Hello TFP,

I replaced my line just a month ago, and having issues with high water table. I have a dry well under the pool the super pump runs dry until I prime it. Need a suggestion on what to do if the liner is filling up with air or water. Do I install drain systems around the yard to decrease water penetration. Since I have a clay area in NJ. Liner bubble when above water levels in shallow end off the pool after rain storm.

I have a choice between the two filters below which I will be using for my 15,000 gallon in ground plaster pool. Which of the two filters (in bold below) would folks on this site recommend? I have heard DE filters water better than a cartridge filter, but the DE is a tad more work when cleaning the grid.

Lastly, I believe the Hayward DE7220 may not be one’s 1st choice because of its size being that my pool is only 15K gallons and I could get away with a smaller filter, but it’s important to note that regardless of which one I choose, I paying pennies on the dollar for the filter I decide to go with.

Jandy Cartridge Filter Cl Series 580 SF CL580 MSRP $2172.00 or Hayward DE7220 MSRP $1,200.00.

I have a Century B128 motor for my pool. I just noticed the other day it's making a strange noise but working fine. It's almost a rattling noise, but there isn't anything loose on it. I thought for sure something was stuck in the impeller, but I cleaned that out and it's still making the noise. Here is a video with the noise - Login to view embedded media
Any idea what is causing that? When I took the motor out to clean the impeller, there was a bunch of grease on my hand. I'm not sure where that came from. Do I need to grease something?

Thanks.

I suspect I have had a leak in both of my skimmers for some time now. I rent this house with no pool help from landlord , so I am learning on the fly.
Yesterday, I removed the face plate from the shallow end skimmer. The gasket behind the face plate literally came off in pieces. Now, behind that gasket, of course,
is the pool liner. Here comes my question. On the back side of the pool liner is what looks like may have been a gasket, I am not sure. I am having to carefully scrape it off
in pieces. It looks like deteriorated cardboard. Behind that, it looks like a metal frame with a panhead screw in the middle at the top. It is right next to the skimmer throat face. It appears
to be heavily rusted and I am not sure if I can even remove it without breaking something. Any ideas on what I am looking at would certainly be appreciated.
Thanks.

Hi all

I am considering getting a pool but working out the finances and need some help..

I started some construction on the back yard.. pouring concrete soon, but now that we are considering a pool.. would I be damaging my new concrete..? They would have to go through the new area to get to where the excavation would be. I’m leaving 4 feet to get to the electric and water is open.

New construction home.

Thank you

Fighting some algae, green water, and cloudy water.

I didn't take my PH or CYA before starting a SLAM but I think I'm fighting a losing battle.

FC: 16
ph: 7.4 (if it's reliable)
Cya: over 100 (test kit only goes to 100)

With a CYA above 100 is it even worth trying to battle algae outbreak? Can I get FC high enough to even begin sanitizing the water?

Hello,

We recently had a fiber glass pool installed (3-weeks ago) and I’m noticing a very small amount of bubbles coming out of the jets. Is this normal? They are very small you just see some at the surface above the jets.

Thanks

I under stand I cannot run the heater to help with freezing issues, or to maintain the pool below 68. But we have a spa which can be isolated and heated separately from the pool. I expected to be able to put it in spa mode and heat the spa to some really warm temp and maintain it there for some hours, then return to normal pool mode with the heater off. With this scenario, the heater would light up with cold water at first, then stay lit until the water is say 90 degrees, which won't take long. Then maintain at 90 for awhile, then shut off. Do you think this is safe, or a problem? BTW it's a Jandy 400k BTU gas heater.

Hello,
I cleaned my saltwater (3 years old) cell at the beginning of summer and it has been working fine till last week. I keep getting error 120-121 after a few minutes of operating the pool pump. Reading thru the forum, 120-121 error indicates a low voltage to the salt cell and I know the salt cell looked clean when I washed and soaked it diluted Muratic acid for 20-30 min and the balck 3 prong Wire to the cell is in good shape. I cleaned the 3 terminals with emory cloth to clean inside each of the 3 holes in the black wire to make sure it was not corroded and took off the small round gray salt sensor from the bottom of salt cell and cleaned it's terminals and put it back.

