Is this Black Pipe ABS?

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kristof

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Jun 8, 2009
37
Pittsburgh, PA
I have a small 1970's vintage Fox inground pool. The pipe that goes from skimmer to the pump pad and from eyeball to the pump pad is black plastic with an outer diameter of approximately 1.84 to 1.87 inches. I know from recent landscaping excavations that this pipe does run all the way from the pump pad to the pool. It isn't just stuck on at the pump pad end. The fittings used to join the segments of pipe are dark gray. These fittings are pounded into the back pipe. They have flanges around the parts that go inside the black pipe. Metal pipe clamps are used around the black pipe directly over the area where the fitting flanges land. I'm sure that the pipe isn't painted. Over the years it's been nicked here and there. It's black all the way through.

Is this black pipe definitely ABS?

I'm installing a new pump and need to re-plumb at the pad. If this stuff actually is ABS is it okay to transition from ABS to PVC if I used a glue such as Oatey's ABS to PVC Transition Green Cement?

http://www.oatey.com/Plumber/Shared/Pro ... ement.html

I would love to tear all of it out and re-plumb to the pool with pvc but that's not exactly an option at the moment. I think that'll have to wait until the next liner replacement.
 
Ask and you shall receive! I have no clue what the white flex junk is either. Flex pvc? Some special pool tubing?

If the black stuff is "poly" pipe is there any way to transition to pvc? I'd like to dig a little and do the transition underground so I can have all new neat pvc above ground. I'm sick of looking at this hack job mess.

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Definitely black poly. You can transition underground, but then when the connection leaks, you have to dig it up! If it were me, if I wasn't going to completely re-pipe the pool I wouldn't mess with it. I don't think it's worth it just to make it look a little better.
 
It' flex PVC. Whoever did the job didnt do it very neat. You will get conflicting opinions here, but IMO, there is nothing wrong with the poly or the flex. Hlowever, you could clean this up a bit. But..I would not cut the black poly underground like you suggest unless you really know how to make the transition in a way it wont leak. I would remove all the above ground piping, get new barbed fiitings and use new flex PVC to make it neat.
Someone will come along next and tell you not to use flex, no way no how. But, there is nothing wrong with it, especially above ground.

Melt has it about right, too. Can you take another pict or 2 so we can see the whole thing?
 
Just to clarify what I said earlier: you certainly can make it look nicer by redoing the white flex PVC and the rest of the above-ground plumbing. I just meant that IMO it's not worth transitioning PVC to poly underground just so you don't see the poly above ground.
 

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The black poly goes straight(ish) down for about a foot and then hits two elbows that transition to horizontal runs. My plan is to dig down only enough so that the transition is barely under ground level. This section of pipe is easy to access since I had the forethought to backfill with sand all the way down to the underground elbows when I had it dug up before. There's only a thin veneer of topsoil and mulch covering the sand "conduit" that surrounds the pipes down to the elbows.

Whether or not the black poly has to go (above ground) is no longer up for debate. The Boss has said "make it so." :wink:
 
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