Above ground low maintenance pool issues !

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Hello everyone :D
At the moment I'm Getting acquainted with my pool . . .
As long as I can see having a skimmer working for many hours a day really catches lots of debries and dirt . . .
But I'm concerned About making my pump (Intex 1200 gal/hour sand filter) work too much ...
I would use the skimmer only on saturday/sunday and only during daytime, do you think I can program the pump to stay on for 1 hour and off for the following one,
this way making 12 cycles on and 12 off a day, is this operating schedule too stressfull for the pump ???
Any advice about this issue ?
 
I hope you are enjoying your pool.:)

Most pool motors / pumps are rated for continuous duty, meaning they can be operated 24/7 without a problem. To confirm this you can look at the motor/pump. Somewhere on the motor there should be a nameplate. On that will be some information about the motor. Look for one that says "Time rating" or "duty rating" or "Time" or some combination of those words. Next to it you will see "CONT" or something similar. This will show how it was designed.
It is actually worse for a motor to turn on / turn off many times in a day instead of continuous operation. Once it is running, things are fairly stable. When you turn on a motor, there is a lot of extra current that runs through it and a heating cycle that occurs. So if you want to save energy, for a motor it is better to run it for many hours, then turn it off for many hours.
 
Hello everyone :),
I'm back after a while spent having fun with my small pool !!!
I wanna report my little experience so that someone else can take advantage of it .
I've discovered a pattern in the way FC accumulates or dissolves in my pool under certain conditions.
Conditions are : pool covered 24/7 with its tarp, filter pump on a timer and 1 small 20 gr tab of dichlor in the floating dispenser.
In these conditions Chlorine accumulates at a rate of 0,8 ppm per day.
If I take off the chlorine tab and live the pool still covered with its tarp, chlorine dissolves at a rate of 0,8 ppm per day.
This is quite cool because I already know that if I close the pool on Sunday evening with FC levels anywhere around 7 ppm,
I can take off chlorine dipenser and live the pool like that,
being sure that , when I go back to my countryhouse on fryday evening I will find FC levels around 3 ppm.
Thi is my little experience ...
At the moment pool upkeeping is so easy for me that I don't know if and when I'm switching to SWG,
I already have SWG and have salt bag too, but at the moment don't feel like I need it to make upkeeping easier !!!
Maybe I will give it a try next Summer !!!
 
P.S.
PH is unbelievable stable, always around 7,4/7,6 and never ever had to put any ph down or up ...
CYA is somewhere around 30/50 ppm and weekly backwash and rinse looks enogh to control it ...
Water temp is around 30°C and don't need any kind of artificial heating ...
 
Hello guys, greatings again from Italy :D !!!
I had a wonderfull 2017 summer and for this I just have one word : THANKYOU !!!
Now that the new season is approaching I'd like to give a go to my SWG,
I bought it in 2017 but being the first year with the pool I already had many things to sort out
so I decided to postpone the thing to the following year ...
Here we go it's 2018 spring and I think the time has finally come to switch on the SWG.
But before I start adding salt to my pool I need a way to test salt levels,
so my first 2018 question is : how am I suppose to test salt levels ?
I already have the Taylor test kit, is there any reagent from the same company usefull for this purpose ?
If so is it reliable ? What would you suggest ?
;)
 
Hello kelly ... thankyou for the suggestion !!!!
I've checked the link but they don't ship oversea (Italy) :(
I see there is also Taylor k-1766 kit for my purpose,
does anybody know a source available for international shipping ???
:)

Plus : I've read about a fantomatic "speedstirr" but didn't really understand what it is :confused:
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Hello you all,
As I’ve said in the previous post I’m gettig ready for the SWG conversion and have just received Taylor salinity test ( actually amazon was incredibly fast in delivering the test kit from USA ).
In the meantime I was looking at a box of extra spare parts/fittings that I keep from 2017 summer
and I found what is suppose to be a large (1,5 “) intex inlet strainer that came with my 1200 ghp intex sand filter.
I did not use it in my first season …
I’ve bought 2 adaptors “B” and used them to connect the small pool to the 38mm tubes of my intex sand filter.


This year I was thinking of upgrading the pool cutting two larger holes for 1,5” strainers assembly,
in the meantime I wanted to use the original smaller holes to run a smaller pump hooked to a heating mat !!!

But ta-daaa …. a new issue …..

