A&A style 1 floor system heads, reasonable cost high quality replacement o-rings?

[lightandvideo]

If you’re doing the scope of work that you’re doing, and committed, good on ya for keeping the system. If there are 2 separate valves, chances are each one is a ‘six-shooter’ (6-port) and usually each port feeds 2-3 heads. I’d recommend they do a pressure check in each zone before you resurface. Last thing you want is a leaky pipe that you could have capped or repaired at this stage. This is the biggest reason for decommissioning these IFCS’s during resurfacing.

The valve gear assemblies are the least expensive maintenance item, but it does depend on the type of valve you have 1) vinyl balls or 2) t-valve. I’ve replaced a couple of each type and it’s a cinch. They last many years, but my valve leaked so I replaced the entire thing and went from balls to t-valve styles.

The 2 areas most likely areas to inspect and thus to fail are the 1) individual t-valves brackets (they break off and need crazy glue/epoxy repairs) and 2) the drop-in gear assembly (the teeth wear down) most likely the outermost gears fail first. Replace the entire assembly with the rebuilt kit at first sign of wear. Replace the o-ring for good measure (comes w/kit) and the hold-down band clamp—is yours a top or side feed valve? Once you get it going we can go over how to dial in the flow, the zone-change speed and such.

Thanks so much for your advice, what is the best way to pressure test the zones?

 

[KDpoolguy]

what is the best way to pressure test the zones?

There are custom pressure test kits for the A&A heads, but those are exclusively used for dialing in the pressure to ensure you’re getting enough at each head—used once the pool is filled.
I’m referring to a leak detection pressure test. Many PBs or pool contractors will include this in any bid for a resurface, many will not. When you have as many underground lines as you do, exponentially increases the chances of a leak and now is the time to check. See what your PB says, and do all the main drains, anything that’s PVC on the pool floor.

 

[lightandvideo]

Copy, we are still getting bids for the resurfacing, I will talk with the contractors about including pressure testing prior to resurfacing. Thanks again!

 

[jonpcar]

Copy, we are still getting bids for the resurfacing, I will talk with the contractors about including pressure testing prior to resurfacing. Thanks again!

Hey lightandvideo, if you are having the pool resurfaced AND are definitely planning on trying to keep the in-floor cleaners, I would 100% recommend you have a new channel drain put in. Your existing drain probably does not meet current code and its replacement will probably not be IFCS friendly. I kick myself for not adding that option (channel drain) when I resurfaced my pool, for me it was about a $500 option.

 

[lightandvideo]

Hey lightandvideo, if you are having the pool resurfaced AND are definitely planning on trying to keep the in-floor cleaners, I would 100% recommend you have a new channel drain put in. Your existing drain probably does not meet current code and its replacement will probably not be IFCS friendly. I kick myself for not adding that option (channel drain) when I resurfaced my pool, for me it was about a $500 option.

Thanks for this, I will ask our contractors to confirm cost, thanks again!

Hey lightandvideo, if you are having the pool resurfaced AND are definitely planning on trying to keep the in-floor cleaners, I would 100% recommend you have a new channel drain put in. Your existing drain probably does not meet current code and its replacement will probably not be IFCS friendly. I kick myself for not adding that option (channel drain) when I resurfaced my pool, for me it was about a $500 option.

Is this channel drain located on the pool deck? We actually do already have channel drain installed on the pool deck area, I just found this photo online very similar to what we have currently, is this the type of channel drain you are talking about?

 

[jonpcar]

This is a replacement for your main drain...sorry I don’t know when your pool was built, you could already have a compliant drain. Here is A&As version of the type of drain I was thinking about...

AVSC Heavy Debris Removal – A&A Manufacturing

$500 was about 5 years ago,haha.

 

[lightandvideo]

Copy, ok understood, this looks like a nice drain assembly, currently we have 2 standard round drains on the bottom of the deep end of the pool, looks like this handles leaves and larger debris better than traditional drains and might be able to replace both of the existing drains. I will look into this and see if we can get the current drains upgraded to this assembly for a low price during the renovation. Our neighbor has a eucalyptus tree that we just trimmed back to remove all of the branches that were hanging over our property line so we are hoping this will help reduce the amount of leaves littering the pool. (The leaves from the neighbor’s tree were an issue for the previous owner, but I got permission from our neighbor and we just did some major trimming, so now we are hopeful will be able to manage keeping the pool/drains cleared of any eucalyptus leaves using vacuum and/or rake net. We do have occasional dust storms and constant airborne dust/sand/dirt here in the Mojave desert, so this is primarily where we are hoping the in floor cleaning system will help us maintain the pool and circulate the water.

 

[jonpcar]

You might already have A&A pdr2 drain system which is also code compliant and good for debris. In any case, with two drains your system is probably already compliant with the current recommendations.

 

[lightandvideo]

You might already have A&A pdr2 drain system which is also code compliant and good for debris. In any case, with two drains your system is probably already compliant with the current recommendations.

Pool is approx 20 years old, I know the previous owner mentioned he had issues with the current drains getting clogged with leaves from the eucalyptus branches previously hanging over the property line from the neighbor’s yard, as mentioned we recently removed the overhanging branches and I am planning to be more vigilant in cleaning out debris so hopefully this isn’t an issue going forward, but we definitely don’t want to risk burning out our pump motors! Not sure the model/manufacturer of the current drains but they are standard round drains with standard mesh/grill covers, much different design than the AVSC drains you suggested that appears to be “unblockable”

We also have raised drain covers on the floor in the spa that are very ugly/uncomfortable, and I was thinking to replace these with some type of flush mount drains during the renovation, (the current spa plumbing was designed with a drain/return to feed heated water from the spa to a separate waterfall that fell into the spa, we are abandoning this second waterfall with the renovation) currently there are 4x ugly raised drain covers in the spa floor, (basically we have ugly raised drain covers over most of the spa floor!), I’m still trying to figuring out the function of all of these spa drains and doesn’t make sense yet why we have so many drains in the spa! Hopefully by abandoning the heated waterfall into the spa we will be able to remove a couple of the current spa drains and replace with a flush mount dual drain AVSC unit!