Monitoring an Auto-Fill System

[Dirk]

There is a school of thought, especially among pool builders, that an auto-filler is a bad thing. I think the primary reason used is that they can fail, and if your pool also has any sort of overflow protection, that the auto-filler could then pump untold gallons of water to waste. And that you might only discover that when a monstrous water bill shows up weeks later.

All possible. I had my auto-fill valve get stuck open once, so I know that can happen. And this rainy season my pool was over-filling and it took me a while to figure out that the end of the pipe connected to my overflow port had gotten plugged up with mud and weeds. What to do?

Call in Super Dirk!



First step was cleaning the overflow pipe, then I extended it so that it was well away from dirt and plants. Painted, of course, to hide it in the plants that might someday recover. I situated it so that I can see it from my yard and even from one of my windows. This last week I took it a step further, and installed a cheap motorcycle rearview mirror so that my pool cam could get a good angle on the end of the pipe.

So now, with a quick glance at the mirror with my pool cam (from anywhere on the planet) I'll know:
- when my pool is full, and
- that the overflow is working, and
- if the auto-filler is running when it shouldn't be.



This is a screenshot from my cam. It's a little hard to make out, because I didn't coat the mirror correctly with my Rain-X, but the green is the pipe and you can just make out the water pouring from it. The stream shows up well on video. I'll figure out how to clean up the mirror and the view when it stops raining, but it didn't take much of this California storm to overflow my pool.

I got two of those mirrors for about 16 bucks off Amazon. I already have several around the house and yard, extending what my exterior cams can see: gate around a corner, a gate pad lock that is hidden behind a bush, the other gate's lock that is on the other side of the fence from the cam, a convex view of my front door from a cam that faces the street, etc. It's a cheap way to extend your video surveillance system without adding more cameras. Plus, I can check what's left of my hair doo while gardening!

The pipe dumps into a drainage pit, which obscured a direct shot of it from my backyard cam:



Check out my little lime tree greenhouse (a story for another day)!

It's raining pretty good right now. Even my fountain is overflowing! But it's great for my garden, which is still recovering from last year's brutal summer.

 

[Newdude]

Tell me you're retired without telling me you're retired.

(And I hope to join you one day)

 

[Mdragger88]

Brilliant !!

 

[Mdragger88]

Now you got me thinking about another pool cam …..
I have one that looks over the pool where I can see the skimmer & water level etc. but it has no sound. I just resurrected my unused cordless outdoor wyze cam that used to be for the dog’s outdoor kennel, maybe I shall use it for the equipment area. It has sound so I will be able to hear a problem as well a see it.

 

[Dirk]

Now you got me thinking about another pool cam …..
I have one that looks over the pool where I can see the skimmer & water level etc. but it has no sound. I just resurrected my unused cordless outdoor wyze cam that used to be for the dog’s outdoor kennel, maybe I shall use it for the equipment area. It has sound so I will be able to hear a problem as well a see it.

Absolutely. I haven't quite figured out the best way to watch my pad. I tried a mirror, but it didn't give me enough detail. I love the sound idea! I'm going to incorporate that. I also want to be able to check my filter gauge, the amount of acid in my IntellipH tank, the pump basket, my SWG indicators, and my flow meter. That's too many angles. It's a work in progress.

 

[Dirk]

It stopped raining. I ran out with my Rain-X. We'll see later if that second coat will help. Here's a better shot, when it's not raining, but still draining. If I saw this in the summer, I'd know my auto-fill valve was malfunctioning.



And when I'm lying in bed drifting off for the night, and panic about whether I remembered to lock the back gate (which accesses the pool), I can zoom in to this mirror with my phone:



I just gave that one a shot of Rain-X, too. But for some reason it doesn't collect drops like my overflow pipe mirror does. Might be the angle each is at.

Why you laugh, Marty? Hey, I brightened up your day for a few seconds. Mission accomplished!

 

[Dirk]

Tell me you're retired without telling me you're retired.

(And I hope to join you one day)

I wish. In fact, I'm writing in this goofy thread while I'm supposed to be working!!

 

[Mdragger88]

I just upgraded my wifi to a mesh system & placed a node at the corner of the pool deck in a weatherproof enclosure eliminating the dead zone that used to exist there making the possibilities endless. The wyze cams are so cheap they are worth putting just about everywhere you might wanna see even if you don’t need to all that often, if your bandwidth can handle it. I still have some hoses so the thought of one coming loose without my knowledge haunts me. Luckily the times it has happened I was home & noticed the water in the yard. I intend to eliminate the hoses altogether once I upgrade my swg but until then a motion alert & some eyes on the situation would be reassuring.

 

[Dirk]

Luckily the times it has happened I was home

Uh oh, now you've done it! You're not supposed to say things like that out loud!

I'm so anti-wifi and anti-battery I never really consider anything but POE cams. They significantly complicate installation, but it should be obvious from this thread that I have the time to deal with that.

I'll probably add a fixed POE cam over my pad and then a few mirrors to get at the various angles I need. I'll need some decent resolution so that I can virtually zoom in to read a filter gauge dial or flow indicator, so we'll see.

I've been stalling because I've maxed out my POE ethernet switch, so one more cam means another switch and another trip up into the attic to run the cable! Hmm, that wi-fi isn't sounding so bad after all...

I have been considering one of those trail/game cams. Something wireless and battery powered that I could use to monitor various parts of my yard, but mobile, so I can move it around as needed. Like which dirty little rodent is digging what holes, or what time some nasty winged beast needs to throw all my mulch onto my walkway (grubbing, I presume). I'm not sure what I would do with that information, but my quest for dominion over all creatures has to start somewhere!



or more accurately:

 

[Mdragger88]

My little cordless cam was the 1st outdoor wyze cam they made - the battery lasts like 6 months per charge. It did it’s job back then when my pup had to be kenneled while we were gone. The resolution isn’t great but it works. They have much better options now.
I was gonna use it for the garden thieves, those dang raccoons & squirrels, until I read your thread!
I have too much acreage & too many brick walls in this 1970’s house to hardwire everything around here. It would be nice though. Someone has to be on my property to be within range of my wifi so I don’t sweat it too much.

