not printed but it looks like larger than 14g and I am certain I saw 12 on the jacket. I think the pool setup is old enough that the wiring was done before the jackets were color coded to yellow for 12g.

This is all well and good except for two things:
First, there is not yet any GFCI protection. I was originally thinking I had 120v going to the exterior (based on looking at the jacket before investigating deeper today) and was just going to install a GFCI outlet in that junction box. But now I don't think I can do that.

Second, if there is any sort of blink in power, the electromagnetic connection is broken and power is cut off to the pump and SWG. This happened Saturday night (we were driving home and saw the power blink as we approached a stoplight near the house) and I didn't even think about the electromagnetic connection being broken until I went to manually run the cleaner Sunday evening. Thankfully I went to do that, because it may have been several days otherwise.

That isn't necessarily a giant deal, except for if I don't notice it, or maybe it happened while we were on vacation. We're going to be gone Friday to Monday this weekend.

So that got me to thinking about other remedies.

Looking at the label on my pump, it appears it can be wired to operate off of either 110 or 220. I was thinking I could swap the wiring on the motor and run everything off of one 110 circuit breaker and install a GFCI outlet like I'd planned. But it appears the timer motor only runs on 220 (just looked at a pic I snapped a few weeks ago of the inside door of the timer). Blast!

I suppose I could still do the wiring changes and update the timer to one that would work with 110v?

Or, I do see I could get something like this to add GFCI protection.

The timer and the exterior junction box are under my deck and only accessible outside the pool area which makes things like manually turning the pump on and off to vacuum or empty the skimmer basket inconvenient, so I had been thinking of relocating everything to be inside the pool area.

One benefit of switching everything to 110v is then I could use one of the two pool breakers to run a more proper circuit to my garage, which would be super handy because it is also lacking at the moment. I see that there are actually GFCI breakers available for my stab-lok box, so I could either add GFCI there or by an outlet sending power to everything. (Is the breaker any better/safer than an outlet for any reason, there is a significant price difference.)

Are there any real drawbacks to wiring the pump to run on 110v? I do recall asking a friend about 110v vs. 220v on my air compressor and he said that it will consume more power at 110v. True? How much more? I wasn't worried about that with the air compressor, but it does seem like a consideration with the pool pump.


Do my suspicions of what this box is doing (taking two 110v circuits to make one 220v circuit) seem correct?

What are my real options to improve all this (e.g. adding GFCI and not having to worry about power accidentally getting cut and not realizing it) without spending an arm and a leg for a full panel replacement at this time? (I would like to have that done at some point down the road.)

Second pic is just the label on the electromagnetic device.

Greetings all, great site and very helpful since I had my spool built. Looking forward to learning from all y'all.

Sorry but I can’t find where to search because I’m sure this has been answered already.

Which product/brand is everyone’s favorite to increase calcium hardness?

Thanks so much! I’ve learned so much here.

I have a Jandy 2 way 4724 valve that has leaked around valve cover since installation. It’s a new valve that I just installed. I installed a 4717 and 7305 at the same time with no issues. I’ve taken apart checked oring and even replaced oring with a new one with no luck. I’ve lubricated the oring with magic lube also every time. I’ve tried tightening the cover evenly in a sequential pattern with no luck.

There’s no cracks or damage to the sealing surfaces but it still leaks.

Leak is 100% not coming from the stem.

Any ideas? I’ve emailed Jandy support with no response.

Since opening my pool, it has been cloudy. We have had a lot of rain. My testing shows the following (attached). Fixes include lower pH to 7.0-7.2 with acid and then aerate to increase pH to fix high TA; use dry or liquid stabilizer to raise CYA number. Right now my TA is 160 and my CYN is 0. What kind of acid is best to use? How do you aerate? What is better dry or liquid stabilizer? Thanks a bunch for your help!!

Hi,

Had an iaqualink for years, very few issues. Major pool updates were over a year ago so no changes to the equipment recently
But my pool go to guy is AWOL, I've only seen one similar post which suggested I should kill the power and remove the backup battery.
I just want to see if that is the best course of action.

Problem...
I noticed my daily schedule was not running (7am-5pm)
I went into settings (from PC), clicked on the schedule, everything was fine.

I then noticed the time was 10 hours fast
I couldn't get out of schedule settings. I has a pop up prompt saying
PLEASE SAVE CHANGES
even though I hadn't changed anything on the schedule
Whatever I did (even clicking on SAVE, it had no effect)

I closed that browser window and went about my day.

I went back to it today and the pool is online, I can operate the pool through my phone app as usual
However I cannot get into settings, from PC or phone
The waiting for connection just keeps displaying

Any better solution than killing the power and removing the backup battery?

