Recent content by grichard

At least here in St Louis, Menards is doing its frequent 11% rebate thing now, so the net is $4.44 / gallon... plus the cost of a stamp. Bought some yesterday.

Okay, I called the builder: It's a "hydrostatic plug" that just goes into the gravel beneath the pool. The idea is to open it if the pool is drained, to allow groundwater to enter and hopefully prevent floating. Apparently there's another one inside the main drain, too.

We've been *trying* not to do too much takeout, but yeah, we break down for the occasional Imo's pie :)

Well, I don't have a picture that shows what it hooks to, but you can see the stub coming up through the gravel in this shot.

I think I understand everything on the equipment pad; no obvious "other end" to the connection. I can try to send a picture later but it's tricky since it's on the bottom. I'm digging through my old construction photos to see if I have one that shows the plumbing before they shot it. I don't...

One edge of our pool is a wall made of quarried stones joined with mortar. We have a waterfall that washes down a portion of the wall. We've only had the pool for 3 years but have had no signs of major deterioration. In the hottest months we can see a little bit of mildew on the rocks at the...

There's an inlet or outlet in my pool whose function is a mystery to me. It's smack in the middle of the bottom of the pool, right where the shallow part starts to slope down into the deep end. It looks to be about 1.5" in diameter and is closed with a threaded PVC cap. It's pretty much flush...

Opening today, here in St. Louis. I was scheduled to open in about 3 weeks, hopefully missing most of the catkins and pollens. But... St. Louis has a stay-at-home order. The hospital where my wife and I are doctors is requiring us to stay within 50 miles of the hospital. My wife (a...

Well, I sure did have a suction leak the first time, when I left the O-ring off of the pump basket cover. :) Otherwise, no, I don't see bubbles I don't, but that makes sense as a place to look. I understand that this is a vague question, but how long is too long for a pump to run dry while...

I have a pool company open and close my pool, so I don't have direct experience with that process. Recently I came back from a trip to find my system gunked up with pollen, catkins, and stuff. In the process of de-gunking, my system lost its prime. Getting things restarted was *really* hard...

58 degrees... but increasing at about a degree per hour. Yes, the weather will be lousy again by the end of the week. Yes, the oak pollen will make a yellow sargasso sea before the end of the month. Yes, the roar of the heater is the sound of my wallet getting lighter. Don't care. Going to be...

Thank you--I will try Sunset Aquatech. Menards is where I've been buying stuff for the past couple of seasons, especially the BOGO sale. I agree it's a great value. I'm just trying to avoid generating so many empty plastic jugs. (For these purposes, I will conveniently ignore the obvious...

I probably throw away 60-80 gallon bleach jugs per season. Anybody know of any source in St. Louis for buying bulk bleach into carboys or other refillable containers? Thank you!

No idea if your pool area is too formal for this to work, but: My grandmother's beach house had a "shower" for rinsing off sand. It consisted of a shower head and a riser with a valve, but the bottom end was just a hose connector. So the shower could be attached to a hose from a nearby hose...