In the first picture you can see on the right hand side the strainer that came with the pool together with the adaptor “B”, the strainer has a rough section of 1”. On the left hand side you can see the bigger ( or supposedly so ) strainer assembly but, when I looked at the internal hole I clearly saw that it was with no doubt smaller than the hole in the smaller strainer !!!
 

Attachments

  • 33869780_10216786687770110_6586823108559110144_n.jpg
    33869780_10216786687770110_6586823108559110144_n.jpg
    13.1 KB · Views: 131
uploads

In the second picture I have pointed with a red arrow a dark grey piece of plastic that actually reduces the internal diameter to roughly 3/4“, apparently there is no way to take off this reduction … am I right ? Is there anything I’m missing ? Should I try to unscrew the reduction ?
Any advice about this issue is more than welcome !!!
 
Last edited:
I see no one answered my question :(, maybe some one will pop up in the next days and give his advice (hope so ) !!!

In the meantime I'de like to hear your opinion on the better way to feed my solar heating system .
In summer 2017 I purchased a solar heating mat (Intex 47in x 47in ) but as for the SWG
I had no time to set it up in my first season, so I decided to postpone the project to 2018 summer.
Now time has come to hook it to my small pool ... problem is how do I feed the mat ?
In my first attempt I tried to use a very small cartridge pump that came with the pool, it's a 330 ghp per hour,
but because I was in a hurry or because I didn't take the time to do it properly I had the feeling that the pump
(even with the cartridge taken off) was too weak for running the water through the mat and about a 20' hose.
After that I put it back in the box and did not think to it again untill now.
Being a couple of weeks from the "pool season" I thought I needed a more powerfull pump to run the mat but,
before taking any reckless step I decided to read customers reviews on amazon.com but this just increased my confusion.
Some of them says they run 2 mats just using a solar fountain, some others used a more powerfull pump and doing so busted the mat ... :confused:
What I'm in need of is a reliable information about the pump specs for feeding 1 or 2 mats, anyone can help ?
 
mikey78 said:
uploads

In the second picture I have pointed with a red arrow a dark grey piece of plastic that actually reduces the internal diameter to roughly 3/4“, apparently there is no way to take off this reduction … am I right ? Is there anything I’m missing ? Should I try to unscrew the reduction ?
Any advice about this issue is more than welcome !!!
Click to expand...

why do you want to take the reducer off? it is there to generate a strong stream back into the pool through the "eyeball" mechanism.

where you have the red arrow is not the part that goes through the pool wall. the pool wall goes to the left of the next white part that shows male threads, then there should be a gasket or two then the hand tightening nut.
 
Regarding the pump for your solar heating mat. The 330 gph pump should be OK. It's what Intex recommends for 1 or 2 mats in series.

Regarding that 3/4" return opening, it's probably the right size for your 1200 gph pump. Bigger might perform worse. Why are you concerned?
 
Pv2 said:
why do you want to take the reducer off? it is there to generate a strong stream back into the pool through the "eyeball" mechanism.

where you have the red arrow is not the part that goes through the pool wall. the pool wall goes to the left of the next white part that shows male threads, then there should be a gasket or two then the hand tightening nut.
Click to expand...

Hello Pv2, I want to take the reducer off because it's a REDUCER ...
When I think of upgrading the inlet/outlet I think of making the two holes bigger and not smaller, so that I can have a better water circulation in my pool, it's just physics :).
The Strainer assembly that came with the sand filter despite the bigger overall dimensions has got a smaller passage for the water.
From my point of view if I'd use the strainer assembly you see in the above picture I will get a downgrade .
Plese correct me if I'm wrong !!!

Can you guys tell me what the internal diameter is for a true 1 1/5" large strainer assembly ?
 
Poolzzz said:
Regarding the pump for your solar heating mat. The 330 gph pump should be OK. It's what Intex recommends for 1 or 2 mats in series.

Regarding that 3/4" return opening, it's probably the right size for your 1200 gph pump. Bigger might perform worse. Why are you concerned?
Click to expand...

Hello Poolzzz, I can definitely say that the 330 gph recommended by Intex does not work, unless you put pool and solar mat side to side at the same height with no additional tubing ...
I've read all the 296 reviews on amazon.com and had the feeling that a bigger pump is needed ... something in the 500 gph range or bigger would be the best option !!!
 
Interesting given it is what Intex recommends.

I would expect they have to be on the same level. But would have thought additional tubing would be ok. It's what i used to drive my homemade solar panel with about 15 feet of 1.25 inch flex hose.

I'm curious, what doesn't work about it?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply