I bought a new house last Fall with a 25k gallon pool. In the Fall I paid a local pool company to close me down for the winter. I thought they did a good job (I know nothing), so I hired them to “open” me this last weekend. They took off the cover, removed the plugs and dumped in a bag of shock. 2 guys, 30 minutes, and $500 later. Total rip off. I’ve decided I’m doing this myself. I started looking online and found this website.
At this point I’ve read the entire pool school. I don’t think I’m ready to start with the chemicals yet, I just want to get the pump running and get all the leaves / dirt out of the pool. Here’s what my setup looks like:
A top down view of the pump setup:
The “big value” (not sure what the technical name is):
The two values coming out of the pump. I’m not sure what controls what:
Chlorine feeder and heater. There is a value in this image too, but I’m assuming that’s just to let water into the heater when it’s turned on (although I don’t know). I’ve read the bad stuff about the 3” tab chlorine feeders and I’ll need to make a decision on this at some point, but I’m not ready for that yet (I did load it up with tabs for now):
I think my next step is to get the pump running. The first thing I did was remove the clear plastic cap, fill it with water from a hose, close it, and turn on the pump. The “big value” was set to filter (6:00). The other values were in the same positions they are shown in the above pictures. The water got sucked out immediately and it was all air. I tried that about 6 times, but no lock. I them moved the “big value” to the position shown in the image above (I think it’s recirculate) based on a youtube video I saw. It sounded like that would draw water into the pump, but no lock. At this point I’d spent an hour on it with no progress and my wife started getting mad and told me to come in for dinner.
I think my questions are:
1. What’s the proper procedure for getting the pump running?
2. Based on the image above, what’s the general direction water is flowing through the system? I think understanding that would help me get grounded on what’s going on.
3. In the first picture the pump is on the bottom. There are two valves to the right side of the pump. Any idea what they do and what positions are open/closed? This must sound like a stupid question…I’m not very mechanically inclined so this is going to be a challenge for me. Once I get it I’ll mark up the pipes with black sharpie arrows showing which direction the water flows, what value is what, etc.
Am I missing any information that’s required for any of the experts here to provide support?
Thanks
Jason
Edited to remove all the extra "spam-like" URLs ... not sure about that hosting site. Moderator, jblizzle
At this point I’ve read the entire pool school. I don’t think I’m ready to start with the chemicals yet, I just want to get the pump running and get all the leaves / dirt out of the pool. Here’s what my setup looks like:
A top down view of the pump setup:
The “big value” (not sure what the technical name is):
The two values coming out of the pump. I’m not sure what controls what:
Chlorine feeder and heater. There is a value in this image too, but I’m assuming that’s just to let water into the heater when it’s turned on (although I don’t know). I’ve read the bad stuff about the 3” tab chlorine feeders and I’ll need to make a decision on this at some point, but I’m not ready for that yet (I did load it up with tabs for now):
I think my next step is to get the pump running. The first thing I did was remove the clear plastic cap, fill it with water from a hose, close it, and turn on the pump. The “big value” was set to filter (6:00). The other values were in the same positions they are shown in the above pictures. The water got sucked out immediately and it was all air. I tried that about 6 times, but no lock. I them moved the “big value” to the position shown in the image above (I think it’s recirculate) based on a youtube video I saw. It sounded like that would draw water into the pump, but no lock. At this point I’d spent an hour on it with no progress and my wife started getting mad and told me to come in for dinner.
I think my questions are:
1. What’s the proper procedure for getting the pump running?
2. Based on the image above, what’s the general direction water is flowing through the system? I think understanding that would help me get grounded on what’s going on.
3. In the first picture the pump is on the bottom. There are two valves to the right side of the pump. Any idea what they do and what positions are open/closed? This must sound like a stupid question…I’m not very mechanically inclined so this is going to be a challenge for me. Once I get it I’ll mark up the pipes with black sharpie arrows showing which direction the water flows, what value is what, etc.
Am I missing any information that’s required for any of the experts here to provide support?
Thanks
Jason
Edited to remove all the extra "spam-like" URLs ... not sure about that hosting site. Moderator, jblizzle