ferretbone said:

God that is the truth. I have put on many intelliflows and the newer ones are not lasting as long, the drives, the screens, or the motors just go out at random. Thats a darn shame because its my favorite VS.

Click to expand...

I have 8+ years on an intelliflo that as others have described, developed small leaks around the housing and is making bearing screaming-for-help type noises- I’ve ordered the seal kit but is there anything I can do to help repair damaged bearings (assuming I didn’t catch it in time to prevent bearing damage)?

Thanks in advance for any info.

Regards
Rob

Moved from here.

I am a new member, my name is Leslie. Have a new / plaster pool 28x15. Live in Houston Texas
Not new to pools but this one has been a real challenge. This has so far been blistering hot 116 degrees day after day. I look forward to learning .

Hi everyone, I am having an issue with my salt cell keeping up with chlorine production. Just as some backstory, the cell/pool is two years old and I almost never set it higher than 30% in the hottest of months and it was great. Earlier this year I noticed some cloudy water, etc. and finally figured out it that was not detecting flow so I cleaned the sensor, etc. and it seems to have been fine, flow wise, for over a week now. To help combat the lower FC, I upped the SWC to 45%, way over what I normally do but I just wanted to get it back to normal/high levels to make myself feel better. This is also after shocking, etc. Water wise I am good, I put my numbers below but what I am finding is even with the high %, I am not "gain" on the FC but still dropping slowly over time. This time last week I was at 13 FC, now I am at 6, even with the high % set. I took off the cell and checked for build up and it has some, but very minimal I think. A little calcium on a few fins, that is about it. I am currently soaking it in 5% vinegar for the next few hours. The one end of the SWC does smell like chlorine though. I also noticed my salt is somehow hovering around 2900-3000 which I will add more salt today...maybe that is it, I just thought I would run into issues closer to 2800 and below. Any ideas? Is this salt cell dying already? It may still be under warranty (hopefully). Thanks! Numbers below:

FC 6
pH 7.6
TA 80
CH 375
CYA 75
Salt 2900/3000 (within 14/15 drops)

I opened my pool last week and used liquid shock... started getting blue but the turned green again over night... shocked it hard again....Now I have super high chlorine levels and still green water..(I can clearly see to the bottom) I have low pH and alkaline as well as cyuratic levels... will adding the cyuratic powder finally get the water turning blue? Never had this problem before!!!

I just replaced this valve, it is brand new. The valve functions smoothly and seems to function normally in every position except backwash, where there is just a trickle that comes through the waste port. The pool is really dirty so I can't say for certain whether the "filtered" water is clear or dirty. But, the flow through the unit seems good and and there do not seem to be any vacuum or air leaks in the plumbing. A few days ago I opened the sand filter and rinsed it out. The water in the filter looked pretty lousy but a lot of Crud came out and although it wasn't running completely clear, it was substantially better when I put everything back together. The only thing I can think of remaining is the lateral assembly either being damaged or clogged. Before I take everything apart again to inspect, is there anything else I should be checking or am I on the right track with the lateral assembly issue?

I just purchased a house in Florida with a small gunite/pebbletec pool (gulf coast near tampa). My guess is it's only about 8k gallons. I live in Houston and have a ~30k gallon gunite/pebbletec pool that I've maintained (with the help of TFP!) for 25 years. As I won't be at the new house much for the next few months while we close things out in TX, I hired a pool guy and he supposedly has been servicing the pool. I got to the house yesterday for the first time and there is a massive algae bloom with very tough green algae. I've been scrubbing with a wire brush and it's barely coming away. I have not seen algae like this in TX. Even when my aging plaster started pitting, the algae embedded in the pits was very small and localized. I bought a small Taylor 2-way kit and the chlorine was 1-2 with

The biggest question is, would this tough green algae really bloom in 4 days? I have never seen it grow that fast in TX. The pool guy, of course, blamed it on the weather and now wants to show up twice a week for double the $$$. Should I fire him and find somebody else?

I am leaving on Friday for several weeks again, so I'm at the mercy of relying on somebody until I get here full time.

Photo before and after much brushing.

