Recent content by draythomp

Actually Jim, you're right. Sorry, I was ticked off at the pump and went a little overboard. I bet we've all done that from time to time. However, Hayward is still on my list as someone not to deal with (if possible). They should have recalled that hunk of metal.

I did the two-speed motor thing I discussed above. It was cool. What the guys did at the pool pump place was keep the impeller housing and such, then pull the drive and motor; replacing it with a 2+ HP two speed motor. I brought the drive and motor home for the drill press experiment in a few...

I have the Hayward and in the years I've owned it they replaced the entire pump once, and the 'drive' twice. Right now it's dead again with a "drive stalled" error. Not a chance in the world I'll put another one in. I won't even go to the Pentair; I'm done with that fragile technology and the...

I got together with another pool owner, and through email over a long distance, we broke the control protocol for the Ecostar pump. I've been annoyed by Hayward's tactic of only giving a high, low setting on their P4 controller (with a software upgrade naturally), so this was something I've...

Scale will definitely force them apart (don't ask me how I know, I'll lie). However if that happens, the plates are not parallel anymore. If the pool company is the only ones that remove the device, I would have to wonder if they bounced it on the patio to loosen the scale. I have air in my...

good point about temperature difference depending on depth. I actually don't know. Getting into the pool stirs it up enough around the body it all seems the same. Unfortunately, it's getting into fall so I can't test it in a really hot situation. I actually have a foot or so of shade on the...

chem geek, you're not wrong, but may be giving the wrong impression. No, the sun doesn't evaporate the water, but the sun heats the water that causes evaporation. Similarly, the burner on my stove doesn't evaporate the water, it heats the water so it can evaporate. What actually happens here...

I thought I'd talk a bit about the results of all this. First, there hasn't been any change to Muriatic Acid (HCl), except that the concentration has dropped in the stores. We used to be able to buy >30% mixes anywhere we went, but now the big box stores carry stuff that is less than 15%...

When I was looking into the water softener idea I kept running into problems with it. If the pool already has a high level of Ca, it will load the water softener up very quickly. Since these things work on volume and not the actual load, they will stop working until the next regen. If you...

OK, the reverse osmosis guy has come and gone. It was an interesting experience. I live out in the sticks and use well water so here's what I did. The guy came out about 14:00 and set up his machine. My TDS was up around 4000 and I think my CH was 1000 or so. Difficult to tell that high...

Your math checks out. I had some trouble realizing where the 453592 came from. But, it should have been obvious to me; molecule in, molecule out. I guess I was mostly hoping for a solution that didn't require hiring someone and the incompetence risks that entails. However, I know a heck of a...

I outran all of you. You poor people that have to work during the day.. The RO guy called back. He will charge me $500 for the treatment and that includes rebalancing the water when he's done. It will take about 2000 gallons of water so I can have the local water delivery company come out...

OK, so I'm driving everyone nuts with this.....sorry. I just spent some time looking at the water softener idea. Suppose I plumb in a line to the pool system and take water after the filter and before the pool and run a 1" into a water softener so that some of the pool water is treated and...

Rickster, I'm not concerned about the high acid level, everything I have is plastic or pebble tech and the low ph would only be for the period of time before whatever I add to take it back up works. Could have a little trouble with the cartridge filter elements though and those darn things cost...

My CH level is around 900; I can't tell exactly because I cut the test back to 10ml so I only get 25ppm resolution so it could be from 875 to 925 or so. Like I said before, I can't find out how much reverse osmosis costs; the company hasn't called me back yet. Additionally, their add says...