Charlotte NC Winterizing Question

[AshleyEM]

Hello! I live in Charlotte NC. We recently bought a house that has a 13k gallon inground pool (with gunite walls). It had a jandy nature2 fusion SWG setup. I tried searching and started getting a little confused on the different winterizing approaches. There looks to be a mechanical timer near the aquapure controller, that I believe has a low temp trigger, but there is also a jandy iqPump wifi controller so not sure how the mechanical temp bypasses the remote pump settings. The pool deck doesn’t have the recessed anchors for a winter cover, and I believe the previous owner had the pumps running all year.
Is there a recommendation for “winterizing”?

I have read to remove the SWG cell, but how do I bypass the nature2 “housing” with no cell in?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks!
Ashley

 

[HermanTX]

Welcome to TFP.
It may be best to read the attached which has a good overview of closing a pool.

Closing Pool for Winter - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[HermanTX]

There looks to be a mechanical timer near the aquapure controller, that I believe has a low temp trigger, but there is also a jandy iqPump wifi controller so not sure how the mechanical temp bypasses the remote pump settings.

You may want to post some photos of your equipment pad so we can see the equipment as well as the controllers you have mounted near the equipment. The AquaPure controller only controls the Nature2 Fusion SWCG. You can set that to zero % to turn it off and then only use liquid chlorine.

You do not need to remove the SWCG from the plumbing, but if you do, you need to have a straight tube to replace it so you can continue to run your pump.

You can run your pump throughout the winter, just ensure that any above ground plumbing will always have water moving through it to prevent any ice forming.

 

[AshleyEM]

They are attached!

 

[generessler]

Hi. I'm in Chapel Hill into the 3rd winter of pool care. We're running the pool through the winter because we don't have a good option for closing. In NC, average pool water temp never (afaik) gets cold enough to freeze because the frost line is at the very worst 12 inches. All water below that is "warm."

So the secret is for every pipe and piece of equipment above the 12" frost line either to be drained or to have pool water circulating through it whenever temps get below freezing. Take a careful inventory and make sure it's one of the two in each case.

For example in my case that's skimmers, filter pump, filter, SWG, pressure-side pool cleaner, heater, spa bubbler, deck jets, auto-leveler. I drain/blow out the last three and run the filter pump (this year at low speed with new VSP) for the first five. This lets us use the spa with heat for New Years, a new family tradition. There are little tricky bits like the spa drain circuit. Normally that's off. In winter, I manually set the automatic valve at 50/50 so both spa and pool side get some flow. Same for the heater bypass valve.

I set the SWG to 0 when water gets into the 50s. (It cuts itself out at 50F.) The good news is cold water is really stable chemically. I'm able to keep FC at 6+ for 20K gallons with one Trichlor puck in a floater. It lasts up to 2 weeks. Easy maintenance. So my procedure is to let CYA drift normally down to ~60 by November. By spring it's into the 70's, just right to fire up the SWG for the season. If CYA were ever too high, I'd just switch to liquid chlorine. Not needed so far.

One other thing is to know exactly what to do if power goes out or if your pump fails in very cold weather for more than an hour or so. You need to do an emergency winterization to prevent as much freeze damage as possible. I'm a little paranoid. To sleep better on cold nights I use a free phone app that rings an alarm if charging juice stops flowing.

I did have my pump fail last winter in the afternoon before a night that went down to 24F. The winterization was to put Gizmos in the skimmers, drain the pump, filter, SWG circuit (by removing the unions), and the heater. Put all valves at 50/50. Took three days to get the pump fixed. No freeze damage.

Hope this is helpful. Good luck.

 

[Orion7319]

I’m just down the road from you. I have lived here my entire life and we rarely get a hard freeze anymore. My equipment is in an insulated shed and I have a VSP. I just put the safety cover on before the leaves fall and run the pool at a low speed. When the water drops consistently below 60 I take out the SWG and replace it with a section of pipe. I don’t think my pool got below 50 last winter. It’s certainly possible that we could have an event like they had in Texas, but we don’t have the Texas electrical grid to worry about. Longest we have been without power for an extended period of time (two weeks) in the last 50 years was after hurricane Hugo.

 

[HermanTX]

@AshleyEM Thanks for the pictures.
It appears they put in valves on certain pipes to allow you to remove the Jandy Fusion SWCG as well as the pump if needed.
Do you have a heater? You do not show it but assume you must based on the suction plumbing.

I marked up the picture with 2 lines that is unknown where they lead. One is GREEN - after the Fusion SWCG and the other is RED. Both lead into the ground. Can you determine where each goes?
If you turn the 3 way valve such that the word OFF on the handle, faces my lettering then there would be no flow to the Fusion SWCG, however, it needs to be determined where that RED pipe leads to. Right now, per the picture - flow is going to both the Fusion SWCG and down the pipe marked in RED.

It appears the mechanical timer is running 24 hrs so it only provides power to the pump. There are no pins to start or stop the timer. The iqPump controller must be set up to run the pump schedule. This pump control does have freeze protection as well, so do you see that in the setting on the app?

 

[AshleyEM]

@AshleyEM Thanks for the pictures.
It appears they put in valves on certain pipes to allow you to remove the Jandy Fusion SWCG as well as the pump if needed.
Do you have a heater? You do not show it but assume you must based on the suction plumbing.

I marked up the picture with 2 lines that is unknown where they lead. One is GREEN - after the Fusion SWCG and the other is RED. Both lead into the ground. Can you determine where each goes?
If you turn the 3 way valve such that the word OFF on the handle, faces my lettering then there would be no flow to the Fusion SWCG, however, it needs to be determined where that RED pipe leads to. Right now, per the picture - flow is going to both the Fusion SWCG and down the pipe marked in RED.

It appears the mechanical timer is running 24 hrs so it only provides power to the pump. There are no pins to start or stop the timer. The iqPump controller must be set up to run the pump schedule. This pump control does have freeze protection as well, so do you see that in the setting on the app?

View attachment 462303

This was a weird one that my husband and his friend figured out when we first moved. The two pipes actually just split the ports in the pool. So the SWG(green) goes to two of the nozzles and the pipe (red) goes to another nozzle. We do not have a heater in the pool. They didn’t understand why the water was split in the pool.
This was built by Anthony Sillvan Pools.

We were confused on how the iqPump controller worked with the mechanical timer. With the temp override on the mechanical, does that override any settings for the iqPump?

 

[HermanTX]

The two pipes actually just split the ports in the pool. So the SWG(green) goes to two of the nozzles and the pipe (red) goes to another nozzle. We do not have a heater in the pool. They didn’t understand why the water was split in the pool.

My logic is that the SWCG can be removed for service or winterization. You would turn off the 2 valves on either side of the SWCG to isolate it, then undo the unions and remove it. The 1 remaining return (red line) to the pool would be your only circulation port. You would need to add liquid chlorine to your pool for sanitization if the SWCG is removed.

We were confused on how the iqPump controller worked with the mechanical timer. With the temp override on the mechanical, does that override any settings for the iqPump?

Since you have no pins on the mechanical timer to turn off or on, then the timer has no influence. You must have the timer mechanically on (that is the small black knob that lets you manually control on/off), assuming that is where the pump is connected to for power. The iQPump will control pump schedule timings. I am not familiar with the iQPump device but look at the manual or go into settings for a freeze protection feature. You should be able to 1) activate it and 2) set the temperature that would turn on pump.