Hi, we need to pick our liner this week and I am torn between Blue Mosaic, Grey Mosaic and Grey Stardust. Does anyone have Blue Mosaic photos to share? Thanks!

Is there anything that would be consuming CYA? When I opened the pool this year, tests were showing very little CYA. I figured it had just been consumed/degraded over winter. I added 14lbs of dry stabilizer, which should have increased my CYA to 42. I have been struggling keeping my chlorine levels up, which I'm assuming is related to my CYA levels. When I tested CYA this morning it basically looked like it was at 0 again (water in the tube was pretty clear even when completely full). I'm planning on adding 10 lbs, and I'll see where that gets me. Is there anything that could be causing this?

Last Levels:
FC: 2
CC: 0
PH: 7.6
CYA: 0 (10 maybe??)
TA: 130
CH: 375
Temp: 88

Hey guys, I'm new to the site and my pool was built in February of this year. I have a 20,000-gallon saltwater pool with Pentair equipment which includes the IC40 chlorinator. The Chlorinator is running at 80% 16 hours a day running pump at 2100. The pool has a connected spa with run off that runs directly in the pool. I took a sample of my water to Leslie and they said everything is balanced correctly. The CYA, Total Hardness, Ph, free chlorine and phosperate is all balanced correctly. But I have to add liquid chlorine in my pool almost daily. My pool has direct sunlight at least half of the day with 100 degrees temperature living in Houston, Tx. No trees. The two-story house blocks the sun during the evenings. Also, my ph keeps rising and have to pour muriatic acid every 3 days to keep it below 7.8. A couple of weeks ago, I poured boric acid (50 stabilizer) to buffer my ph a little. but that seems to not work at the moment. I understand my graphite pool is still curing and maybe releasing ph into the water. I hope the ph will eventually slowdown from me pouring muriatic acid every 2 or 3 days. I have a Sutro pool monitor to check my chemistry plus the stirps. My ph and low chlorine needs to be addressed. Please, help me guys. Thanks...

Hi All! And, thank you in advance for any advice that you might send my way.
I keep getting the same repeated alarm notification from Hayward, but my pool seems to be working just fine!
Alarm ”MSP_DEV-COMM_LOSS, Comm Loss Device:a0-41-07-49-81 HUA:Wiring HU” is cleared for “ Chevaillier”
My question is, is this something I can ignore? Or, do we have a problem?
Does anyone have any insight to this? Please advise! Thanks!

JJ_Tex said:

If you are comparing tablets, make sure you have accurate prices as those have also gone up along with seemingly everything else pool related (and not pool related too).

Also keep in mind that if you just use pucks, you will have to drain and refill every few years to keep the CYA from building up, so add that cost into the equation.

Without doing the math, I would believe the numbers would be similar but the convenience factor of the SWCG trumps any minor cost savings. I also like being able to whip out my phone and "add more chlorine" from anywhere in the world.

Click to expand...

Hey there, we're in Prosper as well and thinking of going saltwater. Any local weather issues, like long HOT summers, that would influence type of SWGC to buy? Or any other things I need to think about? Thanks for any help or feedback.

Moved from here.

First post. We inherited the pool last Fall and are facing high CYA levels (110). They were even higher but we keep adding water, which seems, ridiculous as a lmg run solution.

So we're thinking of going saltwater and if we went DIY we're assuming the SWGC would be placed where the chlorine tabs cylinder is, right? See picture.

Also, thinking of going with the CircuPool rj+ 60. Any feedback is appreciated

Owned my home for 4 years with local pool maintenance company taking care of weekly service.
I took over June 1st after reading articles and threads on the TFP site for over 1 month.
I am confident and please with my service.

This site is awesome!
Thank you all.

My timer(1998) only runs the SWG. I am no longer trusting it because of several glitches. In replacing it, I have heard the mechanical timers are still more reliable than the digital ones! And I see they have dropped in price, a lot! Amazon, from $150, now $70. Stay mech?
Or even better alternatives now?

I know this is a longshot but here goes.

