New Construction: Cathedral City CA

[Yorker]

Sounds to me like the actuators on your deck jet valve and your spa suction are both not set to fully close their respective valves. The cams need adjusting most likely.

Thanks Marty. Do you think that is effecting both the deck jet leak AND the spa draining when vacuuming? OH! what is a "cam"?;-)

The hose collapse is from the pump running at too high rpm. Lower the rpm for vac and see what happens.

I reset the rpms in the ScreenLogic (SL) phone app to 3000 rpm's and a few seconds later it jumps back to 3450. I've tried a number of times, and also quit the app and re opened it with the same results. Checked, and don't see an update for the app either. Just went into the desktop version of SL, made the change, it worked and showed 3000 on the phone app.

 

[mknauss]

Both actuators may not be set correctly. There is a cam set up inside the actuator that determines the stop points when the actuator moves. If the stop point is such that the valve does not fully close, then what you are describing would happen.

One option is to take the actuator off (4 screws) and move the valve to fully closed for the line you want closed. Then see if it happens.

 

[Yorker]

One option is to take the actuator off (4 screws) and move the valve to fully closed for the line you want closed. Then see if it happens.

Thanks Marty, for now I don't want to mess with a warrantable item, so we'll see what the PB says and I'll post the progress on that. I did find a thread here for repairing actuators. Lots of good info and photos (I like photos. This will be good for me when the warranty ends.

 

[Dirk]

I was intimidated by my actuators and trying to figure out the cams, but I got it on the first try and it is very simple. That said... this is dead on:

I don't want to mess with a warrantable item

Your numbers look great. Nice job. I'd try to keep the FC above 3, though, try and make 4 your minimum, just to give you a little extra buffer. CSI is good. Once you add salt and start up the SWG, you'll be shooting for -0.3 to 0.

Any signs of calcium building up anywhere?

 

[Yorker]

Any signs of calcium building up anywhere?

The salt cell still looked like it was new last month before the refill. But a different story on the tile ... See post #604. I've tried pumice stone, diluted and full strength (14.5%) MA with zero reduction.

Marty commented: "...Kieserite blasting is a method used for removal of scale buildup. Soda blasting is another, but that messes with your water chemistry quite a bit. "

And Brian commented: "... That looks like calcium silicate scale from new plaster and if so, full strength acid will not touch it." and "... Calcium Carbonate will react with acid by fizzing and dissolving. Calcium Silicate will not be impacted by full strength acid and usually can only be removed by media blasting."

 

[Dirk]

Oh, yah, I weighed in on that already. I take it you didn't address it while the pool was empty. Marty says you get that no matter what you do. I can only add that I'm in a very sunny clime with temps of 90-100+ regularly (so plenty of evaporation), and I still can't find a spec of calcium on my edge tile. Well, there are specs, but I can't be sure those weren't left over from before my tile blasting. Mostly in the grout, where I guess they can't really concentrate blasting without removing grout. I imagine the problem is worse for falls and spills.

Anywho, since I don't imagine your CSI was being looked after all that well before you took over, now that you have, maybe you'll see less build up. I've been CSI-obsessed since day one of my new pebble, and I'm getting good results from that MO. If what you have on your pool is like what I had, and like the stuff my old Polaris was spraying all over my windows, there seems to be no chemical solution, as Brian says. My stone-cleaner guru tried every trick up his sleeve, chemically, only buffing with a very fine abrasive worked on the glass, and media blasting on the edge tile.

I could go find the stuff we used on the glass (kinda like cleanser, but finer), and I suppose you could try some elbow grease, but I can't speak to what that would do to your finish. No harm to my glass, is all I can attest to. We used the powder and the correct 3M scubbie in the corners and edges where the buffer couldn't reach, and with enough "grease" we got'er'dun.

I can get you the exact material specs if you're interested. Otherwise BLAST!

 

[Yorker]

Mornin!

30 days of curing has passed, so today I starting adding and monitoring salt levels over the next few days (or more) until the salt level is sufficient for the SWG to function correctly. A couple new questions have come up.

1 - Do I keep pMath set and maintain targets for a Chlorine Pool until the SWG starts creating chlorine, then switch pMath to the Salt Pool I previously set up in pMath?

2 - Is it ok to start heating the spa tonight or wait until this transition period is over?

 

[Yorker]

Hmm one more question:

Here are my numbers this morning
FC: 5
CC: 0
ph: 8.2 (7.7 last night)
TA: 70
CA: 320
CYA: 30
SALT: 400
CSI: .58 (if I re tested pH in an hour the csi should be -.01. Last night the csi was -.06)
Temp: 79

Before adding the 16oz of MA this morning pMath calculated the amount of salt needed to get 2400. Do I need to wait a bit before adding the salt to allow the MA to mix with the pool water, then retest the salt level to see it that has changed?

 

[mknauss]

No. That amount of MA by itself adds a tiny amount of salt.

 

[Yorker]

Thanks Marty - It's been about 40 min since I added the MA - is it ok to start adding the 4 - 40lb bags of salt now?

 

[mknauss]

Sure. Dump away!!!

 

[kimkats]

Then swim under water to see the pretty diamonds! That will also help mix it up too!

 

[Yorker]

Then swim under water to see the pretty diamonds! That will also help mix it up too!

Dang! Did I wait too long? It's only been two hours and it looks like the salt has dissolved. I swam along the bottom, and walked all over and felt nothing :-( ... or .

ScreenLogic still says the salt level is 600 (same as before the salt was added). But if I recall correctly, ScreenLogic takes a while to update.

 

[mknauss]

The IC only 'measures' the salinity every 12 hours or at power up. You are best to not power up the IC until the pool has circulated at least for a day..

Do you have a main drain? If so, this is a good time to pull from it. The high salinity water wants to sit at the bottom of the pool. Pulling your suction from the bottom helps mix it up.

 

[Yorker]

The IC only 'measures' the salinity every 12 hours or at power up. You are best to not power up the IC until the pool has circulated at least for a day.

By "Power Up" do you mean increasing the Intellichlor Output above 0%? That's where it has been since the new pebble was done.

At 1:00 I tested the salt level with the Taylor R-1766. It shows the salinity at 2800ppm, just 4 hrs after adding the salt. I know it is probably no where near fully mixed, I'll test it again this evening and see what the changes are.

UPDATE: At 5:30 the drop test read 2600. We'll see what is says in the morning after running the pump at 2700rpms for 24 hours.

UPDATE … TO MY UPDATE: 9:00pm
Some background here first. Earlier this week I created some new “Features" in the ScreenLogic App. I wanted to set the pump when it’s in POOL MODE to sometimes run at 2000 rpms (I named this Pool Low) and othersome times at 2700 rpms (named Pool 2700).

After looking more closely at the desktop ScreenLogic application, I’m sure I’m confused with ScreenLogic’s terms “Feature”, “Mode” and “Aux”.

Anyway, this morning the Pool (low) Mode I scheduled came on at 7am, running at 2000 rpms, before adding the MA and Salt I turned off the “Pool (low) Mode” and turned on the 2700 rpm Feature I created to circulate the salt. I did not realize that the IC40 did not light up, so all day when I was looking at the App I saw 600ppm salt level (and the output was still set to Zero%). I now see that the IC40 did not come on, but when I turned off the2700rpm feature and turned on Pool (low) Mode, the IC40 cell lite up, lights flashing and settled on solid Green for salt level aswell as flow. When I went back and looked at the App, it showed the salt level to be 2900ppm (though the Taylor R-1766 testedit at 2600)

So for now my more pressing questions are:
1 - Can we turn the heater on tonight (for the spa)?

2 - If by tomorrow morning (with the IC40 on) if the lights remain green, and the App shows 2900, would it be ok to turn the Output % from Zero tosay 50%?

3 - Actually - I will read up on Features, Modes & Aux first and come back with questions.

Do you have a main drain? If so, this is a good time to pull from it. The high salinity water wants to sit at the bottom of the pool. Pulling your suction from the bottom helps mix it up.

We have two deep ends in our pool. One of them has two drains at the bottom, but have no idea as to how to divert the suction from the skimmer to the floor drains. I've been diagramming what I have learned about the equipment pad. This is what I know so far.

EDITED: This may be what I'm looking for, I have one in my skimmer.