With the wires connected and pump running and error 120-121 , I measure the voltage by placing the probes between the middle and the left terminals AND then middle and right terminals on the salt cell . I keep getting around 42-43 DC volt. My Salt water PPM on the remote and on the jandy display is 3200-3300PPM

Does that sound about right? I am not sure what to look for or how to check the volatge inside the jandy control box, appreciate any info!
Thanks!

Moved from Here


This was super informative. I just signed a contract with the local pool company and I was looking at alternatives to help clean the pool an keep a lower level of chlorine. My daughter has eczema that is likely brought on by here T1D. The eczema is not severe but the hope is to minimize her dry skin with frequent use in the coming summer. One question I have is by adding an Salt water generator is this the first step in converting to a salt water pool? My pool company discouraged the Salt water pool as it is harder on the auto cover, the pool decking and components in general.

I drew a plan for our pool/spa combo. I have received quotes from several PB's. The quotes are all over the place $38K spread. I have some questions about costs to build. I am trying to get my head around the cost to add a spa. There is some additional shotcrete, steel, plumbing and labor. How can it add up to 50% to the cost of just a pool. I understand Heater and Larger pump but still the math does not add up. I'm I missing something?

EDIT [Source Code]:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k0feg94ucntjhgi/AACU6vqU088z4NSxl2gSLIFga?dl=0

TLDR: I've been thinking about the relationship between GPM and solar heat delivered to the pool and believe it to be more nuanced than the efficiency chart we've all seen. I put together a little variable speed solar controller using nodejsPC and python to regulate the pump depending on the solar temperature, with the goal of reducing cost with no lost efficiency when solar is heating the water less but while maximizing actual heat transfer when there's more heat on the roof. The first photo is the temperature of the solar return pipe and water temp with about 27-28 GPM (via flowvis) and the second is the temperature at around 45-46 GPM, with the roof sensor around 125 degrees:



Once we get into summer, this difference will be much more drastic with temperatures over 140.

The primary reason I did this is because my board's solar sensor terminals got damaged during Ian, so I had to change the solar valve to a regular actuator and just run the pump around 35GPM with solar on a 10am-sunset schedule. This became a problem when the solar started to get to 91, 92, and I realized I really NEEDED a way to regulate it. I also didn't like that I had solar on during cloudy/rainy times. The basic functionality was relatively easy to script in python thanks to the incredible work done by @tagyoureit and @rstrouse helping me here and on github. However, I thought it would be interesting to see how it would behave with a variable speed. So far, it's only 4 stepped speeds because there doesn't seem to yet be a way to change speed through the API and you only get 8 pump circuits - but it does the job fine enough until I can just send GPM directly through.

I've convinced myself it's both somewhat cheaper to run and provides more effective heating because:

1. Even before the heat transfer itself is considered, the hotter the water is heated, the closer the water temperature is to the temperature of the heat source, reducing the efficiency of the actual heating going on in the pipes. Easy way for me to think about this was if I left the water in the panels on the roof for 30 minutes, as they approach their maximum temperature, let's say 150 degrees, the rate at which temperature increases goes down as it settles closer and closer to the maximum temperature as its asymptote.
2. When the water is moving through the pipes off the roof and under ground, it is losing heat to the much relatively cooler environment. This effect is increased with a greater temperature differential between the heated water and the air or ground it moves through.
3. When the temperature between the return water is already so much closer to the air/ground temp but still far from the solar temp, I don't see any way you're losing much heat by running it far slower to save money.

I have the script currently logging each time it turns on/off and changes speed from 25, to 35, to 45, to 55, and have mapped the true cost to run the pump at each RPM with my multimeter, so I'm going to have the solar controller rotate every other day between variable and fixed solar, allowing me to estimate the cost and efficiency of each method for a while. Maybe it will be marginal - but it's interesting to me anyway.

Last summer season I had an independent pool guy maintain the pool, he did a great job, water stayed clear, didn't need much in the way of chemicals. I watched him closely and learned a lot from asking questions. I've spent a lot of time reading these forums so I have an idea of what to do this year. I had him open the pool and get it started, the water is clear and looks good. This forum has already saved me time and money by not getting "poolstored".

It's a vinyl liner pool, rectangular, shallow and deep ends, estimate about 20k gallons. I'm chlorinating with trichlor tablets, I know this isn't ideal but it will do for now. Last year the pool guy used a Taylor test kit in the blue case and said things were pretty good most weeks. The plumbing is relatively simple compared to some pools on this forum...one variable speed pump, two skimmers, one set of two drains on the bottom, two returns in the shallow end.

I don't have any maintenance equipment so I've ordered a vacuum head, pole, vacuum hose, brush, net, and a vacuum plate to connect to one of the skimmers. I ordered a TF test kit so I can see what's going on with the water.

Tasks completed Summer 2022:
Removed rusted out gas heater, plumbing was bypassed before I moved in.
Set schedule on variable speed pump instead of being controlled by time clock.
Remove Polaris booster pump and connect plumbing to bypass. Cleaner did not come with the house. I connected and tried the booster pump, it ran for 30 seconds before making a dreadful noise and started smoking. I put an eyeball return in the cleaner return for now.
Removed broken check valve from return path, found it was severely restricting flow and causing high pressure in the sand filter and the multiport was leaking from the sight glass and out the waste port.
Installed new sand filter with multiport, new sand. The returns flow a lot better after removing the check valve and replacing the filter.

To do Summer 2023:
Install GFCI breaker for pool pump
Get the light working - new bulb and gasket, verify light is GFCI protected
Get a salt system

I'm pretty new to pools, how am I doing so far?

Don't want to ruin the plates by using muriatic acid all the time.. Last one only lasted two years (warranty replaced it).

I can get the plates clean on the bottom by running a hose over it, but the calcium build up in the top window is hard to get to. Any ideas on how to clean this without soaking in muriatic acid?

Is there a product available to seal a natural waterfall ( rock and concrete) I want to seal it on the face of the waterfall to prevent water from soaking through the concrete.

I'm new to the forum. I had to install a new variable speed pump with all new plumbing. Since it's been finished my MS-10 salt controller only reads "No Flow". I had to rebuild the contoller T valve and I'm thinking the sensors are not deep enough in the T valve to get a good water reading. Can the wire that passes through the Hex Nut on the top of the valve be moved without damaging anything? Does anyone have any experience with this problem?

I have a 3 years old gunnite pool. Immediately after it was done we noticed it was discolored in areas. Photo #1. We have been speaking with the pool company who installed and the plaster company. They are all blaming the chemicals in the pool. The company who is doing the chemicals says the plaster is the issue. We are currently looking to sue because it keep getting worse. Picture 2. We are told an acid wash won’t help at this point. Has anyone experienced this?

Hi All - New to the forum, not to pools but def need some help/reassurance.

Back Story

Just Closed on a house and inherited a not so ideal situation with the pool.

Went to Leslie’s to buy a Taylor test kit and took along a sample with me for a free test (I know, I know).

CYA levels reported by Leslie’s at 140 ppm but FAC was in range for 140 CYA. Came home and drained about 40% to do a dilution and get CYA in the 80 range (still hot in Houston so was ok keeping it a bit higher). About 3/4 through the fill I walked out to see that the pool had started to turn green. Spidey senses went off telling me something wasn’t right so I tested myself and got the following

FAC - 10
PH -7.2
TA -100
CYA - 200 (had to use the dilution method to get a readable test)

After getting the real CYA reading it all
Made sense….

So I just finished another 40% dillution, tested CYA and am getting about 100 ppm. Went ahead And brought FAC up to slam levels. I really don’t want to do another dilution due to cost so, Plan is to ride this slam out, and hope CYA levels drop a bit in the next few months (pool gets full sun and it’s hot in Houston). If I need to dilute again in a few months I can - after my wife forgets about this water bill .

What do y’all think! Is the plan a good one? Should I be doing anything different?

Hi y’all,
New here, this place is filled with so much amazing information. So nice to have a place with real pool people sharing information and methods.

Relatively new pool owner.
Third summer. Still learning, but do we ever stop learning?!

