Hard Plumbing Above ground pool

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kingbubbatruck

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Jul 28, 2008
13
Reno, NV
Well, decided to dabble our toes in having a pool, and purchased a soft sided above ground pool from CostCo online earlier this year.

After one mis-step in setup, I leveled out a patch of desert, built a little retaining octagon of pressure treated wood, filled it with sand, tamped it down and got the darn thing to within a 1/4" of level all the way around.

It's been running for about a month and a half just fine. Then we thought it'd be nice to get a little solar heater to warm the water up just a touch.

And that's where the real pain began :hammer:

I had no leaks prior to trying to run the hoses and hook up the heater, but apparently the solar heater puts more more pressure on the 'flexy hose' plumbing that came with the pool than it can handle. Let's just say I've gone through several rounds of trying different hoses, hose clamps, etc.. to no avail. Always at least a drip of a leak, frequently more.

To add insult to injury, since I've made such a swampy mess around the pump area, I think I've attracted some wild life to the area. I disconnected the heater and went back to the 'old fashioned' pool->pump->filter->pool setup and had that fine with no leaks. At least until something decided to chew up the hoses. Checked it last night and there were streams of water coming out of the return hose... :twisted:

So, Went out and bought what I need to hard plumb the whole darn thing.

All was going well, but then I noticed the fitting on the output side of the cartridge filter has a different fitting. Everything else I could rig with a standard 1 1/2" pvc fittings, but the output side of the filter has one of those 'hose type' connections with 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 od things on it meant for hoses to clamp over. I'd love to replace it, but the fitting is glued into the cartridge.

Any tips on how I can get that from that hose fitting to a standard 1 1/2 or 1 1/4 threaded fitting?

Looks like another 50 mile round trip to the Hardward store tomorrow....
 
I found a similar flexible union at Lowes today. Black rubber, 1 1/4 -> 1 1/4 with good quality hose clamps on each end.

I managed to re-plumb the pool with 1 1/4" pvc pipe, and the best part is, no leaks so far.

Throughput seems much stronger/more flow than with the flexible thin plastic tubes.

Tomorrow, I hook in the solar heater.

The daytime temps here get to the mid to upper 90's, and the pool temp is mid 70's.

It's not a bad way to cool off. Get in the pool for an hour, and when you get out, the rest of the night seems cold!

But still, a little warmer pool would be nice. We kid each other about how can it be almost a hundred out, and when we are in the pool we feel like we are freezing!

I'll take some pics tomorrow when I wrap it up and post what it looks like... (Not pretty, but it should work)
 
We have 3 solar panels mounted on our garage roof, and they will bring our pool up 10 degrees in a day of full sun. Today the pool was 92 and that was a little warm when you want to cool off. I heard you can run them at night to cool the pool down. IT WORKS, dropped our temp 2* in an hour.

My plan is to cool the pool down tonight, then heat it back up tomorrow through the day. I just don't like the idea of leaving them cooking in the hot sun with no water because today I had them off and about 1:00pm I turned them on to cool the panels off a little and the water that came out was so hot I couldn't hold me hand 2 feet away from the jet without getting burned. I was like :shock: that can't be good for them.

So yeah, they work,
Adam
 
Wrapped up the plumbing this morning. Sure is good to have the pump and filter running again.

Here's a pic of the plumbing. Not the prettiest, but at least it's not leaking, and nothing managed to chew a hole in anything last night...

Pool temp was 70 degrees this morning. It usually rises on it's own to around the upper 70's by 3pm, so we'll see how warm the heater can get it.

Had the darn heater for about a week and half already and this is the first day I've been actually able to run it!

[attachment=0:lwrlohve]poolplumbing.jpg[/attachment:lwrlohve]
 

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Everything looks good to me! I have the same brand of panels for my solar, and the only thing I might change with your setup is how you have the solar panels plumbed. You might want to run them in parallel, they will put less pressure on the filter that way and allow more flow.

Also, definitely get a solar cover, it makes a HUGE difference in the amount of heat you lose throughout the night.

Good luck
 
launboy said:
Everything looks good to me! I have the same brand of panels for my solar, and the only thing I might change with your setup is how you have the solar panels plumbed. You might want to run them in parallel, they will put less pressure on the filter that way and allow more flow.

Also, definitely get a solar cover, it makes a HUGE difference in the amount of heat you lose throughout the night.

Good luck
Click to expand...

Good advice. We have a pretty dry climate out here in the desert, I'd imagine the solar cover would help with the evaporation as well.

I like the idea of running them in parallel. Sure would increase the flow, i'd imagine. Wouldn't be that big of a change. Just a couple more sections of pipe and a few fittings...

Thanks!
 

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DaveNJ said:
Looks good. I know nothing about these pools. That being said, wouldn't you want a section of hose between the pool and hard plumbing. Do the sides flex allot. Just asking for my own information.
Click to expand...

It flexes a bit, but its really not that bad. There seems to be enough flex in the pipes that they can handle it. I could always just cut the pipe and use some of those black rubber connectors, like I used to connect the output side of the filter to absorb some of the flex.

That being said, the only people that use this thing are me and my wife, no kids... When we use the pool, typically we are just floating around in circles enjoying a cold adult beverage discussing the topics of the day :cheers:

I think if there were kids in it splashing and roughhousing, I'd probably rethink the the connections...
 
I'm not sure what drove me to hard plumbing it.

Could have been the leaks where the hose clamps were supposed to 'clamp'. Don't know if it was the clamps, the plastic hoses, or the fittings, but I could not for the life of me get the to not leak with the heater. Maybe running the heater in parallel would have helped. Don't know.

But what I think really did it, is that some dang creature of some sort sunk it's teeth into the hoses after I started having problems with the heater.

Oh, and the fact that any kind of hose that looked more substantial than what came with the pool would have cost a couple of bucks a foot.

We live on a patch of desert about 68 acres in size, with a wide variety of rats, mice, squirells, lizards, snakes, rabbits, deer, antelope, wild horses, etc...
Personally, I think it looks like a coyote bit the hose. Couldn't have been my sweet little yellow lab puppy....

I can't tell how frustrating the last two weeks have been dealing with the plumbing issues. Drove me up the wall!

So now, I have 2 little drips that don't really concern me (Right at a union joint), and I'm sure a couple of twists of the channel lock can take care of it, but I'm just wanting to enjoy it for a few days before I mess with anything else :hammer:

Today, it got up to about 77 degrees. Tomorrow we'll see if we can get it up above 80 before happy hour!
 
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