What did you do to your pool today?

Dirk said:

Though I gotta admit, that bucket bath felt so good I may have another... just because I can.

Click to expand...

Now THAT is TMI

OK, I mispoke earlier, THIS is the post that concludes the Filter Plug Down the Drain saga.

As I mentioned, the Pentair plug does not come with an o-ring. That arrived today, so I wanted to swap that in asap. Which meant emptying the filter again. But ah-ha! I had a new plan, born from the previous fiasco. I took some scraps of ABS I had laying around, and added a few elbows from Lowes, and fabricated this today:



And it fits into the drain hole in my pad (the one that sucked down my previous filter plug), like so:



Now, when I unscrew the drain plug, this ABS gizmo swings into place, under the filter plug's hole, and catches the water, diverting it right down the drain hole! Because the gizmo gets placed in the hole first, before I unscrew the drain plug, there's no way for the plug to get to the hole! I even sewed in a stainless steel screen to keep the plug from getting into the gizmo, which is something I could probably manage to do somehow:



The other thing I did differently was to leave the filter's purge valve closed! Last time I had it wide open, and that created the flood of water leaving the filter body that snatched up the plug. With the purge valve closed, the water glug-glugs out in a much more controlled flow, and one that doesn't overwhelm the gizmo.

It all worked really well, and probably only a few cups of water and a quarter cup of crud escaped onto the pad. The majority of both went right down the drain. Before, all that river rock would get flooded and filled with gunk. You can kind'a see in this pic how little water and gunk escaped.



So with any luck, I'll be able to use this gizmo for 20 or 30 years, once a year. So worth the time I spent on it today. And maybe it'll keep me from ever losing that plug again!!

And then I went for a nice swim!!

The golf course did some maintenance yesterday and dumped a bunch of grass clippings into the pool. So running the robot on wall mode for the first time in a long time to catch the stuff that is stuck to the sides of the pool.

And of course we are in full summer mode. The pool hit 91 degrees yesterday.

Dirk said:

Well, not pool related, but this post concludes my lost filter plug saga, and might enlighten others to something I just learned. I'm talking about my sewer backup problem, that I thought might have been caused by the filter plug I flushed. It wasn't. Just an odd coincidence that they happened within the same week.

So the plumber shows up early. Two trucks. Crew of three. My brain goes into ka-ching, ka-ching mode. They find the clean out, in the middle of my pool pad no less. That's my filter, and the smaller cap is the one that sucked down my filter plug. The bigger one, which I've never opened, is appararetly my house's clean-out. Great place for it.

View attachment 647616

So they fire up the snake. They get three feet down the bigger clean-out and crunch-crack. He hauls out the snake and the part he just broke. This was in my sewer clean-out (yellow end up):



He doesn't know what it is, but guesses it's part of my sewer system check valve. Did anyone know sewer lines have check valves? I sure didn't. Apparently, a good thing to have when your house is close to or lower than street level. Which mine is not. He recommended I get rid of it, which sounds good to me (since it was the reason I had the blockage, not the filter cap). So he proceeds to bust up the flapper, which is still in the sewer pipe and blocking it, with a long pipe. And that was the end of it.

Then he ran the sewer cam all the way to the sewer main. The cam operator moves the screen from my view, and the boss says "Well let him see, he's paying for it." Ka-ching, ka-ching. Turns out my entire sewer line is as clean as it gets. No crud. No roots. No filter plug! Good to go.

So they pack up and I cringe when I ask "how much." $250. I was floored. Extremely reasonable (IMO). Such a relief to have the problem solved, and solved permanently, and to learn my 15-year-old sewer line is in great shape. So worth it!!

So today is a good day. I caught a break. Though I gotta admit, that bucket bath felt so good I may have another... just because I can.

Click to expand...

There are a number of things here that I am not used to.

Main drain clean outs OUTSIDE? What a concept. That's not going to fly in the Northeast, unless of course you want to risk not being able to access your clean out for 4-5 months out of the year when it is frozen shut.

Drains where you can just dump stuff into your sanitary sewers? No bueno around here. Drains that handle things like rainwater, pool overflow, etc go into the ground. It keeps the sewage treatment plants from being overloaded, and it also lets the aquifers recharge. We have to have a certain amount of pervious ground here, and if you do not have enough, you have to build impoundment for rain water.

