All ideas welcome

[davidkaleta]

Hi guys, just bought a new house last week, and the garden is crying out for a nice pool. Want to keep it simple so an 8M x 4M with small 4 person jacuzzi on the same footprint. Out here in the UAE, people are 50/50 divided on concrete and fibreglass. i am leaning towards concrete, seems cheaper here (manual labour).

There is plenty of room up the sides of the house for a full pump room. if i go for the 8x4, i'll roughly have 16'000 gallons, so was looking at a VS pump.

Questions
1. Should i go for a separate pump for the jacuzzi (6 nozzles) or increase the VS pump to a 3HP and just increase the speed when i want the jacuzzi working.

2. What do people think regarding vacuum ports, good or bad?

3. Any preference on pumps, will need to order from Amazon, or i think Pentair have a reseller here, but probably cheaper to order online.

4. We normally buy the chlorine tabs and drop them into the skimmer basket, any down side to this?

i have attached a pic of the garden, and a couple of pools i really like, all ideas are welcome

Thanks Dave

 

[cfherrman]

0. Welcome! You came to the right place, read a little on pool school to get a basis on how we manage pools.

1. If you can go with the 3 hp and try it, if it's not good enough just plum in a separate pump.

2. Most people here recommend a robot as it's just a 110v cord and us a separate component from your pool, after that a vac cleaner is liked, most to all people do not like a pressure cleaner. There is pros and cons to every system.

3. Check if your builder of contractor will install a 3rd party purchased pump, a lot of contractors in general do not like this.

4. That is one if the worst ways of managing your pool, tabs are acidic which can be hard on your pump plus they carry cya in them that builds up in your water and requires more tabs to be used until the water cannot be safe anymore and requires a drain. We use bleach poured in daily, or a chemical pump to do that for you, or a salt water generator, and some muratic acid to lower the pH. We use a Taylor test kit, tf100 or Taylor 2006c. You will need to source liquid clorine or bleach locally, 6-12%, and see if you can import the test kit. Muratic acid is a common cleaning agent and us also called hydrochloric acid, 20-36%. If your water is hard then I also recommend a 64,000 water softener for topping up your water during the summer, with these methods your water wound not need a drain untill salt builds up where you can taste it (9,000 ppm, swg pools are 3,000) and would be a long time.