Wife and I just got the keys to our new house earlier this afternoon, with our first pool we've ever owned. It's...a bit of a fixer upper.
Pretty sure it hasn't seen a drop of chlorine since our offer was accepted a month ago. Also, the deck itself is REALLY scummy and green where it was covered up by the automatic cover. On the bright side, the water level is pretty much exactly same as it was three weeks ago, and since nobody seems to have touched the pool I feel safe believing there aren't any unseen leaks in the plumbing.
The power cover tarp itself is ripped, threadbare, and disgusting, but we have a quote to replace the material that I'm trying to get moving quickly. Our county ordinance allows a safety cover in lieu of a fence, but I don't think anyone with eyes will think the tattered mess of a cover that's there now qualifies as a safety device.
This is my equipment pad:
The large pipe goes to the return jets, the small one goes to the water slide.
The heat pump isn't piped because it's busted. There's a Goldline panel for a SWCG, but the salt cell isn't piped in because it is a shattered mess. The pump housing is cracked--the pump moves water but it won't self-prime, and it sucks air in the low pressure side while running.
I think the sand filter is ok? The pool guys who did the inspection for us prior to making an offer on the house had to replace a busted gauge, but it doesn't look like it's spitting out sand like I'd expect if it had broken laterals? They didn't actually open the filter up during the inspection, which makes me slightly nervous since every other piece of equipment seems to have undergone severe winter damage for the system to be in this state.
This is a literal black box installed a few feet from the pool deck. All I can make out on it are some faded instructions on how far away and at what elevation to install it with relation to the pool itself. There are also those two metal pins that look like temperature probes that also look like they have some sort of epoxy coating that's cracking and flaking off of the temperature-probe-looking-thingys.
THE PLAN:
I have a TF-100 testing kit with ALL the bells and whistles on order, so hopefully I'll be able to see what the chemistry looks like next week. I have quotes in--and reimbursment from the last owners--to replace the cover tarp, the heat pump, and the filter pump. I also plan on having them install a salt cell while they're at it since I already have a control panel for it anyway and my family has some bad sensitive skin issues.
The quote they gave (and the money I got from the previous owners )is for a like-for-like single speed pump. I'm going to pay extra to replace the pump with a VSD instead. There's no rebate program for doing this, but it just seems more conscientious to me. I have separate quotes for a Waterway Power Defender 140 ($1000) and a Hayward PowerPump VS700 ($1500) which I'm currently mulling over. Near as I can tell, the primary difference between the two is the WEF of the Waterway is 9.58 and the WEF of the Hayward is 10.9. By my quick calculations, that's not nearly enough for the electricity savings to actually pay for themselves (it's just a couple dollars a year difference), so if I did it it'd almost purely be for the warm and fuzzy feeling of saving 15% more energy.
I'm debating adding some chlorine to at least stave off the petri dish growing even more microbe population even before I get my testing kit, but I don't know if I really want to do that with the pump in it's current state or if I might make things worse.
I'm know I'm going to need to restore some sort of chemical balance before I fire up a SWCG, but I'm not sure if it's necessary before the cell is installed?
The previous owners left behind a brush, a skimmer net, and a pool cover pump, but that pool floor is DEFINITELY going to need vacuumed, as soon as I learn which ones are good to buy.
I'm guessing I can power wash the scum on the deck, but I'm not sure how to prevent that issue from happening later. I plan on keeping that cover on at all times the pool is not in use, and to me it would seem like moisture is just going to get trapped in that area that way.
Pretty sure it hasn't seen a drop of chlorine since our offer was accepted a month ago. Also, the deck itself is REALLY scummy and green where it was covered up by the automatic cover. On the bright side, the water level is pretty much exactly same as it was three weeks ago, and since nobody seems to have touched the pool I feel safe believing there aren't any unseen leaks in the plumbing.
The power cover tarp itself is ripped, threadbare, and disgusting, but we have a quote to replace the material that I'm trying to get moving quickly. Our county ordinance allows a safety cover in lieu of a fence, but I don't think anyone with eyes will think the tattered mess of a cover that's there now qualifies as a safety device.
This is my equipment pad:
The large pipe goes to the return jets, the small one goes to the water slide.
The heat pump isn't piped because it's busted. There's a Goldline panel for a SWCG, but the salt cell isn't piped in because it is a shattered mess. The pump housing is cracked--the pump moves water but it won't self-prime, and it sucks air in the low pressure side while running.
I think the sand filter is ok? The pool guys who did the inspection for us prior to making an offer on the house had to replace a busted gauge, but it doesn't look like it's spitting out sand like I'd expect if it had broken laterals? They didn't actually open the filter up during the inspection, which makes me slightly nervous since every other piece of equipment seems to have undergone severe winter damage for the system to be in this state.
This is a literal black box installed a few feet from the pool deck. All I can make out on it are some faded instructions on how far away and at what elevation to install it with relation to the pool itself. There are also those two metal pins that look like temperature probes that also look like they have some sort of epoxy coating that's cracking and flaking off of the temperature-probe-looking-thingys.
THE PLAN:
I have a TF-100 testing kit with ALL the bells and whistles on order, so hopefully I'll be able to see what the chemistry looks like next week. I have quotes in--and reimbursment from the last owners--to replace the cover tarp, the heat pump, and the filter pump. I also plan on having them install a salt cell while they're at it since I already have a control panel for it anyway and my family has some bad sensitive skin issues.
The quote they gave (and the money I got from the previous owners )is for a like-for-like single speed pump. I'm going to pay extra to replace the pump with a VSD instead. There's no rebate program for doing this, but it just seems more conscientious to me. I have separate quotes for a Waterway Power Defender 140 ($1000) and a Hayward PowerPump VS700 ($1500) which I'm currently mulling over. Near as I can tell, the primary difference between the two is the WEF of the Waterway is 9.58 and the WEF of the Hayward is 10.9. By my quick calculations, that's not nearly enough for the electricity savings to actually pay for themselves (it's just a couple dollars a year difference), so if I did it it'd almost purely be for the warm and fuzzy feeling of saving 15% more energy.
I'm debating adding some chlorine to at least stave off the petri dish growing even more microbe population even before I get my testing kit, but I don't know if I really want to do that with the pump in it's current state or if I might make things worse.
I'm know I'm going to need to restore some sort of chemical balance before I fire up a SWCG, but I'm not sure if it's necessary before the cell is installed?
The previous owners left behind a brush, a skimmer net, and a pool cover pump, but that pool floor is DEFINITELY going to need vacuumed, as soon as I learn which ones are good to buy.
I'm guessing I can power wash the scum on the deck, but I'm not sure how to prevent that issue from happening later. I plan on keeping that cover on at all times the pool is not in use, and to me it would seem like moisture is just going to get trapped in that area that way.
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