aaand a mystery aerator intake (i think) on an old pool

[swadeab]

So this is an old place i'm working on old as in 70's. I've been pondering this for a year and think i know what it is but wondering if anyone can confirm and suggest what to do with it.

Long story short, deck had been cut at some point i noticed when i'd close some valves (example one return line) and had increased pressure water pooling in a hack job repair deck area. I cut the slab. What i found was some cut lines now this pic is after clean up but it was literally like that and left
that way, concrete filled the pipe ends some but i got that out.

I shot air in them and believe these are aerator lines for stair jets (as the stair jets do get water pumped through them). This reminds me of another old pool i had, if you did the valves a certain way a single pipe sitcking above deck would suck air in and sort
of areate the water with bubbles around the stairs. In this picture each line runs to a stair jet, since i know the stair jets pump water it makes sense to me these are aerators?

does that sound like I'm right? In olden days does it sound like these would have been ran to a single pipe with bunch of t's then that pipe was an air intake above deck?

That's what i'm trying to decide to do with them, cap them or do like above presumably. Or can i run an air pump aerator to them? i don't know anything about those but ran across it.

thanks for any knowledge i've been staring at this for a year thinking while i worked on other messes lol. I think i know what it is but am trying to think i want to re-use them some way for some aeration (preferably some sorta pump?).

 

[1poolman1]

So this is an old place i'm working on old as in 70's. I've been pondering this for a year and think i know what it is but wondering if anyone can confirm and suggest what to do with it.

Long story short, deck had been cut at some point i noticed when i'd close some valves (example one return line) and had increased pressure water pooling in a hack job repair deck area. I cut the slab. What i found was some cut lines now this pic is after clean up but it was literally like that and left
that way, concrete filled the pipe ends some but i got that out.

I shot air in them and believe these are aerator lines for stair jets (as the stair jets do get water pumped through them). This reminds me of another old pool i had, if you did the valves a certain way a single pipe sitcking above deck would suck air in and sort
of areate the water with bubbles around the stairs. In this picture each line runs to a stair jet, since i know the stair jets pump water it makes sense to me these are aerators?

does that sound like I'm right? In olden days does it sound like these would have been ran to a single pipe with bunch of t's then that pipe was an air intake above deck?

That's what i'm trying to decide to do with them, cap them or do like above presumably. Or can i run an air pump aerator to them? i don't know anything about those but ran across it.

thanks for any knowledge i've been staring at this for a year thinking while i worked on other messes lol. I think i know what it is but am trying to think i want to re-use them some way for some aeration (preferably some sorta pump?).

Fifty plus years ago, when very large, in horsepower, pumps were very common, it was usual to see actual jets used as returns and those very likely were the air lines. Its still done on a few builds today, but with the slow water of a VSP the jets don't pull in air so they don't work.
You could install a blower onto some sort of manifold and feed those lines, yes. The blower would have to be sized correctly as it could burn up if there is too much restriction. No more than 1hp, probably.

 

[swadeab]

thanks for the reply that's what i figured. I think what i'll do is build a manifold of some type maybe of 1 1/2 /1 1/2 / 1/2 tee's and run that out to the equiptment area or just run these out there and make the manifold there

Can always just leave it that way for now. that way i can plan how to clean up the deck mess.

 

[swadeab]

it's really wierd the lines were so shallow in the slab but no shortage of hack stuff there.

 

[1poolman1]

it's really wierd the lines were so shallow in the slab but no shortage of hack stuff there.

Those lines were there to be open to the atmosphere. Any lower and the pool would drain into them.

 

[swadeab]

so if i was

Those lines were there to be open to the atmosphere. Any lower and the pool would drain into them.

ahh yeah...so...thinking

if i coupler onto them i was going to run the diy manifold right below that cut slab section i have to repour but That would be at the top of the tile line

Think that wouldn't work? maybe that's why it's just barely under the surface of the concrete, that was throwing me for a loop as it looked hokey but no concrete work evident there.

 

[swadeab]

yeah looking at the spa blower docs on this site and reading a few threads it looks like would need to stay above water level or hartford loop. Maybe somewhere arouond this cut
they had a flush vented box air intake like i see with some pics. I suppose i could dip below the deck, then at equiptment pad do a loop up to a small blower if decided to use it.