Plumbing for a pressure side cleaner

[aseigler]

Greetings!

I purchased a home here in sunny Sanford, Florida two years ago in 2011. It had been foreclosed and was a serious fixer-upper. There is a screened in rectangular pool in the back that is about 4 feet deep in the shallow end and 8 feet deep in the deep end, in ground, gunite, around 24000 gallons. This is the first pool I have owned.

The pool has three return systems on a three way valve, one part goes to a set of in floor pop up cleaners that seem to be missing the controller that makes them rotate, another goes to the eyeball returns close to the surface, and a third goes to a 1.5 inch outlet on the side near the top. I assumed this was for a pressure side cleaner, so after doing some research I bought a "The Pool Cleaner" brand pressure side cleaner. Works pretty well, but I can't get enough flow out of the outlet in order to make the thing climb the walls. I think the problem is that for some reason, someone plumbed in about 2 feet of 1 inch rubber hose in the section that goes to this particular outlet. It seems like this was done on purpose as a flow restriction.

Why would somebody do that? Is there some sort of pressure side cleaner that requires a significantly reduced flow rate that would make this make sense? I am planning on cutting out the part that is restricted and replacing it with regular PVC pipe like the rest of the setup. Are there any "gotchas" to doing this?

Thanks,

-aseigler

 

[jblizzle]

Some pressure cleaners work off your regular pump. Others require a booster pump which supplies high pressure at low flow rate ... these typically have the smaller pipe.

If you are not using a booster pump & cleaner, then replacing it with larger pipe is not a problem.

 

[aseigler]

I think they must have had something before that required a booster pump then. I can't imagine why else it would be set up like this.

Thanks!

-aseigler

 

[aseigler]

The idea would be to run new PVC in the box here to bypass the thinner rubber hose.

[attachment=0:3bhhhffs]plumbing.jpg[/attachment:3bhhhffs]

Does that look reasonable? However re-plumbed this area didn't leave a whole lot of room between connectors. Is it ok to use regular PVC and glue from Lowe's or Home Depot or whatever? I've never done any plumbing work on pools. I am hoping just to cut out the parts I don't want anymore and just work in PVC to fit.

Thanks!

-aseigler

 

[jblizzle]

Use schedule 40 PVC and regular PVC solvent.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short

 

[Bama Rambler]

The only issue you're going to have is the fact that the pipe fittings are glued right to the valve hubs. If you don't mind replacing that 3-way valve it's a pretty easy task to reroute the small hose with larger pipe.

We might be able to suggest other things to try if you'll take a pic a little farther away so we can see more of the pad.

 

[aseigler]

The pad is a mess. I'm not sure what all has been done to this thing, but I can tell several things have changed. There is a "Kreepy Klear" box mounted on the wall that is not hooked up to anything. I can only assume there was a chlorine generation system here at one point which is gone now. The pump was manufactured after the foreclosure date, so the pump has been replaced fairly recently. The popup controller is missing, or maybe there never was one. Two of the manual valves are obviously much newer than the other two.

[attachment=1:kou34ymm]leftpad.jpg[/attachment:kou34ymm]

The red arrow is what goes to the pressure cleaner. Currently it is restricted by a 3/4 hose.

[attachment=0:kou34ymm]rightpad.jpg[/attachment:kou34ymm]

Thanks!

-aseigler

 

[Bama Rambler]

I'd maje sure that the solar heater is off and then I'd close the 3-way valve going to teh returns and popups a little more and see if that increases the pressure to the cleaner some more.

I also think I'd try to bore that fitting out and try to glue an adapter in there before I cut that valve out.

 

[aseigler]

It's not pressure that the cleaner needs, it's volume. I can turn the valves like you mention and there will be water squirting out of places on the cleaner where it should not be squirting out from too much pressure, but the volume does not fill a bucket in the time the vendor says it should and the tires don't rotate as many times in a minute as the vendor says either, which is why I was looking to bypass that 3/4 inch restriction. But as you mention, they didn't leave much room for me to do any splicing...which leaves me having to do a lot more cutting than I really wanted to. Oh well.