As the screen name indicates I’ve been a “bad pool mom” … thought I was doing everything right and apparently I’ve had it all wrong . Working towards changing that now

Sorry for the lengthy post…

So we had some trouble getting our pool clear last year but after some struggle we got to a level that was swimmable, but not as clear as I would have liked. We ended up having our pump completely serviced changing out seal, o-rings, cleaning impeller, etc. Seemed to be running better at close but never totally cleared and it was late in the season and we had to close it up cloudy. Fast forward to 2023. We opened our pool later than usual in June. We had issues almost right off the bat. One of the pipes were leaking and ended up completely letting go one night. (The pipe that goes from the pump to the filter). The pump ran dry for several hours. We reconnected the pipe and started it back up, it seemed to be running okay. I was able to get my pool to turn blue but after several weeks of constant slamming, it would not clear. Then we started having issues with low pressure. We started getting a lot of air in the pump basket. Assuming we burned out our pump because it ran dry, we had the pump serviced again, all new parts again, cleaned the impeller, etc. Reconnected everything and started it up yesterday. At this point my pool is green and filthy as it sat stagnant while we waited for the pump to be repaired. There has been some improvement but there is still air in the pump basket. Even more so if I turn off the bottom drain and just pull from the skimmer. I shocked it with 6lb of cal-hypo last night (it’s all I had). The pool is still terribly green. I plan to purchase liquid shock this afternoon and continue the slamming process. I’m worried that there’s issues with the pipes underground since there’s still air in the system and we’ve ruled out the pump. Or maybe it’s the filter? There was one time that we started backwashing without opening the outtake valve (maybe 15-30 seconds max before we realized our mistake) maybe we cracked something in the filter? I’m so beyond frustrated with this old pool. I used to have it sparkling all summer but we haven’t been able to enjoy it for around 2-3 years. It’s been nothing but problem after problem. I’m seriously considering draining the whole thing and having it redone, new everything.

Hi, my name is Beck,, I'm new to the forum and would be so grateful for any advice!
This summer I purchased a 20ft Intex above ground pool for my son. This is my first and I didn't do enough research beforehand and regretting it daily...
For the winter (we live near the NC coast with mild winters) I read it would be best to keep it full and add certain chemicals to keep it from getting ruined.
I thought I would have time to winterize it but that never happened so instead I removed the filter and hoses and drained half of the pool. I now realize this may have been a very bad move...
Even though I skim it as often as I can, I was never able to get the cover on so it's now filled with leaves, acorns and dead bugs...
Can someone please tell me what I should do now? I am not able to break down the pool and put it back up for next summer but would really like to salvage it if possible.
Should I put the cover on now and hope for the best or leave it off and keep on skimming?
Again, thank you for any help you can give!
Sincerely!! Beck

My rock waterfall is leaking in the back, so I thought it might be time to resurface it while also repairing the leak. I bought Pond and Stone insulating foam for the leak, but I have no idea what was used to cover the rocks (or even if the rocks are supposed to be completely covered versus just in the crevices between)

In the attached picture, there is a blacker "mortar" between the rocks. I assume it used to completely cover the rocks, but maybe it's supposed to just be in the cracks?

I inherited the pool, so I don't know what it looked like new.

Any thoughts/suggestions? Does it need resurfacing or is that not a thing? Is the black stuff just insulation foam?

Hey folks,

I bought this pump (link) 2 years ago and have been running it in low speed. Recently, it started doing what's in this video on startup (hums for a few seconds and then nothing):

Login to view embedded media
I replaced the capacitor, but it's still doing the same thing. Works fine in high speed mode.

The tech I called out just said it's "burned out" and told me to just start using high speed mode instead, but high speed seems less efficient (and expensive).

Any chance it's fixable?

The tech also recommended running it in high speed for 8+ hours per day, since it's 100+ this summer but my electricity bill was $640 after doing that I might as well buy a new pump for that!

Any thoughts/recommendations appreciated.

Ok, bringing up an old post here, but I decided that year to get a cover and water bags again so I closed it down like normal. That cover did not last long though. What is the best water bag cover to buy that will last several seasons? I don't mind the water bag style. I also have a mesh cover to go over the top for leaves and what not. Thanks

I have a 20K gallon salt water pool in Tampa, FL that is about 4.5 years old (original PLC1400). Recently I noticed some iron staining in the pool, so I brought FC down to 0.0ppm, pH down to 7.2ish and on 8/26/2023 added about 3lbs of ascorbic acid and added 2 quarts of Jack's Purple Magic. The pool did get a little cloudy and smelled a little 'off', but no algae growth. I let that sit for around 48 hours, backwashed DE filter and then turned my salt cell back to 90% running 9hrs a day (each year it seems I have had to ramp up these runtime percentages, especially in summers months). Also added some CYA to bring me to ~65ppm. CC was pretty high initially, (can't remember exactly but I think 3-4ppm, when the highest I've ever had before is 0.5ppm) and FC was low at 0.5ppm. More than 2 weeks later I am still only at 0.5ppm FC and 0.5ppm CC, so yesterday I took the salt cell off and did an acid wash. There was a little scaling in there, so I was hopeful that would make things right.