I am needing the rope reels for a CoverStar/SwimWise automatic pool cover. I reached out to CoverStar Central since they have always come through for me in the past but apparently I have what they are describing as an obsolete mechanism.

My reels have the "ears" on one side for the drive dog to engage to turn the reels. The newer models have s shaft that goes through the center of the reels with the drive mechanism attached to the shaft. Below is a pick of the reels I need.



If anyone has a set laying around or has an old unworking cover that can be scavenged for parts, let me know.

Have a great afternoon!

Tank

Bumping this thread. Pump turned on and primed this morning - then runs for less than 30 seconds and shuts down.

OmniLogic. Phone shows alert “FlowSensor: No water flow FlowSensor”

We have a salt system, BUT it is running on just chlorine. We have it running like this for months now. Nothing has changed other than it was rather windy here yesterday. I clean the pump baskets.

Moved from here.

Hey guys, I’m a new pool owner and I have an issue with the pump and/ or sand filter. When I turn the pump off, it sounds like the filter drains and there is a slight hiss coming from around the valve. I have noticed that when I bleed the air out of the filter all the noise stops. However, after a few minutes the pump will lose its prime. I’ve removed all the plumbing and retapped with new Teflon and made sure (from what I can see) there are no leaks. There is a check valve located between the pool skimmer and pump basket, no other valves in the setup.

we are leaving for a few weeks soon and I won’t be able to put this on a timer when we are away so if anyone could help that would be amazing!

thanks,

Mike

All the sudden 5 days ago I got this message on my Pentair-Home app, "communication error has been detected between your IntelliConnect and your intelliFlo. This may be because:
1) The communication cable is not installed properly per instruction manual. Ensure that the green and yellow communication wires in the low voltage side of the IntelliConnect control panel are not damaged and are properly connected.
2)The IntelliFlo does not have power
I checked all cables, and everything seems to be good (no changes from a few days ago). I am not sure why all the sudden this happened. My chlorine output is at "0" and cannot change it from the app or the equipment. when i try to increase from the ichlor-30 system manually, nothing happens when I press the "more" button.
I have been adding liquid chlorine so far and I scheduled a service person to come look at this, but any insight? has anyone have this happened?

UPDATE: I got it to work in the app!! apparently, it was disconnected... I feel so happy that it was that but at the same time so silly to not realized it for so long! now the only issue is that can only change the chlorine output from the app and not from the system itself. is this normal?


Thanks in advance.

We just switched our pool to saltwater. I got my cya to 60 as recommended. My water is crystal clear. Fc is 5 and ph and alkalinity are fine. I really think I have mustard Algae. I have dirt in crevices every morning. I live by new construction with lots of dirt always in air but I still Think this is algae.
My salt water chlorinator says that it has a super coordination mode,
will this slam my pool.?
If I have to slam it can I use The cal hypo shock granuals or will this raise my CYA level...I don't want to get it any higher.

Just finished pool reno 1 1/2 weeks ago. I am noticing a few issues and am seeking advice before I confront PB. Can they be fixed.



Blotches, some pretty serious looking



Quartz finish halfway up all 1st level tile grout joints. Some top tiles have splattering.

After telling PB that some marker tiles were set very low and cement was filling alot of the grout joints. He told me not to worry. Well one spot I can see cement in grout joints and lower tiles they just half covered with quartz plaster to compensate.



Two half dime sized white spots and cracked cement between Precast concrete coping

Hey everyone,

I recently bought a new home that has an older pool and am trying to figure out how the plumbing is setup so I can open and close the pool safely. The attached photo is of the skimmer underneath the basket. there are two pipes, one to the pump and filter, the other seems to be to the main drain at the bottom of the pool. When the skimmer basket is full of debris the main drain seems to be used to pull water through the system as i see a build up of leaves and debris suctioned onto the main drain's cover. At the pool pad there is only one pipe connected to the pump coming from the pool, there is no valve or shutoff to change where the pump pulls water from.

The questions I have are:
How to winterize this pipe properly, can it be blown out?
Is it ok to use pool anti-freeze to protect the pipe if i can't blow it out?
How does it pull water to the pump if the basket is full of debris preventing water flow?