 

[Dirk]

If it were mine (and this is exactly what I did), I would not even have my IC plugged in until after at least several days of 24 hour filtering after adding salt, and being able to measure an amount suitable for the SWG. It seems to me, if I may, that you are pushing everything a bit. To what end? A few less days of adding chlorine manually? I waited months after the "recommended" 30 day wait period to add salt. And I added salt and mixed in salt and tested for salt a good week or two before turning on the SWG. I'm not suggesting any of that was necessary, I just went about this with a considerably more, well, what's-the-hurry type approach. I gauged all my cautious behavior against my long-term goal of extending my new pebble's life by years. What's a few days, weeks or even months when I'm attempting to get another five, ten or fifteen years out of my pebble... Just throwin' that out there...

 

[Yorker]

I would not even have my IC plugged in until after at least several days of 24 hour filtering after adding salt, and being able to measure an amount suitable for the SWG. It seems to me, if I may, that you are pushing everything a bit. To what end? A few less days of adding chlorine manually? ...

This stems from my ignorance on how the equipment works. The builder has been little to no help in training. As I mentioned earlier, I just assumed that whenever that pump was being run (be it a Mode or a Feature) it was traveling through the filter, heater (even if the heater was off), through the SWG and if it was set to Zero Output, I thought was OFF. I have not seen a plug... I guess, in the future I can switch that breaker off.

This morning the salt is reading 2600 with test kit and 2850 on the app. I have no problem adding chlorine manually and waiting another day, two, three or four.

Question 1 - Should I now switch pMath to a salt pool and start following those targets (with the suggestions you've offered in the past)?

Question 2 - What should I be looking for/at to determine when to start raising the Output from zero on the SWG?

Question 3 - Should I start slowly raising my CYA now?

Question 4 - Any reason to hold off heating the spa (for an hour a day)?

 

[Dirk]

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you've done anything wrong or bad for your SWG. I only meant if you left it unplugged, then you couldn't possibly, and wouldn't have to think about that aspect. Zero output is probably fine, but as you are just learning (or re-learning) how all that works, then you could play it safe.

Follow the SWG cable away from the SWG. At the end of that cable is a connector with a twist-type lock. It's either plugged into a transformer (big tan box), or your ET (bigger tan box). I have an external transformer, so I've never seen the plug go into an ET that has a built-in transformer, but it's there somewhere. You turn off anything that's running (pump, etc), then the breaker to the SWG (or all the breakers to the pad if you're not sure what all the breakers do), and then just twist the SWG connector and pull out the plug. Alternately, if your SWG is on a dedicated breaker (and you know that breaker doesn't supply power to anything else), then all you have to do is turn off the breaker.

That is the sure fire way that nothing you turn on, or schedule or adjust within the ET or ScreenLogic interface can inadvertently energize the plates of the SWG while the salt is still mixing. You tested salt at two different times, and found that it had gone down, right? That could be tester error, or margin of error, or just that you sampled two patches of water, one with more salt in it than the other, and that's what you're guarding against: two chunks of water running through your SWG, back to back, that have two different amounts of salt in them.

1. You switch to SWG in Pool Math when your pool is getting all its chlorine from the SWG, not before.

2. Wait a few days, and confirm your salt is mixed in: no salt on the bottom, consistent salt level test results from one day to the next.

3. Yes, add the CYA. Doesn't have to be slowly, unless by that you meant creep up on your target CYA amount cautiously, not to overshoot. Use your test kit and Pool Math to calculate how much CYA to add, then add half or 3/4 of that amount. Repeat until you reach your target. You just don't want to hit 90. Remember, you allow a day between dosing and testing, for the CYA to show up. Longer is better. Since both salt and CYA need this mixing time, you can do both simultaneously and use this "patience period" for both level adjustments.

4. That one I'm not sure of. Should be OK, or wait until someone else confirms that. Water with varying amounts of salt in it should not harm your heater (not like it would an SWG).

 

[mknauss]

Only comment to what Dirk posted, if you have been able to easily keep your FC in line with your current CYA, I would just leave it until next March or early April when you will need to raise the CYA for the coming summer months.

Just a thought ---

 

[Dirk]

Thanks Marty. I'm sure I've asked this before, but still don't have a good grasp on why a SWG pool (or is it the salt?), needs twice the CYA of a non-SWG pool...