 

[Dirk]

My little cordless cam was the 1st outdoor wyze cam they made - the battery lasts like 6 months per charge. It did it’s job back then when my pup had to be kenneled while we were gone. The resolution isn’t great but it works. They have much better options now.
I was gonna use it for the garden thieves, those dang raccoons & squirrels, until I read your thread!
I have too much acreage & too many brick walls in this 1970’s house to hardwire everything around here. It would be nice though. Someone has to be on my property to be within range of my wifi so I don’t sweat it too much.

Yah, there is the security component of wired vs wireless. But I think the reality is, if they can crack a wi-fi cam password, they can just as easily crack a router firewall password, at which point they'll have all the cams anyway. I figure, if they know that much about hacking, they wouldn't bother robbing me over some commercial building or fancier home that actually has some valuables in it.

If they're just petty thieves out for some quick cash, they'll just take the cam off the wall instead of trying to hack it!

 

[Ahultin]

I've been stalling because I've maxed out my POE ethernet switch, so one more cam means another switch and another trip up into the attic to run the cable! Hmm, that wi-fi isn't sounding so bad after all...

I put an 8 port poe switch in a weatherproof enclosure at my equipment pad

 

[Dirk]

I put an 8 port poe switch in a weatherproof enclosure at my equipment pad

Nice. I filled my 8-port: one up and seven cams. I have switches all over the house, and some of those are almost full, too. Some 50 devices and wall jacks plugged into them all. That's how much I hate wi-fi. Though I have to have that, too, for the laptop and iDevices.

I had to do one of my color-coded Illustrator drawings to keep everything all straight.

Why oh why do I complicated my life so? Perhaps every generation has felt the same way. It's all relative...

 

[Dirk]

Hmm, this is after a little more rain today. New mirror is trashed (even after Rain-X). Old mirror looks great (same Rain-X treatment). Any ideas?

 

[JamesW]

Yah, there is the security component of wired vs wireless. But I think the reality is, if they can crack a wi-fi cam password, they can just as easily crack a router firewall password, at which point they'll have all the cams anyway.

Some burglars use wifi jammers to disable cameras before they do a burglary.

So, wired is always better.

 

[generessler]

Nice. Thanks for the tip on Wyze cams! I'm trying some of those, and I'm not retired yet.

I'm curious how yours works in a way that you wouldn't notice a leak by just looking at the pool (vice the overflow hose). My overflow level is about 1.5 inches above the level where filling stops. It would be pretty hard to miss that unless it's been raining _a lot_ so it's normal for the level to be unnaturally high.

Of course I should knock on wood because I'll probably miss it tomorrow.

One more thing: Some water companies will knock down the cost of an obvious leak if you catch it in reasonable time and show you fixed it. Mine has per-customer sensors. When I have a leak (toilet; so far no pool issues), they send email. Pretty cool.

 

[Dirk]

I'm curious how yours works in a way that you wouldn't notice a high level by just looking at the pool

Yes, there's that. My edge tile is a little hard to read against, because it's not square tiles. But here's the most likely scenario. My auto-fill supply line has been off all winter. I'll turn it on in a few weeks. But maybe the rain wouldn't have let up by then. Right now my pool is right up to the overflow line. If the auto-fill valve is going to fail, it might very well happen right after turning it on after a long period of "inactivity." Maybe some built up crud or calcium in the line? Anyway, if the auto-fill valve got stuck open while the pool was full (for whatever reason), I wouldn't notice that on the edge tile, only at the end of the overflow pipe.

Any scenario is farfetched, as I have other safeguards in place to thwart an auto-fill valve failure, which has only happened once in 11 years (and that due to my careless work on the plumbing upstream of it). I put the mirror in at first just to monitor when the pool level reaches max. It was only today I realized this secondary function, monitoring the auto-fill.

This thread had several inspirations, for others to consider: to keep an eye on your overflow outlet, to keep an eye on your auto-fill valve, and a tip for extending your exterior cameras to make them more useful. A three-for. No, four-fer, if you count making Marty chuckle!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I think auto fills only became a problem when pool builders started using toilet bowl style fill valves instead of simpler bladder valves. My pool is 10 years old and the auto fill has never failed, not once (furiously knocking on wood … oh wait, this is AZ, we have no wood, at least not any without massive 2” spike/thorns… furiously knocking on rocks instead). The toilet bowl fills valves are prone to failures of the internal seals. My float valve is nothing more than a simple plastic air bulb attached to a cantilever arm that is on a pin-valve. The buoyant force of the bulb keeps the valve pin against the orifice and no water comes out. There are no rubber seals and everything is chlorine resistant plastic. Works like a charm.

The toilet bowl valves were implemented for pools where the designer didn’t want a larger fill pot near the deck so that they came up with a half-donkey solution that fails regularly.

Make stupid choices, own stupid consequences …

 

[generessler]

Yeah mine is a Pool Miser that uses the same gizmo as a toilet tank. The drain is inside the PVC casing sunk in the deck, so kind of hard to see. I'm considering an Arduino sensor project (for retirement), mainly for winter when the water supply is cut off, but also to sense overflow.

So far 3 years with no issues ... knocking on wood. A good toilet valve usually goes 15 years or more, but I guess chlorine could decrease that.

 

[JamesW]

New mirror is trashed (even after Rain-X).

Is it glass or plastic?