Thanks in advance for the help, let me know if any additional pictures are needed.

Past couple of years I had subscribed to the pool math app so I could keep long term tabs on pool's history. I've discontinued my subscription since I rarely need to look back in depth. The TFP method has made my pool surprisingly stable. I'm guessing that since I won't be able to keep more than the last log now and my app still has it's history, I need to delete the history so I can record the latest log? It's not allowing me to record anything without renewing my subscription right now and don't see an option to delete the history without deleting the whole pool. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Hey everyone!

First time poster here after lurking for a few days. We installed an 11,000 gallon fiberglass pool with a Heyward saltwater system 3 years ago. I do have a local pool company do the annual closing and reopening of the pool and generally the pool is in good shape for the entire summer here in Charlotte, NC.

I do take a water sample to Leslie's every 2 weeks or so just to get them to test the pool chemistry. I know this is not the preferred method around here and I am very aware of the fact they are in the business of selling products, but it was simply easier for the year or two of owning the pool and I have not really had many issues thankfully. I do have a Taylor K-2005 test kit at home and I do use it to validate pH, total chlorine, etc. so I am not totally unfamiliar with taking readings myself.

I took a sample in on June 1 and had pretty high phosphates, so later that day I added No-Phos and followed all the instructions. I even disassembled the filters and cleaned them after 3 days so they were nice and clean again. The problem I'm having is I noticed that over the last week, during which we used the pool quite a bit, the water has become cloudier. Nothing crazy, but just slightly milky and I had my kids complaining that their eyes were burning just a bit. I also noticed that my SWG was showing my instant salt at around 3700ppm at my normal setting, which seemed crazy high, so I backed it off 10% and now it's reading around 3200ppm steady. I took another sample today to Leslie's and got the following:

Free Chlorine: 1.16
Total Chlorine: 1.41
pH: 7.5
Total Alkilinity: 74
Calcium Hardness: 160
Cyanuric Acid: 17
Phosphates: 0

I did use my Taylor kit and got the same readings for Chlorine and pH, so I had no reason not to trust the Leslie reading today. I also know that I had yet to add any CYA to the pool this year, so today I came home and added liquid conditioner. The pool is currently circulating and on Friday I will clean the filters again. I run the pool robot daily and brush/sweep and clean the filter, but I am still seeing this very slight milky hue to my water.

My questions are two fold here as I'm a newbie and really want to learn to do this on my own:
1) what is the general order of operations for adjusting pool chemistry and what should i be doing next?
2) any explanation on my water is not crystal clear like normal? i had zero issues with cloudiness 3 weeks ago.

Thanks in advance everyone.

im new to this site. got directed here while "googling" a question. ive had my saltwater pool for 16 yrs now with absolutely no problems and water is always nice and clear. i did change liner 3 yrs ago. when i go and have my water tested it always tests good. during my last test i was told i will need to add 25 lbs of calcium before august. ive researched calcium and seems it drops free chlorine to zip, some folks say it clouds their water or doesnt dissolve. somewhere on this site i saw a post that said you "Dont" need to add calcium to a vinyl liner pool. now i have no idea whether to purchase and add the $60 tub of calcium or not. anyone have opinions on this?

Hi TFP Community…we bought our house last year and for the first time ever have a beautiful pool that we have to rely on a pool service company to maintain until we have a better understanding of all the chemistry and equipment…which has been quite overwhelming. Last year when we learned how to turn on our solar heater we discovered the solar had never been winterized. The system inked our pool like an octopus. No Solar last year…we released the black soot substance, winterized it and had to replace the actuater and this year it released a residual amount of soot compared to last year. This year we asked our service company to clean our filter cartridge a couple weeks after the solar was turned on. The technician hit the in-service button on our Hayward ProLogic panel then switched off all the breakers as a preventative measure. But when he finished, turned off the in-service button and turned on all the break switches…the pool pump wasn’t turning on. The owner of the company bypassed the system using the pump panel, said everything would run normally as scheduled…but 48 hours later I discovered the pool pump still running beyond scheduled times. The Hayward ProLogic wouldn’t turn off the system and I had to shut down all the breakers to stop the pump. I assumed the next morning it would start up as scheduled, but it didn’t. Supposedly the service company stated we needed a new pump. While waiting for the installation I had our water tested at a local Leslie’s Pool and our Calcium Hardness was at 793…so we had to drain our pool 2/3 and refill it. The new pump was installed only to discover the problem is actually our Hayward ProLogic panel. Has the same System Service light on with dimmed blue lights over the Pool and Filter, but all other blue lights are bright for Spa and Lights. Soooooooo…this is what it’s like to own a pool! Here I am…contemplating whether to fix that ProLogic panel or replace it with a Pentair…and in the process wondering if it would be beneficial to covert my pool to a Salt Water Generator and learn how to manage the chemistry ourselves. I obviously will be soaking up all your insights like a sponge here at TFP. Thank you for welcoming me to the community!

Hello, I bought a house about a year ago, and the heater worked initially, however this spring it is no longer working. It may be due to the 24 hour freeze we had this winter, however I kept the pump running the entire duration of the freeze to prevent issues. When I go to start the heater, it will click, I smell gas and there is no flame, it will do this a few times and the service heater light will come on. No LEDs on the other side of the board will light up. The ICM will flash 3x indicating ignition lockout. The igniter is hot to the touch and appears to be working. I have replaced the ICM, HLS, AGS, igniter, and thermistor. The thermal regulator still functions and I do not see any leaks in the manifold. I do not see any frayed wires. Any ideas as to what to try next?

Thank you

It’s been 10 Years since I built my last OB pool we have since moved, and I are in the planning phase of a new build! This time we are definitely going to do an automatic cover.

My question is, can all automatic covers be used with a vinyl liner pool with the correct track? More detail: I have the opportunity to buy a not installed automatic Coverstar pool cover at a highly discounted rate. It would be the right size, but I’m not sure if it would work with the vinyl liner pool in the current owner is not very helpful. I figure at the most I am I am to buy some track in the correct coping. Is that true?

Folks,
You may have read my previous thread about dealing with nasty well water here. I thought I had licked the problem completely with cationic and anionic resin softening plus aerated catalytic carbon and H202 injection. And I had for a while. But slowly over the next few weeks we had a slight (to me, much stronger to my wife) sulfur odor. It was so low I barely could detect it so I kind of blew it off and hoped my wife would learn to live with it. Bad decision. Eventually we had guests and all the ladies could smell it. One hubby even detected it. So I started testing with my fancy ampule based super-sensitive sulfide test kit. It reliably tests .05 ppm and almost any level with a color change. It took some effort to make sure I captured good samples and immediately tested them. Sulfides clearly vaporize quickly from the water in just minutes. With some sampling practice it became clear I had a tiny bit of sulfide making it through the system and was typically .05 ppm or less. I believe this is due to the fact that treatment processes I am using are not complete removal. Maybe over 90% but not complete. So starting with inlet water of 1.2 ppm it was conceivable there will always be residual that is detectable by many, mostly female people.

One thing that puzzled me is the under sink RO units we have produced pristine smelling water all the time. I couldn't figure out how this is possible since it is well-documented that these membranes allow H2S to pass through almost completely which has the effect of concentrating H2S instead of removing it. How could mine be so sweet? Then I remembered these units have 2 activated carbon filters. Could they be removing the trace amounts? After numerous guest complaints I was pretty desperate. I searched for a whole house polishing filter that would do the trick. There are MANY choices ranging from pretty cheap to almost $100 not including the housing. At this point I needed a definite solution so I purchased a 20" (Big Blue knock-off) housing and the high $ refillable media cartridge that contained a combination of KDF-85, Brim, and catalytic carbon. Installation was simple and I included piping to allow me to easily flush the filter. This took longer than I thought to get the black dust out. Then I filled the first sample and cautiously gave it to the wife to test. She smiled and said "that's perfect!". I was elated. Decided not to report this for a few weeks just to be sure it works... It's been a month now and I think this is finally the solution. Information I obtained indicate this filter has capacity to remove 3 ppm for 50,000 gal. With just the wife and me most of the time at ~200 gal/day and less than .05 ppm it should last for years. I'll report back as we have more time on the filter.

I hope this is helpful for anybody else on here with the dreaded "wife doesn't like your water" problem!

Chris

Hello All,

New member here with very little pool experience. Hoping to get some input on an issue I'm having with the fiberglass.

We purchased our home in 2021 and it came with a roughly 12ft x 14ft x 2ft fiberglass pool that was installed in 2017. I'm told it's called a "plunge pool". I've estimated it to be about 1700 gallons. The pool has a cartridge filter, in-line chlorine feeder, and also a heater to allow the small pool to function as a hot tub if desired. The previous owner apparently never drained the pool and it does not have a cover. So during the winter, water was pumped out to a lower level (just above the inlets to keep weight on the pool), the lines blown out, pool antifreeze added, inlets capped, and power to system turned off. None of this may be relevant, but trying to provide any relevant back story to what issue developed.

Last year before closing for the winter, I started to notice a white buildup on what I thought was just around the water line. In my ignorance, i figured I'd just let it go and address it this spring when opening. I opened the pool in May this year and after getting the chemicals lined out, turned on the heater, and the wife and I got in it on a Friday night. The next morning when I came out to look at the pool, enough water had evaporated, that I could clearly see what looked like a thick white buildup as if someone had painted the pool white. I googled for hours trying to figure out what to do and eventually had a local pool company come out to look at it. The guy that came out tried muriatic acid and it did nothing. His recommendation (which I disagreed with) was to take a wire brush to the build up. I contacted another local company and after testing, they believed that my pool had so little calcium in it (to my ignorance, last summer I'd been filling with our hose that comes from a water softener) that the water was pulling from wherever it could to regain calcium. They also thought the alkalinity could have been very high over a number of years and causing this scale buildup to occur. Additionally, we confirmed the white buildup covers the ENTIRE pool below the water line including the floor. Their suggestion was to begin wet sanding the entire pool with 1000-1500 grit sandpaper.

I began taking this task on my own and eventually moved to 400 and 800 grit wet sandpaper so that I could make quicker progress while also trying to make sure I wasn't getting too deep/aggressive with the sanding. I'm about 20 hours into it and still have to do the entire floor. I basically have been keep 3-4 inches of water in the pool, sanding the walls, then when the water gets milky white from the sanding, drain it out and refill with fresh water, then repeat the process. The walls at this point pretty much have the buildup removed but are now all greyed over and smeared with white stuff. It's difficult to tell if this is the haze/smearing of the scale buildup or if I've gone too far into a layer of gelcoat and i'm smearing around gelcoat at this point. I don't have any previous experience working with fiberglass so unfortunately am winging it a bit. I called the 2nd pool company again to get their opinion and their recommendation was to now go over the walls with 2000 grit wet sandpaper and then take a mechanical buffer and compound and go over a 2ft x 2ft area to see if it'd remove the gray haze and bringing back some of the luster and shine. If that works, do that to the rest of the pool. If it doesn't, we may be looking at stripping and applying new gelcoast. This buffer concept makes some sense to me, but in my googling I really can't find any examples or solutions of people using a buffer and compound on a fiberglass pool. I can only find use cases for using it on boats, RV's, and water slides.

So my overall question is, does it make sense to proceed with a buffer at this point? Is there a recommended buffering/rubbing compound to use on a pool that's safe to use? I see there's compounds specifically meant for Marine and RV and I can also find examples online of people using 3M Marine rubbing compound and Wax combinations on water park slides. My concern is applying chemicals to the pool walls that will leave behind a residue that may be unsafe for swimmers even if it does restore the shine and gelcoat appearance.

Sorry for the rambling description of the issue but any suggestions would be appreciated. I've attached some before pictures and pictures of where I'm at now. The water level all summer last year was right at where the top of the white line is. I drained it down a few inches to confirm the scale was not just the at the water level and take the before pictures. I still need to figure out how to best handle the top of the step and floor since it's got a textured anti-slip coating on it, making it difficult to sand.

Thanks in advance for any input!