Now 24hours later (running the pump and cell overnight) I have 0.5ppm FC and 0.0ppm CC in my pool. My salt cell says it is supposed to put out 1.25lbs (20oz) per 24 hours at 100%. If I ran for 24 hours at 90% that should have been 18oz and in a 20K gallon pool +6.75ppm chlorine - which I am obviously not seeing.

I did test water coming directly out of the jet and that came in at 2.0ppm FC, so that tells me the generator is making some chlorine, but not sure if that is a significant enough amount?

Do you think the ascorbic acid and/or any left over organics are still eating up my chlorine (especially if my salt cell is on its last leg)?

I saw online you could hookup a dummy salt cell in your plumbing so you could look for bubbles in your actual unit while it is plugged in, but disconnected from the plumbing. I don't have access to any dummy unit so I can't do this, but is there anything I should try testing with my multimeter?

I should say my pool is crystal clear with no algae, so other than the testing be off - there is no observable problem...

wgipe said:

I installed an automated valve, and when heat is called for, the IntelliCenter flips the valve and ramps up the pump. When the heater is done, it reverses course. Works like a champ. I do wish there was a way to delay the valve on the off cycle, but that doesn’t exist today from my understanding.

Click to expand...

Sooo I was looking into this at some point in the past for a different reason. I didn't want automated valves changing positions at the same time. I wanted one delayed by about 1min and the other not delayed. Never went through with making the modification though.

I can't remember the specifics, but you could use a "Delay on make" timer (~$15-20) to set it so the when the External bypass automated valve gets sent the request (24 voltage/power) to "open" the valve (ie to bypass the heater after the call for heat has stopped), the timer would delay the bypass for some set duration of time so the heater can cool down. I believe I took apart my Jandy automated valve mechanism, and you would have to wire the timer into to the "opening" circuit path by inlining it. That had to be done inside the automated box to isolate the "opening" circuitry. You probably wouldn't want to completely inline the timer on the external wire feeding the automation box because then it would delay both the opening AND closing of the valve. Anyways it seemed totally doable, but for me it wasn't crucial and not worth drilling holes in the automated valve cover to externally mount the timer, weather proof it, and ultimately incorporate one more thing that could potentially fail in the future. Though I would love to see someone else try it first and you seem like the right guy to prove it out!

note: the original quote was taken from:

Hi guys.
The liner in my inground pool is detaching near one of the skimmers and I'm wondering what I can do about it. Obviously, I need to drain the water out so it can move. It looks like the white edge of the liner is supposed to slip into a notch of the white piece behind it. Is that true? If that's what I need to do, I'm thinking of dribbling some sand into the opening to raise the bottom a little bit right there in the belief that if the bottom were at the right level, this wouldn't have happened.
The upper wide white piece is set into the concrete and doesn't look like it is removable.

Anyone know how these things work? Thanks in advance.

I bought a house with an 30 year old pool and it has stains in the gunite. The chemicals are all in range. I use liquid chlorine and muriatic acid. I've tried scrubbing with the pool brush. Is there any way to get rid of the stains?

Hi,

I just had a new Jandy 2.7HP VSP ePump installed to replace my single speed beast. The pressure gauge used to read 10psi and it shows that when priming and with the heater on but at 1750 rpm's it reads zero. Even at 2200 it's at zero. Is that normal and if so should I use any movement as a sign to clean the filters? Maybe there is a more sensitive guage I can buy?

Also, does 1750 seem too high? I keep getting a no flow on the SWG any lower and I was was wondering if there were any tricks to get the flow recognized at a lower speed.

Thanks

I am considering leaving the pool up this year over winter. I have read a number of threads and got a grasp of the situation from a chemistry point of view but some questions remain re freezing.

I plan to drain the pool to below the lowest inlet/outlet. At each inlet and outlet I have shut off valves installed, should I remove the shut off valves from the pool or is leaving them "open" with the water drained below them sufficient? Here in the UK, some days of below freezing temperature are likely. Removing them would mean exposing an open hole I cut when installing them.

I have a hayward skimmer installed and im assuming I can leave that in place as long as the water is drained below it?

Thanks.