Some people, depending on elevation of the home, have backflow perverters on their sanitary drains. My brother does in his house. His basement flooded with sewage one too many times so he had one installed. His house is in a lower area, and when it really rains, it can back up the systems. Some areas (such as where he is) have not completely separated their sanitary and storm sewers, so you get that issue. Some areas have them separate, but have overflow interconnects, so if the sanitary system backs up, it flows into the storm, and then discharges untreated sewage into a river (lovely). Welcome to 100 year old infrastructure.

Some houses here still have main traps on the sanitary sewers. Way back in the day, before you had a P trap on each fixture, they just installed a single on the house. They clog frequently and back up your whole house. People usually have them removed.

phonedave said:

There are a number of things here that I am not used to.

Main drain clean outs OUTSIDE? What a concept. That's not going to fly in the Northeast, unless of course you want to risk not being able to access your clean out for 4-5 months out of the year when it is frozen shut.

Drains where you can just dump stuff into your sanitary sewers? No bueno around here. Drains that handle things like rainwater, pool overflow, etc go into the ground. It keeps the sewage treatment plants from being overloaded, and it also lets the aquifers recharge. We have to have a certain amount of pervious ground here, and if you do not have enough, you have to build impoundment for rain water.

Some people, depending on elevation of the home, have backflow perverters on their sanitary drains. My brother does in his house. His basement flooded with sewage one too many times so he had one installed. His house is in a lower area, and when it really rains, it can back up the systems. Some areas (such as where he is) have not completely separated their sanitary and storm sewers, so you get that issue. Some areas have them separate, but have overflow interconnects, so if the sanitary system backs up, it flows into the storm, and then discharges untreated sewage into a river (lovely). Welcome to 100 year old infrastructure.

Some houses here still have main traps on the sanitary sewers. Way back in the day, before you had a P trap on each fixture, they just installed a single on the house. They clog frequently and back up your whole house. People usually have them removed.

Click to expand...

In the south the cleanouts are pretty much always outside in the yard (usually in the flower bed). Basements are unusual here. I happen to have 2 - one is just for my kitchen then the main one.
One Being located on the pool equipment pad is a bit strange to me. Perhaps the pool came later than the house?
We have a septic system so draining pool effluent into it would be a big no no but those with city sewer are allowed to in our area I believe.

phonedave said:

There are a number of things here that I am not used to.

Main drain clean outs OUTSIDE? What a concept. That's not going to fly in the Northeast, unless of course you want to risk not being able to access your clean out for 4-5 months out of the year when it is frozen shut.

Drains where you can just dump stuff into your sanitary sewers? No bueno around here. Drains that handle things like rainwater, pool overflow, etc go into the ground. It keeps the sewage treatment plants from being overloaded, and it also lets the aquifers recharge. We have to have a certain amount of pervious ground here, and if you do not have enough, you have to build impoundment for rain water.

Some people, depending on elevation of the home, have backflow perverters on their sanitary drains. My brother does in his house. His basement flooded with sewage one too many times so he had one installed. His house is in a lower area, and when it really rains, it can back up the systems. Some areas (such as where he is) have not completely separated their sanitary and storm sewers, so you get that issue. Some areas have them separate, but have overflow interconnects, so if the sanitary system backs up, it flows into the storm, and then discharges untreated sewage into a river (lovely). Welcome to 100 year old infrastructure.

Some houses here still have main traps on the sanitary sewers. Way back in the day, before you had a P trap on each fixture, they just installed a single on the house. They clog frequently and back up your whole house. People usually have them removed.

Click to expand...

We don't think much about how different climates call for different solutions around our homes. It never occurred to me that a clean-out would have to be inside in some climates. Makes perfect sense.

I'm sure the city would not be happy about me dumping pool water into the sewer. I know we can't empty an entire pool into it (and I don't). But the amount of water in my small filter is probably less than a shower's worth.

My house is not only above the street, but one of the higher houses on the street (and no basement). Those below, down the street, are going to get hit with a backed-up main long before I would. That's not to say it couldn't happen to me, but that check valve caused me more trouble than I've ever had with a sewer, in any house I've owned. I think ripping it out is a minimal risk where I live. I live in a 15-year-old neighborhood, so I gotta hope our infrastructure around here is OK.

Mdragger88 said:

In the south the cleanouts are pretty much always outside in the yard (usually in the flower bed). Basements are unusual here. I happen to have 2 - one is just for my kitchen then the main one.
One Being located on the pool equipment pad is a bit strange to me. Perhaps the pool came later than the house?
We have a septic system so draining pool effluent into it would be a big no no but those with city sewer are allowed to in our area I believe.

