The projecct begins!!!

[jcat]

Well I uncovered my project for the spring and for springs to come! To my supprise, the only major concern i have right now with the pool is the liner pull in the corner. I understand the water is really yummy too, but i think we can get it cleaned up! The fence and surroundings is another story! All recommendation, comments welcome!

Thanks!

Joe

 

[waste]

Thanks for the close- up of the corner that's out!! (from the first pic it looked like the liner had ripped).

You've got some work ahead of you ! In the process of cleaning the water and adjusting the chemistry, you may find that you have to lower some water - that's when to reattach the liner! -- The higher the water, the harder is is to get the liner to stretch back into the receiver, so attempt it when the water is lower due to whatever else you're doing - like vacuuming to waste or dumping some water to lower cya.

When you've lowered the water as much as you are going to, for whichever reason, you can pour hot water (out of your sink or tub - boiling water will melt the liner) on the entire area and gently try to work it back into the receiver. The liner doesn't look too old, so this may be easy - if you have trouble getting it back in -DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT SO MUCH THAT YOU RIP THE LINER!! - I will do my best to 'talk' you through it (as the company I work for specializes in liner pools, I have to 'retuck in' a few dozen feet of liner every year, so I have a few tricks and tips for doing it).

As I said, looks like you've got hours of 'fun' ahead of you getting the pool 'swimable' - we will be here every step of the way so that you can enjoy a trouble free pool all summer :-D

 

[jcat]

Thanks waste! I justed moved into the house, lots of other projects going as well.
The pool hasn't been open in a couple of years, and i was told by the realter that the liner is 2 years old, i don't believe it to be that new, maybe 5 years.
I just took the winter cover to check the condition of the liner today. When i bought the house it was frozen!
It also looks like each corner is kinda of bulging out, it looks like it needs to stretch or something.
I still have not turned the pump or anything else on, so i don't know if there is going to be any problems with that, we will see, maybe tomorrow!
The water is brown, and seems to be alot of leaves, and it smells bad! I am not as worried about the water, as i am about the pump and liner.

 

[piku]

Wow, have you read my neglected pool thead? Good luck, it looks like you'll be having some similar hassles to was having. Be prepared to go to the pool store/order online random seals and gaskets and such but the equipment is probably fine (hopefully). Did you get a pool guy to inspect the pool before purchasing? We did so we knew that the motor would turn on for instance and that the whole system would hold pressure. That's no guarantee but it helped us know that at least we'd be able to use it with skimmers only (depending on the condition of the plaster underneath), and when we finally got it cleaned the plaster wasn't so bad.

One of the houses I looked at purchasing had a liner pool that had a pulled away corner just like this. I'm curious to see how this turns out for you.

 

[jcat]

Of course i didn't have it inspected! This is my first house, and pool. Live and learn. I think i am going to try and fire up the pump this week, either tuesday or wednesday, when the weather finally breaks around here. I will keep this thread updated, i am sure there will be issues.

 

[piku]

Cross your fingers. My stuff is DIRT old and worked. You've got practically a brand new liner And the pool is full of water. That's a pretty good start!

 

[jcat]

Piku i just read your posts, how are you doing? If my plumbing is at all functional i will be vacuming to waste and tackling the liner pull, while messing with the water chemistry, while messing with my run down fence, while working on a bathroom, while getting my 70's finished basement livable... i love being a 1st time home owner! I will take more pics the next time i pull the cover off again. I just ordered the tf100 kit, this should pin down what my chemisty is, extermlly bad!

 

[piku]

Piku i just read your posts, how are you doing? If my plumbing is at all functional i will be vacuming to waste and tackling the liner pull, while messing with the water chemistry, while messing with my run down fence, while working on a bathroom, while getting my 70's finished basement livable... i love being a 1st time home owner! I will take more pics the next time i pull the cover off again. I just ordered the tf100 kit, this should pin down what my chemisty is, extermlly bad!

I don't have the 70's basement (nor a basement at all) but I do have the retro urine colored carpet upstairs that I decided to just leave for now due to lack of finances. I'm in what sounds to be nearly exactly the same boat as you (first time home/pool owner). I replaced my rear picket fence but those side fences are pretty pricey at $50 or so a panel. I am going to rent a pressure washer to see if I can't spruce it up. My house thankfully is 100% functional right now so I just have to put up with the nasty old stuff until I recover from the shock of the initial purchase (and down payment).

With regards to the pool, I have a serious ammonia problem so my pool won't yet hold chlorine. When I first began, I turned the pump and filter on and had to manipulate the valves a bit to hold prime (it preferred the skimmers over the main drain for establishing prime). It ran in filter for a day or so. When I went to backwash everything fell apart and I needed a ton of gaskets. The spider gasket for the multiport valve was leaking a lot of water to waste, the 2 gaskets going into the filter housing were bad as was the drain plug gasket in the filter. Once I got that fixed I started filtering, backwashed repeatedly (2 25 pound bags of DE I went through) and vacuumed the tons of silt on the bottom to waste. My discharge hose which I got from Leslie's blew up (even though I was ultra careful with it) so now I am buying a hose from another pool store that looks to be much thicker. I _uber_ dosed the pool with bleach, trichlor and dichlor at the same time which is the only way I was able to clear the algae in the face of the ammonia problem but I wouldn't recommend it. My actions caused me to get a CYA level of 100 and now I will have to work at reducing that all summer long through lots of splashout and cannonballs

Mistakes I made:
1. Trying to dose the pool with chlorine before the solids and silt were cleaned up - don't bother. In fact it can really hurt you if you keep dosing under shock level and cause CC to build up.
2. Trying to dose the pool with too small amounts of chlorine blindly
3. Not trying to dose some of the pool water in a bucket to see how it accepted the chlorine (I could have established without wasting a bunch of money that I had an ammonia problem).
4. Not getting all the water off the cover (looks like you're past that).
5. Wrong parts - you'll quickly learn that the pool stores have no idea what they're doing. It's unbelievable!
6. Trying to save money.
7. Be very very careful with how much granular dichlor or trichlor you use to shock the pool due to CYA.