Thanks

As i get further into this self testing I have a question about daily fc loss.
Based on what i read here there may be a daily fc loss on average(key word) of 3FC.
Does that mean I must add that much daily?
How much LC would that be in a 15000 gal pool?
Am i going to need a tank truck of LC?

Hi All,

My sister's pool has long had one of the two main drain covers missing - I hounded her to get it replaced, but she never did.

I found the missing cover in her pool locker. Neither the drain nor the cover looked damaged - she wasn't able to remember why it was open.

Figured would just swim the 5 1/2' depth to replace it ... but I know this isn't going to work without diver weight belts - and, I tried it - just too buoyant . So, how about options for the weights? Figure 10% buoyancy to start, then minus 5 pounds (some reading) = 20-5 = 15 pounds? Was considering a rope belt and slipping in something like a sledgehammer (about 11 pounds) to start. No real chance of drowning since I'm over 6' tall (previously qualified scuba diver).

Have mask and snorkle.

Anyone done something like this?

I just got Pebbletec put in about 7 days ago, my PB and pebble installer said absolutely no salt for 28 days. Well, my PB also has an independent group balance the pool for the first month.

Today, I saw the tech was there and by the time I noticed the bag of salt, it was in his hands and dumping into the pool.

Is this something I really need to be concerned about or forget about it? I did text my PB to let him know and showed the camera of this tech dumping the salt. I just don’t want anything to happen to the plaster or my warranty.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I posted 10 days ago looking for reassurance that I'm on the right track with my algae problem, but despite keeping FC at SLAM level, brushing/vacuuming constantly and cleaning the filters at least once a day it seems like 2 steps forward, 1.5 steps back.

I bought a second set of cartridge filters to help with the constant cleaning, and added skimmer socks to help ease the load. Yesterday I could start to see the bottom of the shallow end, but after a ton of brushing yesterday, and brand new filters running full speed overnight, this morning the pool doesn't look any better than it did a week ago.

1) The filter cartridges seem to be filling up after only ~6 hours, and the skimmer socks even quicker. Is that normal, 2 weeks in, to need to clean the filters 2+ times a day?

2) I haven't done an official OCLT yet but last night the FC was at 12.5, then I added a gallon of 10% liquid chlorine. This morning (after sunrise but before any direct sunlight) the FC was back to 12.5... does that mean there is still live algae somewhere?

3) If there is still hidden algae, where could it be? There are no ladders or anything external in the pool, and I have scrubbed every drain, valve, etc. I'm aware of. I of course still can't see the bottom of the deep end but I'm sure I've gotten 95% of any leaves/detritus down there- nothing comes up when I scoop or brush.

Basically, is this mostly a case of just a ton of dead algae that needs to be continually filtered, or am I missing something? And if it's the former, any reassurance from anyone with a similar experience on how much longer it might be?

Thank for everyone's help.

What do you all think about the Skim-Around, has anyone used it?

Hi everyone, so I have been using the app for Android for maintaining my 17500 gallon, SWG, plaster inground pool. pH calculation on app is incorrect. I tested my water today and pH was 8.3. The app says to just add 3.7 ounces of muriatic acid. Leslies testing tells me to add 57 ounces, and the old TFP calculator tells me to add 38. I am inclined to believe the old calculator. I am a registered user and did log in to the app - just to be clear.
Anyone knows what is going on with the app? I wonder if I am doing something wrong... Thanks in advance!

Marcos (Arlington, TX)

I have noticed these "dusty" spots at the bottom of the pool. When I brush, it looks like a poof of dust. Does it look like MA (might have to zoom the photo). I have never noticed it on the walls or anything, just the bottom ?

Thanks

Hello my name's Greg from Las Vegas.

I noticed yesterday a few bubbles were coming out of jets. I turned off pump and cleaned skimmer and pump basket. Once I did that, water slowly started to stop flowing into pump. Any ideas on fixes? I just had the filter cleaned earlier this week. Was thinking of taking apart and putting the filter back together.

~10000g pool
DE filter
Fairly new construction. Completed in March

So did my first test, hopefully entered all the data into the PoolMath app and shared it here somehow, i hope
Pool has been maintained with tablets( i know bad idea, but i have 30 pounds of the stuff)
I will list the numbers here as am unsure about the sharing thing.

FC 2.5
pH 8.2
TA 200
CH 450
CYA 100

Where do i start?

So the stairs I have are screwed together and the top and middle pieces were breaking apart at the screws. I got these galvanized "plates" that I was told wouldn't rust and SS screws, but looks like it is rusting due to SWCG.
I know we worry about the metal walls of the pool rusting out, but should I worry about this?
Thank you