Click to expand...

My pool pad was poured well after the house was built, so that explains why the clean out is where it is. The pad is located in about the only spot it could be in my yard. But no one has a good explanation why I have that secondary smaller drain, right next to the clean out. Perhaps the pool builder anticipated the need for it, just as I use it. Either way, it worked out perfectly for me. I'm just grateful the pool contractor didn't just pour the pad right over the clean-out! I think that happened to my neighbor when he extended his driveway. We can't find his clean-out!

Mdragger88 said:

One Being located on the pool equipment pad is a bit strange to me. Perhaps the pool came later than the house?

Click to expand...

Oddly enough, mine is also on my pool pad, because the pad was added much later. I didn't want the pad to encompass it but didn't have much choice. Or I was ignorant in my planning and instead of putting the equipment out in the yard and building a shed around it, I let the PB put it right up next to the house.

--Jeff

Well about to take another trip so I always get a little OCD about the pool before that. Noticed that my FC dipped to 7 (which is the danger zone for me). Checked CYA and it was down to 50. Pool temps have been hitting the 90’s and we did have one big rain so it’s back to the summer of disappearing CYA for me.

Anyway dumped 4lbs of CYA in and it back up to 90. FC has been climbing back to 11 where I feel happier.

Turns out managing the 2nd largest navy takes some work and down time for maintenance. Sending the Aiper S1 back for a defective charging plug. The Betta SE Plus is going back for a debris releasing modification.

However, all is good since I maintain a two war doctrine around here. The Betta SE still going strong and have the M500 for submersible action.

It might be time to commission a 3rd surface vessel as the Aiper S2 Surfer looks really cool.

Katodude said:

It might be time to commission a 3rd surface vessel as the Aiper S2 Surfer looks really cool.

Click to expand...

Add maybe one more and you’ll have a full pool cover.

dereksanders said:

The Dolphin’s power supply won’t power up on the third use. Submitted the service request. Sigh.

Click to expand...

Gotta say, I’m not real happy with Maytronics’ warranty process. “The order is being processed” is the last communication from them 2 days ago. I asked when I can expect it and have been met with silence for over 24 hours. Sent another message today. I doubt I’ll hear anything until Tuesday at the earliest.

Grrrrrr

I have been tracking my chlorine levels in regards to pool use, autocover, and SWG. This is my first full year of having the pool so I am still in the learning phase.

Added more CYA. Last “test” showed 70. Now between 50 and 60. Stupid dot test. Sun has been blazing and FC dropped to 7. Also added a leftover gallon of LC just to bump FC back up. Everything looks and feels great, though! Water is crystal clear and still below 80°, so the chiller is still idle.

I tried out the wall whale today. It certainly makes brushing the walls a breeze, and dare I say pleasurable! Yeah, it’s overkill for my pool but I’ll take the easy way on this.

Manually vacuumed the pool today, too. Grrrrr.

Done! I completed the upgrades to my Small Animal Defense System! I've been working on them, on and off, for months. I just finished a minute ago!

I installed a gopher fence some time ago, but the squirrels wreaked havoc last year in the dirt on the outside of it. So I had to fill in all their holes (which became craters and tunnels and troughs) and then I covered the whole area with hardware cloth. My gopher fence was topped with a set of shock wires, but I've seen squirrels jump right in between them, and a skunk made it through once, too, though he got zapped pretty good. So I added three more wires to lessen the gaps, and upgraded the transformer from a 2-mile, 0.7 Joule unit to a Power Wizard PW2000 (35-mile, 2.0 Joules). They can probably still jump over it (cats do), but if they get zapped once, they should then leave it alone.

The original fence had two wires, the one on top and the second from the bottom. I added two in the middle and the lowest one. A squirrel could squeeze through, but not before getting nailed. Also shown is the new hardware cloth ground cover. It's an experiment in progress, with mixed results. Squirrels are leaving it alone, but gophers are still coming up underneath it. Not sure what to do about that failure, but I'll fill in their holes and maybe they'll eventually give up. But gopher holes don't cause nearly the amount of structural damage that squirrel holes do, so the cloth is at least a partial success (so far). The gopher fence is 100% effective at keep the gophers from tunneling into my garden, inside the fence. They're only still messing with the dirt on the outside.



