As I'm sure some of you have experienced before, it can be really overwhelming to buy a house with a pool that you know absolutely nothing about, having never owned a pool before being completely ignorant of that fact that it actually requires effort and knowledge to maintain, and quickly realizing, over time the first few months that there are just countless and never-ending problems with the pool. Problems such as...
The 375k BTU Jandy Hi-E2 heater right away failed (likely due to previous owner not living there much for 1.5 years despite keeping the pool open -- so pool chemicals were horribly mismanaged (or perhaps, not at all) for a long long time, proven by pics/videos I've seen during the time when shared from previous owner).
Iron in water (from the two auto-fills) was staining all the rocks/boulders and the pool coping (over the disappearing edge) a horrible ugly red. Iron content from my well is -extremely- high unfortuantely. Had to properly address that (which was not cheap), along with some magic acid washing to clean off the red stains everywhere.
4 of 5 pool lights were not working. Had to replace all of them (with LED lighting this time), one of which, immediately stopped working 1 day after it was replaced, and had to replace it again.
One of the two Jandy SWGs (PLC 1400) failed. Had to replace.
The housing on the main filter cracked/busted and was leaking water everywhere. Had to replace with a new Jandy DE Filter (Dev-60) filter.
Cracks in mortar over the disappearing-edge was causing massive water leaks resulting in 3,500-4,500 gallons of water loss PER day (tracking this down was extremely difficult) which, due to the way the pit's overflow drains work and the patio's underground plumbing works (appx 300' of PVC piping), was flooding the next door neighbors yard and turning his front year into a complete swamp.
Pool equipment pad area had so many broken things (over half the shutoff valves were broken, the pressure gauge was broken, lots of various o-ring/seal leaks on the 7 different pumps, etc.)
An unused plastic hose in the pool equipment pad (from previous equipment that hasn't been in place since the SWGs were installed 8+ years ago) had its "cap" popped off, resulting in losing around 2,500 gallons per day. (This right after the pool was filled with 6 tanker trucks btw)
Constantly dealing with a barrage of debris in the pool because it's surrounded by forest-like pine trees over 70' tall and other trees.
An 8-port Caretaker in-floor head system with 38 heads and 7 zones that had a bad main-motherboard causing it to fail.
Even after replacing the motherboard in the Caretaker in-floor head system, finding more problems with the individual head units and not having the CORRECT heads in the CORRECT locations in the pool (different heads for different flows depending on location) likely because previous pool company likely didn't document/mark which heads went where during closing/opening.
Previous owner's improper pool closing methods (or the pool company he was using at the time) resulted in a busted pipe that now forces the built Jandy Leaf-be-Gone unit and associated piping to be permanently closed off due to busted underground pipes (from freezing).
Fiber lighting in the grotto which supposedly worked (according to previous owner) but have never been able to get it working from day 1, despite spending considerable time trying to make it work and troubleshooting. -sigh-
Finding that a corroded gas line used for the in-pool firepit was the reason the firepit didn't work and gas was also leaking out!
Calcium staining all over the grotto walls which looked horrible that needed to be acid washed and cleaned.
An intermittently working iAquaLink control that initially made accessing the pool's pumps and water features, heating, etc. a 50/50 chance of success at -best-.
Lack of any documentation on the pool, or design/build specs, or as-builts, invoice of maintenance histories, and a previous owner that hadn't lived there regularly for almost 1.5 years and seemingly let most of everything go to heck during that time (or the pool maintenance company he was using) even though he kept the pool up/full during that time, etc.
Dealing with the complexity of having absolutely NO knowledge of pools, its' equipment, the plumbing (ugh!) or any understanding of chemicals, to having to suddenly learn about a free form pool of 32,000+ gallons, a disappering edge, upper pit and lower pit, 7 Jandy pumps, 2 waterfalls, beach jets, a waterslide, 3 skimmers, 4 returns, 2 SWGs, a 8-port in-floor head system with 38 heads, and feeling completely BEYOND overwhelmed constantly and nervous, and even scared if the pool was even recoverable with all its problems since buying the house.
but...then.
Having an honest pool maintenance guy that has earned my trust and is willing to help teach me about the equipment, and is even open to learning about the things I'm teaching him that I've learned on my own, and spending countless hours reading up on TFP (with amazing people on here!) and learning SO MUCH about all the things I didn't know anything about previously, and getting the Pool Math app, and a TF-PRO kit, and this new knowledge I have about how pools operate mechanically, chemically, etc. which has allowed me to fix 90% of the problems with the pool so far, and I feel like I'm -finally- rounding the corner to a "Trouble Free Pool"... *huge sigh of relief*
Regards,
J
The 375k BTU Jandy Hi-E2 heater right away failed (likely due to previous owner not living there much for 1.5 years despite keeping the pool open -- so pool chemicals were horribly mismanaged (or perhaps, not at all) for a long long time, proven by pics/videos I've seen during the time when shared from previous owner).
Iron in water (from the two auto-fills) was staining all the rocks/boulders and the pool coping (over the disappearing edge) a horrible ugly red. Iron content from my well is -extremely- high unfortuantely. Had to properly address that (which was not cheap), along with some magic acid washing to clean off the red stains everywhere.
4 of 5 pool lights were not working. Had to replace all of them (with LED lighting this time), one of which, immediately stopped working 1 day after it was replaced, and had to replace it again.
One of the two Jandy SWGs (PLC 1400) failed. Had to replace.
The housing on the main filter cracked/busted and was leaking water everywhere. Had to replace with a new Jandy DE Filter (Dev-60) filter.
Cracks in mortar over the disappearing-edge was causing massive water leaks resulting in 3,500-4,500 gallons of water loss PER day (tracking this down was extremely difficult) which, due to the way the pit's overflow drains work and the patio's underground plumbing works (appx 300' of PVC piping), was flooding the next door neighbors yard and turning his front year into a complete swamp.
Pool equipment pad area had so many broken things (over half the shutoff valves were broken, the pressure gauge was broken, lots of various o-ring/seal leaks on the 7 different pumps, etc.)
An unused plastic hose in the pool equipment pad (from previous equipment that hasn't been in place since the SWGs were installed 8+ years ago) had its "cap" popped off, resulting in losing around 2,500 gallons per day. (This right after the pool was filled with 6 tanker trucks btw)
Constantly dealing with a barrage of debris in the pool because it's surrounded by forest-like pine trees over 70' tall and other trees.
An 8-port Caretaker in-floor head system with 38 heads and 7 zones that had a bad main-motherboard causing it to fail.
Even after replacing the motherboard in the Caretaker in-floor head system, finding more problems with the individual head units and not having the CORRECT heads in the CORRECT locations in the pool (different heads for different flows depending on location) likely because previous pool company likely didn't document/mark which heads went where during closing/opening.
Previous owner's improper pool closing methods (or the pool company he was using at the time) resulted in a busted pipe that now forces the built Jandy Leaf-be-Gone unit and associated piping to be permanently closed off due to busted underground pipes (from freezing).
Fiber lighting in the grotto which supposedly worked (according to previous owner) but have never been able to get it working from day 1, despite spending considerable time trying to make it work and troubleshooting. -sigh-
Finding that a corroded gas line used for the in-pool firepit was the reason the firepit didn't work and gas was also leaking out!
Calcium staining all over the grotto walls which looked horrible that needed to be acid washed and cleaned.
An intermittently working iAquaLink control that initially made accessing the pool's pumps and water features, heating, etc. a 50/50 chance of success at -best-.
Lack of any documentation on the pool, or design/build specs, or as-builts, invoice of maintenance histories, and a previous owner that hadn't lived there regularly for almost 1.5 years and seemingly let most of everything go to heck during that time (or the pool maintenance company he was using) even though he kept the pool up/full during that time, etc.
Dealing with the complexity of having absolutely NO knowledge of pools, its' equipment, the plumbing (ugh!) or any understanding of chemicals, to having to suddenly learn about a free form pool of 32,000+ gallons, a disappering edge, upper pit and lower pit, 7 Jandy pumps, 2 waterfalls, beach jets, a waterslide, 3 skimmers, 4 returns, 2 SWGs, a 8-port in-floor head system with 38 heads, and feeling completely BEYOND overwhelmed constantly and nervous, and even scared if the pool was even recoverable with all its problems since buying the house.
but...then.
Having an honest pool maintenance guy that has earned my trust and is willing to help teach me about the equipment, and is even open to learning about the things I'm teaching him that I've learned on my own, and spending countless hours reading up on TFP (with amazing people on here!) and learning SO MUCH about all the things I didn't know anything about previously, and getting the Pool Math app, and a TF-PRO kit, and this new knowledge I have about how pools operate mechanically, chemically, etc. which has allowed me to fix 90% of the problems with the pool so far, and I feel like I'm -finally- rounding the corner to a "Trouble Free Pool"... *huge sigh of relief*
Regards,
J