In my case a couple hundred of chlorine and a little over $100 in parts. Previous owner left poles but no vacuum head, hose, skimmer plate, skimmer baskets!, eyeball fittings on the returns, etc etc etc.

Hopefully your situation will be more typical and you won't need too much. Hopefully also your pool will hold chlorine better

With regards to how it's going, if you look to the end of the main thread I made, I posted some pics of it cleared up. The nasty brown ring near the top where the water level was lower than is also starting to fade away.

 

[jcat]

Thanks for the tips!
It does seem like we have similar scenario. You have a little jump on the pool opening, i will catch up sooner or later!

I bought a power washer for my fence, and pool area. You may want to consider buying one, by the look of it you have a large fence. My pool/fenced area is extremly small, and even if i went at it for a whole day, i wouldn't finish. For the $ it may be cheaper. My fence needs to be replaced, but i don't see that happening this year, i gonna power wash it, and deal with it! I also need landscaping, and all the other stuff around the house i mentioned.

Good Luck!
I will keep updating my progress!

 

[jcat]

Ok so i poped my last Sam Winter and headed out to the pool pump to try and start it up. I was unsucessfull, I turned the power to the pump on and just got a humming sound. I did not do anything but put power to the pump, is there anything else i need to do? It also poped the circut when i first turne it on. Well i took abunch of pictures, and have ?s about just about all the pics. Here ya go.

 

[jcat]

More pics and ?s.

 

[jcat]

I have more but i guess i hit my limit.

 

[piku]

The humming of your pump is probably it running and trying to get water but failing. Most pumps have a basket but yours doesn't seem to. I don't know how you would go about priming it and would have to defer to the experts on that one. You don't have to lube the spider gasket since it will all wash away anyway. The bottom of your sand filter is *probably* a drain plug and would need to be plugged up if I am right about that. You could always just get the pump primed and see if it starts raining out green water.

I'll bet you a whole bunch the turkey baster thing is somehow used to prime the pump and get the water moving. The gauge of course goes into the top of your filter housing. From what I've read (and I've read a lot now), filter sand lasts an extremely long time.

To my untrained eye, your equipment looks pretty old

 

[JasonLion]

On the motor, look at the gap between the motor and the pump and look at that shaft. The shaft should turn when power is applied. If it doesn't turn, give the pump a good solid whack with something like a 2x4. You don't want to hit it hard enough to dent the metal, just a solid jolt. That will often unstick it.

If the shaft is turning then you need to get the pump to prime. You should be able to remove the lid on top of the pump and see a strainer basket in there. The drain plug cover might well be in that basket. Anyway, clean out the basket and then fill it with water, replace the cover and try again.

 

[jcat]

yea everything looks old to me also, maybe the sand canister looks the newest out of everything. I have more pics i just seem to hit my limit. There is a basket with a screw init. I know it needs to go on the outside of pump basket thing. Yea the motor does not seem to spin at all, i'll try and give it a good wack tomorrow.

 

[waste]

(I wish I could figure out how to reproduce the picture of the 'box-o-stuff' to identify a few of them for you) You've got plugs, black poly caps, a pressure gauge, ladder bumpers, directional inlet fittings, anchor wedges ... and a turkey baster looking thing (which I've NEVER! seen before). The filter drain needs to be capped (it MAY be the black thing @ ~ 8:00 from the gauge - but what you want is a female threaded 3/4" cap, and this looks to be the same size as the 1 1/2" caps on the other side ) However this is a fun game of 'What's This in the Box'

The sand seems to have some 'stuff' on top that shouldn't be there, scrape off the top layer and see how far down the 'non-white' stuff goes -- also the sand should be 'fluffy', if it's not - you may have to replace it .

Yes, do lube the (and every!) o-rings/ gaskets with a teflon or silicone based lube!!!!

The multiport handle is on 'closed' which would mean that you are not allowing any water through it - it should either be on 'filter' or 'recirculate' when firing up the pool. (this may explain the hum - but I think Jason's right on 'beating it into running' :lol: ) Also fill the pump with water before trying to get it running. Also, you have 2 suction ports going into the pump, only try to prime the pump with 1 of them open -- once you've got full flow through the first one, open the other line just enough to get a little air coming into the pump, when the air stops coming in you can open the second line all the way.

I think that covers the ?s -- feel free to ask more - THANKS for the pics - it takes the guess work out of answering a lot of this stuff!!

 

[jcat]

I didn't unplug the returns or the skimmer, should the motor turn on with no water flow? Do i just add water to the basket near the pump? I am going to try again tomorrow. Thanks for everything!

 

[piku]

This looks like the leaf thinger that leslies tried to sell me. It hooks up to a garden hose and puts the leaves into a bag which attaches to the center. I presume you may be missing the bag.

 

[waste]

The leaf thing needs the brushes (shown in the first pic) to work and NOT rip your liner!!! You also need the net (bag) on the top. It hooks up to your garden hose - the water from the hose creates a 'venturi' suction to pull the debris from the floor into the net/ bag.

 

[jcat]

Does it work well? I need to buy the bag.