Here's the dum-dum skunk going through. I caught it on video. The wire energizer pulses once a second, so he got half way through before the first shock. His tail shot straight up, but he was jammed in there and couldn't back out. So he forged ahead and got zapped a few more times. That was with the old energizer, so the shock was not too bad. I hope he learned his lesson. I haven't seen him inside the fence since. If he gets shocked with the new energizer, he definitely won't try it again! Note the ground by the gopher fence, newly regraded, but before the hardware cloth went down. It was a complete war-zone before I fixed it.

Here's the squirrel hole repair in progress. It was much worse before I started. I pounded down the holes and tunnels as best I could with the sledge, then filled the resulting troughs with broken glass. Then backfilled all that. This is just one section, the damaged area was about 30' long and about 4' wide. After regrading, I covered it all with hardware cloth, on both sides of the gopher fence. Over 100' of it, times two (cloth on both sides of the gopher fence). Massive job!!



I upgraded my water bowl, too. I had originally installed this, down below my house a ways, to keep small animals from seeking the pool or chewing on my drip tubing. Which has worked. It was kept full by running a drip tube to it. But I've recently upped the fertilizer amount in my auto-fertilizing system, which runs through my drip system. I realized that I shouldn't be watering animals with fertilizer water. So I ran a dedicated drip tube from my hose bib to the bowl, so that I can now fill it with uncontaminated water, without having to truck down the hill to do it. Same system I use to fill my fountain. Note my nifty Orbit timer you all turned me onto. Before that, I would regularly flood my garden for hours when I would go to fill my fountain and then just wander off and forget about it.



Here's the bowl down the hill behind my house, with the new fill tubing above it. I keep a couple of kitchen utensils down there to fish out the leaves once in a while. They're hanging from a pole stuck into the ground. There's quite a menagerie that use it: deer, fox, raccoons, possums, skunks, cats, squirrels and every kind of bird (and who knows what all else). I realize I'm inviting them into my property with this fresh water supply, but they're going to take water one way or another. Either from this bowl, or my pool or my drip system. The bowl is the lesser evil. Note the freshly cut grass. I love it like this.



Whew. So that's it. I hope these improvements will work even better at keeping animals out of my yard and pool! On to the next big summer project...

You could also try a neutron bomb. LOL Wow, trench warfare at it's finest in the animal world. You could also dig a trench and bury the hardware vertically about 3 feet down to stop the golphers headed under your fence. But that might be best with a trencher as it's a LOT of digging. Just an idea as I've never had to deal with this myself.

TinFoilHat said:

You could also dig a trench and bury the hardware vertically about 3 feet down to stop the golphers headed under your fence. But that might be best with a trencher as it's a LOT of digging. Just an idea as I've never had to deal with this myself.

Click to expand...

Been there, done that! That's what my gopher fence is. Got the idea from Gophers Limited. Four feet wide stainless steel mesh (1/2" x 1/2"), bent 6" at the top, and 6" at the bottom, so three feet tall, buried two feet underground, with one foot sticking out of the ground. Gopher's only dig a few inches down, so two feet down does the job. The 6" shelf on the bottom discourages them from digging down and under when they hit the fence. The 6" shelf on top keeps them from crawling over the top when they are out and about at night. I added the PVC supports to stiffen the fence above ground, and extended them to support the shock wires. The wires are mostly for raccoons and skunks. Possums can climb trees and fences to circumvent the gopher fence, but I expect they've probably tasted wire, too. I did, indeed, use a trencher. Those things are awesome and surprisingly easy to operate.

It's been quite a battle. I would say I'm "winning," but it's an ongoing one, as they are relentless. Before the gopher fence, they were in my yard. They ate a lawn. They ate trees. Bushes. Everything. Since the fence, I've only seen maybe one or two holes, though I think those were squirrels. The fence mostly stops my ground squirrels, too, as they don't dig very deep either. I think a couple squirrels came in over a fence, or maybe from the neighbor's yard.

The city maintains a 30-acre open area behind my house, which I fell in love with the day I first saw the property. It's an amazing oak forest with hiking and biking trails. But it's home to quite a population of critters. It's a fair trade, because if that area wasn't open like that, there'd be a housing development back there. And the only thing worse than the critters I have would be the humans. And nobody wants them!!

I like the neutron bomb idea. I'm going to look into that...

Checked on the pool today before I left for work. I'll be doing an OCLT tomorrow night. I can see the robot in the deep end from the kitchen windows.

Nice! You're almost there.

TinFoilHat said:

Nice! You're almost there.

Click to expand...

Started last Sunday. I'm working 12 hr midnight shifts so have to wait til I'm off to finish her up which is tomorrow morning. I'm ready to swim.