Recent content by wwerdna

Wow, more complicated than I thought. Thanks for the input, I guess I'll start calling the local pool companies for quotes (and be prepared for the northern NJ pool price sticker shock).

The gas company is in the process of installing natural gas in our neighbourhood. We currently have an oil-fired pool heater (Laars XL) that is pretty old and will likely need replacing in a couple of years anyway, especially if the chipmunks keep nesting in it over the winter, so it seems like...

I'm in North-west NJ and I'd been expecting to close the pool this weekend but my wife got sick (I need her help to put on the pool cover) so definitely no swimming. Pool thermometer said 56f when I went out to test at lunchtime. Wall-E the robot was full of leaves

Calcium Chloride - if you're in Paramus then throw it on your driveway when it snows (it's whats in ice melt). TBH, I overbuy ice melt each winter (I check for nasties in it besides calcium chloride, of course) to use in the pool over the summer because, like everything else, it's the same...

I think I poorly treated the cable last summer because I’m pretty certain that they were there when I opened the pool in May this year. We have the pool open for about 4 months (may-sept).

Like they do, the cable from our Dolphin Active 30 got twisted in the pool and ended up with some lumpy bits. I had been untangling and stretching out the cable on our (brick) pool deck to sit in the sun and then letting Wall-E the robot just pull it back into the pool as he was moving around...

From your photo it looks like the skimmer weir door (the flappy bit between the skimmer and pool) is stuck. Mine used to do that and I'd have the same effect of water appearing to be rushing into it. What's actually happening is that the water flow is restricted so what water makes it through...

I used tarps on top of the mesh cover around two edges of the pool last winter for the first time, because we have rocks around the edge of the pool that prevent the cover from sitting tightly. This spring I opened to a lot fewer leaves in the pool, and a lot less algae. I used multiple heavy...

I wish it had only been $200. Last year I paid $400 at opening (and $430 the previous year at closing). After closing by myself last fall, I'll be opening for the first time by myself this May.

I completely agree. I closed my own pool for the first time this year. Blowing out all the lines and plugging everything took maybe 30 minutes (and part of that was using a shop vac to suck water out of the spa to be able to plug the main drain). The entire closing took me 7 hours with all the...

So, I got the 6 winterizing plates and I discovered that all the time I'd been assuming I had to remove the existing faceplate/nozzle to be able to attach them. However, they just screw onto the threaded part of the existing faceplate to make a water tight seal with the included rubber gasket (I...

Oh definitely. The year before last we had a couple of solid inches of ice on top of the pool. We'd also had a wet fall so the water level was higher than I normally let it get and there was some cracking of slate that's around the skimmer mouth. I really don't want pvc damage. In the absence of...

I have no covers for them - they never plugged those returns. We've owned the house 4 years, and the 4 times I've had the pool closed (with 2 different companies) none of them plugged or covered the returns in the spa, though they put plugs in the drain. This is one of the reasons I'm planning...