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You are always supposed to shut your heater off about 5-10 minutes before your pump so that the heater has a chance to cool down while the water is still circulating and you don't have extremely hot water in the heat exchanger when the water isn't moving. What happens when you have an...

The Sonoff THR320D is a smart switch that can control a load up to 20A and which also has a Dry Contact relay. I have flashed this with Tasmota and I am using this device as a smart switch to remotely turn my pump on and off and to control the heater via the dry contact relay connected to my...

I would prefer to run my pool pump at night as my electricity is WAY less overnight. My pool is covered most days by a solar cover. Any downside to the pump not running during the day. I have a SWCG as well so I need to run the pump enough so that it is generating enough chlorine, which I can...

On the doc here on opening your pool (Opening your pool- An easy to follow guide) it says: My pool was just opened with the water at 53F. I live in Toronto and the pool was closed in mid-October. I have a mesh cover. Every year when my pool is opened it is pretty green and gross, and I don't...

I live in Toronto. My pool was uncovered a few days ago (I have a mesh safety cover). As is always the case upon uncovering the pool is cloudy and greenish and had some debris including leaves, dirt, etc. So I have shocked it and it is clearing up. It has been vacuumed but I still need to do...

My pool opened this week. This was done by a service - I maintain my pool myself but I have them open and close the pool. After opening I was getting a lot of air from the return jets and lots of air in the pump basket. It appears that the problem was that the drain plug on my pump (Hayward...

Here is a picture of some of the tubing in my spa. There is a rather thin tube that is very brown and feels kind of gummy. This is just after my flow switch where there is a hard plastic connector. I am not sure where this goes - perhaps someone else has an idea. Is this an issue? Should...

I was having this discussion and I read on Pool School here where it says that for vinyl pools then CH doesn't matter. But they insisted that it did matter if you have a heater. I would think that with a heater or SWCG that lower calcuium means less limescale buildup. Anyone know the answer...

Does anyone else find this, especially in my spa. There is a bit of a different smell that is distinctive when the pH is 7 or lower. Or am I crazy?

I live in Toronto where in the winter we typically get a few days where the temperature gets down to -15C. I use an SWCG for sanitizing my pool, but I keep a few jugs of liquid chlorine around, I use refillable 10L containers from my local pool shop. Since I built my pool about 16 years ago I...

My spa is about a 2006 Jacuzzi J345. These valves were VERY hard to turn and the handles, which were pretty flimsy plastic, broke. I haven't used the diverter valves in years, when I did I used a pair of pliers or channel locks to turn the valve. Anyone know if there are better quality...

I have a Jacuzzi J-345 spa that is about 16 years old. I bought some Ahhsome a while ago but never got around to using it until now. I put in the Ahhsome and ran the spa for about 45 minutes. There was green scummy foam, but not as much as I expected given the tub has not been purged and has...

Why do I want to do this? I live in Toronto and I have a Jacuzzi J345 tub that is from about 2006 and it does not have any sort of timer or scheduler functionality. My electricity costs vary a lot by time of day, so I want to control when my tub’s heater is running. Overnight my costs are...

I would like to be able to monitor all of my data on a dashboad that I am going to create. After doing my tests I enter the results into PoolMath on my phone. Is there a PoolMatch API that would allow me to retrieve my test results from the cloud (I am assuming that my results get uploaded to...

I am working on setting up a Raspberry Pi for next year to monitor my pool system, including logging temperatures and heating. I would like to know when my heater is running. Is there any way to tell this by sensing an open or closed circuit on the heater's electronics? I could put a...

[Note - I am not debating the pros and cons of the carbon tax or the politics of the situation. I am just starting a discussion on whether it makes sense to buy a new natural gas pool heater in Canada, assuming that the carbon tax regime stays the same as it is today.] I am in Toronto and have...

I recently posted to an old thread on pool automation. I was politely chastised for reviving an old thread, and my post was deleted. Why is this a policy? In some instances doesn't it make sense to continue a thread that may be dormant for a year or more that is exactly on the topic that you...

There is an old thread here, and a project on Github called AquapureD that seems to have been quiet for four years. Anyone do anything interesting in this space? I would like to be able to pool info from the SWCG controller, like temp, salinity level, flow status, etc.

My pool is a bit of an irregular shape so my solar cover is an 18'x36' cut into two 18' squares. I have taken off my solar cover and cleaned it with my pressure washer but when I took it off it was very windy so I didn't want to leave it out, lest it get blown away. So I haver folded it up for...

My spa is a jacuzzi and it has these foam headrest pillows. After a few years the pillows start getting black spots on them - and it appears that the pillows that are used more get more spots. Anyone know why this is the case and what, if anything, you can do to prevent this or slow down the...

My pool has a SWCG and the pool is open from May-October. In every previous year as the summer progresses the pH creeps up and I have to add MA. This year that has not happened, it has gone down a touch since my pool was uncovered a couple of months ago. Anyone have an idea why this would be...

This is a typical situation in my spa. I will do a test. pH is 8.2, TA is 50. I will add some MA to bring the pH down to 7.4 but the TA falls to 20. So I add banking soda to get the TA back to 50 and the pH goes back above 8. Rinse and repeat. How do I win this battle?

I grew up with a pool at my parents house and when I moved into my current house 16 years ago I immediately had an in-ground pool put in. I never had a solar cover for my pool until a few weeks ago. Now that I have had the cover for a a little while I thought I would post a few comments on the...

We had 82mm of rain here in Toronto today and my pool is now a bit overfull - in that the water level is above the skimmer. Is there any downside to this, other than the skimmer not skimming debris from the pool? I normally have to add water back in every few weeks, so I am loathe to pump out...

I have been using Taylor/TFTkits for about a decade or so. Earlier this year I ordered a completely new test kit from TFT - I got the Pro Salt bundle. Maybe it is my eyes but when I compare the results of the OTO yellow colour to a FAS-DPD. For example, from the yellow OTO I will get a...

Attached is a photo of my pool. It is kind of an irregular shaped 18'x36' rectangle, which I now regret as it wouldn't be easy to put a solar cover on it. Would I be able to get two squarished shaped covers to put over either end of the pool ratehr than an irregularly shaped cover? If so...

I was looking up my cost of natural gas as I started heating my pool this past weekend. My all in cost for natural gas ia about $0.43/m^3. The direct cost for gas has come down recently and is about $0.10/m^3. But the carbon tax is now $0.124/m^3. The carbon tax is scheduled to continue to...

A few suggestions, It would be nice to be able to export pool test results to csv or xls files. Include a time stamp and test results Be able to graph test results over time - like a graph of FC and CC over time. Ability to turn off CYA readings. One of my "pools" is my Jacuzzi spa which is...

My spa was originally using Bromine pucks. A few years ago I switched to a drape over SWCG. My spa is a jacuzzi tub that is covered by a 4" thick foam cover when not in use. Assuming that the spa is fine and CC is below 0.5 is there any need to ever shock the spa?

I have a Dolphin that is about five years old. It is working somewhat as it collects debris, but the pool still has lots of smaller debris in the bottom that the Dolphin is not collecting. When I empty the basket I can see that it is collecting some debris from the pool, including small...