Thanks, my returns are still underwater otherwise I would do the same. I was thinking a piece of pvc as a snorkel and leaving it there until the spring.
Closing difficulties with cartridge filter and pool level above equipment
- Thread starter Captchaos
- Start date
You can utilize the 11/2" threads. Screw a fitting in with those threads and shortly after transition to a union and after the union come up and out above the water which will the capped with a removable pvc configuration like a threaded cap or plug. All will need to be water tight and you should be able to leave it till opening day. The purpose of the pvc union is you will have to 90° it up from there this way as you snug up the union you can orient the pipe upward.
Wrong, vertical pipes will come clear of all but a little vapour left. Turning the cyclone off intermittently will allow water to run to a low section which can be blow out once turned back on. What plugs are you using?
I am using the rubber stopper plugs.
Any concerns on the PVC snorkels cracking? We do get single digits a few nights a year and 20s fairly regularly over a couple of weeks.
Any concerns on the PVC snorkels cracking? We do get single digits a few nights a year and 20s fairly regularly over a couple of weeks.
This will help get a little more out but there will always be some left. Especially for the captain blowing uphill 5 feet above the equptment. At some point, most of it will be out but a gallon or two will burp at the low spot, which will be below the frost line for most people.
Add in a few 90 degree elbows and a T between the return outlets (for most pools anyway) and you will never blow it all out. The water drops alone throughout the length of the pipe will ultimately rejoin as a gallon or more.
The four return jets I am having trouble with are all in the same 2 inch line from the pump so that probably makes sense.
Here is a shot of the plumbing during construction. The top pipe is connected to the air blower and the bottom is the water supply.
The more I think about this the more I wonder if I pushed water into the air blower line back towards the equipment. I did turn the air blower on but not until after I was running the Cyclone for a good 5-10 minutes. I wonder if running the air blower first for a few minutes and then the Cyclone after would help.
There is no valve for the air blower so I can’t turn it off to isolate just the water supply side.
There is no valve for the air blower so I can’t turn it off to isolate just the water supply side.
Take the vertical pipe at the center of your pic as an example.... it has a 90 in the dirt, another 90 and a horizontal piece, another 90 and another vertical AND then a T and more legs with caps 1 ft past the returns. Just those end caps will hold a few gallons combined. You’ll never get it all. If you kill pressure and wait a minute some of it will recollect and then you can push more of the recollection out once or twice but at some point, The air just rushes by all the small pools. It’s usually fine as it is but the antifreeze is always a good failsafe. I don’t know enough about your configuration or spa blowers to have any advice on those but maybe an expert will.
Good news using the tips provided in this thread. I was able to fab up some “snorkels” that cost way too much and took way too long to assemble the parts list at Lowe’s but I am confident that I was able to remove all but a non-harmful amount of water. With the help of my 4 year old son and turning the air blower and Cyclone on and off repeatedly, I was able to blow out nearly all of the water. I am leaving the “snorkels” capped for a few days to make sure the Teflon-taped PVC threads are water tight and then I will pour in some antifreeze and call it good.
I had a hard time with the “snorkel” parts because I wanted to be able to reuse them so this meant I needed a few threaded parts so that I could tighten the elbow into the pool wall. I had planned to have the top of the “snorkels” above the coping but due to variances in the stone size and pool wall, I did have to cut a couple of them down to below the coping so I could screw in the vertical pipe. I am satisfied so far and this will go soooooo much quicker next year.
I will say this—I don’t know how I would’ve done this without the Cyclone and hose fitting in the top of my pool pump cover. I tried avoiding both of those and cost myself many, many hours of frustration. Lesson learned.
Here’s a shot of a couple of “snorkels” in action while I was still clearing water. I’ll get some better pics of the whole assembly soon.
I had a hard time with the “snorkel” parts because I wanted to be able to reuse them so this meant I needed a few threaded parts so that I could tighten the elbow into the pool wall. I had planned to have the top of the “snorkels” above the coping but due to variances in the stone size and pool wall, I did have to cut a couple of them down to below the coping so I could screw in the vertical pipe. I am satisfied so far and this will go soooooo much quicker next year.
