Opening our new to us pool for the first time! Unveil the swamp!

Nov 14, 2015
252
Chicagoland, IL
Pool Size
27000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
We decided to go ahead and see what we can do to get working in our new to us, closed for nearly 3 years, pool. It's an exciting day!

We got the skimmers pulling water, but we can't seem to get the pump to pull from the main drain, when wet turn the valves so only the main drain is open. We cannot see the drain(s?) through the darkness of our swap at the deep end. Are main drains usually plugged?

The deepest part is 7ft deep, and its only the area from in front of the slide to the spa covered in the orange tarp. It slopes up to about 4.5 feet deep in the far right corner, and then slopes up to about 3 ft deep in the shallow end, from what we can tell.

Also, feeling dumb when we unplugged what we though were returns (depressions in the wall, where some kind of grate goes over them?) nothing came out. Thinking maybe these are where the infloor cleaning system takes up water to pump through the infloor system? When we turned on the return valve, we saw two areas bubbling up from the deep end. Are those our returns? I figured they would be away from the drains, but I got nothing in the shallow end.

We're just trying to get the plumbing system going, to make sure it's all there (forcolsure! missing parts!) and we'll start tackling the water once our test kit comes in. The in floor system does not work at this time, so we're probably going to pick up a cheapy vacuum and hose set up from somewhere, until we can figure out what we're missing with the infloor system (LOTS of popups, plus 2 gear modules, and maybe other stuff?)


Help on figuring out how to get suction on the main drain??

Here's what our swamp looks like today.



You can kinda see the bottom. Lots of sediment. It's about 3 feet deep here.




Here's a link to other photos of our equipment.

West St | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
 
No, they aren't still set that way. those pix were from last fall, valves all closed. Being that we're total noobs, we opened one valve at a time to try to figure out which ran which skimmer. All 3 of the skimmers worked when singled out, but the drain did not. When we had the 3 skimmers closed, and the main drain open, the pump wasn't moving anything.
 
Okay, learning more about skimmers. Our skimmers have 2 holes on the bottom. When we opened the skimmer cap, there were antifreeze bottles, and open hole in the bottom towards the pool, and another, farther from the pool, was plugged. WE had mo movement through the pump until we removed the plug. What's the second hole (one that was left open when winterized) for? I'm reading that it could either be connected to the main drain, necessitating some kind of valve or diverter system which we do not have (no skimmer baskets either, yet) OR that the the one closest to the pool should be plugged? I'm going to guess the first, in which case, is that why we wouldn't be getting water movement through the main drain pipe? and also, if so, why would we even need a main drain valve?
 
If they winterized the pool then the main drain would be plugged. I would wait until the pool is swimable to check the main drain for a plug. Sometimes the main drain is plugged because it leaks and they choose not to have it repaired. It will be easier to deal with a leaking main drain when the water is clean and at a comfortable temperature. Many pools do not have main drains and function well without them.
 
Regarding the returns - would they be in the floor of the deep end? I was expecting to find them in the walls, but there are many plugged holes and I'm not sure what is what.

I'm really feeling the sting of all the equipment that walked off. I bet there was a box full of pop up cleaner heads, return jets, skimmer baskets, in floor cleaning gear modules, drain grates, etc. that walked off or got thrown away :(

but it before we can clear up our swamp the returns need to work.

We we are going to clean out the spa. Maybe we can get returns working there, and have that spill over into the pool as a substitute for pool returns? Is that a good idea or bad one?
 
We're off to the races!

We got the pool returns working. There are still some holes plugged in the wall that we do not know what they do. some of them are under the skimmers?

We don't have a full pool test kit yet, but I tested the pH using a basic kit we had left over from a different project. Water is at 8.2+

I'm stoked! Other half wants use use the 1 lb back of shock we have from the aforementioned previous project, and also buy more of it, because it's cheaper than liquid bleach (because of 8% bleach in liquid vs 70% in granulated shock?). I'm insisting on full testing of water before adding anything.

I think we'll be getting a k-2600 because other half is impatient and doesn't want to wait for something to be shipped.
 

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thats the one we looked for, but we couldnt find it locally. We have a Leslie's but they only had their own brand, so no test today. I'm ordering a tft100 kit, and I hope it will be here by Wednesday or Thursday.

Husband is concerned about algae growing this week. Should we be adding anything while we wait? muriatic acid to bring down pH? Chlorine to keep it in check?
 
PH tests are pretty accurate so go ahead and lower it down. Retest to make sure you get in 7.5-7.8 range as 8.2+ could be anywhere...
You can add a jug of bleach every day until your kit arrives.
Scoop and brush as always!

- - - Updated - - -

Are you actually in the city?
 
The hole that had a grate over it.............where was it? I wonder if it could be for overflow? As in it will drain water if the water gets that high. Nice thing to have do you do not have to run out in the rain or worry about it when you are gone.

Kim:cat:
 
There's a white circular grate about 3-4 ft down, on the wall between the slide and the spa. I found that one of the things we have is a place for an auto leveler/fill, but the equipment is missing from the case in the deck, and, since this is well water, and is hard and has iron in it, I' m not sure we'd use that?
 
If you do not want to use your well water you can find a way to harvest rain water. There are several videos and such showing different ideas. Maybe one of them will work for your house and set up.

You can "filter" the water before it gets to your pool. There was one I say just yesterday (not that I can find it today :rolleyes:) that had the hose going into a household filter before it went in the pool.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DuPont-H...gclid=CLLu88iUk80CFUc2gQodDqIJvA&gclsrc=aw.ds

Just some ideas for you as you work your way through getting this pool set up.

We also bought a foreclosed house and pool. The stuff they took :( unreal! BUT we were able to do all of the work ourselves so got a great deal!

Kim:cat:
 
Test kit should be arriving in 2 days! Meanwhile, we're trying to learn more about our equipment - downloading manuals and seeing what's really missing.

Did the muriatic acid to lower the PH and overshot, so now we're at 6.8 or less. Oh well. I added a gallon of bleach this evening, and will do another tomorrow, as I've seen people recommend when waiting on a test kit and prepping for a SLAM.

Also waiting on filter pieces/cartridges, and picking out a vacuum, so we're not doing any vacuuming, but we have socks on the skimmer baskets to catch stuff.

I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a transformation in the appearance of our pool this weekend!
 

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