I will say this—I don’t know how I would’ve done this without the Cyclone and hose fitting in the top of my pool pump cover. I tried avoiding both of those and cost myself many, many hours of frustration. Lesson learned.
Here’s a shot of a couple of “snorkels” in action while I was still clearing water. I’ll get some better pics of the whole assembly soon.
Nice job Captain. The first year is the hardest figuring out what works on your setup. You may re-engineer something in a few years, but it will be for fun, not necessity.
Need a better picture and how the parts were assembled. What are you doing for the top opening?
I am using a PVC cap with a slip fitting. There should be no pressure so no reason to glue it, not to mention I want to reuse it to pour antifreeze in each year. Even with 3 capped and the Cyclone running, the cap doesn't pop off anyway.
I will post a pic of all the parts soon.
I will post a pic of all the parts soon.
Interesting. Have you seen this happen? I did use schedule 40 PVC thinking it would be fine as long as there wasn’t water inside of the pipes. I figured there would be enough room for the pool water to expand if it did freeze.
No, I haven’t seen it happen because I’ve never in my years seen a pool in freezing areas with a pool closed this way. It’s not the expansion that’s the concern, it’s the ice shifting with the winds before or after that huge ice cube has frozen itself to the walls.
Nice catch PM. the ice block melts from the sides first and then free floats until it fully melts. Even if it only shifted an inch that is a lot of force on the snorkels and returns.
I'm a bit late here, but I figured I'd answer just in case you or others were still wondering about the answer to this question! The most important factor when winterizing your pool is the pressure of the blower/compressor. Having a high CFM is good, but it only matters if the blower can make enough pressure to clear out the lines in the first place. Most blowers are rated in terms of "H2O, or inches of water height, rather than PSI. The conversion rate between the two is about 27.5 "H2O = 1.0 PSI.
The way you calculate your total water height is the vertical distance between the water level and the lowest point in the plumbing. A few other factors go into this calculation such as number of 90's and length of run, but they usually don't account for that much of the total amount. Let's say your pool is 8 ft. deep and the plumbing for the main drain goes 2 feet deeper than that, your total water height will come out to a little over 10 feet or 120" H2O. While the Cyclone is only rated at 140 CFM, it is also rated at 180" H2O. So as long as your blower is rated for a more "H2O than the water height for your main drain comes out to, then it will be capable of clearing the main drain (given you also have adequate CFM).
Now here's where CFM plays a role. Of course any air compressor can make over 6 PSI ( 165" H2O), but their CFM values are extremely low. Most regular air compressors won't even make over 25 CFM at open flow, no less under pressure. If you have adequate pressure but not enough CFM, it will either take a very long time or it will be impossible for you to clear out the line. You need a mix between adequate pressure as well as high CFM in order to make the job quick and efficient. Usually blowers with very high CFM tend to make very little pressure, and compressors that can make a lot of pressure tend to have very low CFM.
I hope this helps you understand why some things work and others don't when it comes to winterizing your pool!
Here are some better pictures of the “snorkel” set up. I let them sit for a week to see if they leaked and if they did, it was such little water that it doesn’t matter. I did pour a bunch of antifreeze in there anyway for good measure. I appreciate all the responses, I’m going to roll this dice this year as we don’t often get extended temps where the pool freezes much and just check them occasionally.
Thank you, that does help a lot. After this experience I don’t see how I could’ve been confident that anything besides the Cyclone would do the job on my pool. It did one heck of a job on my main drains and even still, only one of them would bubble most of the time (and it was like an angry volcano!). Also when I had multiple wall returns or more than one feed pipe from the pad, pressure was obviously greatly diminished, but still more than sufficient to clear the water. But when I switched over to the waterfall side and valved off the actual waterfall and used only the pool wall bypass return on the same line, the water must’ve shot up a good 15 feet in the air.
I could have saved a lot of time if I had 1) bought the Cyclone from the get go 2) bought the parts to make a pump lid with a hose barb on it and 3) the labels the builder put in the pipes didn’t wear off.
In the end I did all of those things so I will have a much easier time next year.