Fellow citizen's pool

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JVTrain

JVTrain

0
TFP Expert
Feb 3, 2014
5,070
Central Minnesota
I helped an acquaintance of mine last year with his pool. He called this week saying he needed a hand again... boy did he ever. Green mess and lots of plastic circles from his disintegrated solar cover, since removed after opening. The pool had been opened "professionally" for weeks so how could they be there? Even if the pool was green, it should still be skimming surface debris. I guess I assumed too much. The plumbing lines on his AG pool had been hooked up backwards! Water coming up out of the skimmer, being sucked in the return...

With that fixed I went to testing the water. Full on CYA to ammonia conversion. pH >8.2. 0 CYA. 0.5 FC and 1.5 CC after adding a gallon of bleach. Not too terrible though. Only took 2.5 gallons of 12.5% bleach (~9000 gallon pool) and we were holding chlorine again. Patented pink soccer sock in the water with some CYA and we're on our way! We'll see if we can work on keeping a better pool with actual circulation. And this was the pool service that's more recommended than the other in our area...
 
At it again today. Most CYA dissolved. Brushed, filled water so pump wasn't sucking so much air. Backwashed.

FC: 7.5 bumped to 13
CC: 2.5
pH: 7.4 before adding bleach
TA: 110
CH untested
Assuming 30 ppm CYA with addition of about 2 pounds.

Color more yellow than yesterday's green. Plumes of yellowness when brushing.
fd5feafb7548c3fa67b9db8d0582a19c.jpg


Sent from mobile device. Beware of brevity and grammar errors!
 
OMG! Would the professional service give them money back after a mistake like that? And more importantly, will your fellow citizen be converted to the TFP method after his pool is cleared?

My friend had her pool closed professionally last year - this year on opening it was brown. Full out brown with a creamy foam on the top. Super gross. At the pool store they told her it was her fault as she didn't treat it over the winter. Her pool is also a huge 20x40 so it didn't surprise me when she said it cost a small fortune to clean it up with super shock. They use some sort of silver system though, and look down their nose at my simple bleach system (think it's too much work, and who the heck dumps bleach into their pool?).

Anyway, I'm fearful for what will happen to her pool this summer. It's their 3rd year and I think their CYA will be through the roof.

And you are doing a great service by helping your friend out - I hope lots of beers (or payment beverage of preference) are in your future!
 
Not a lot of progress this week. Don't think I've been getting them to vacuum often enough. Still lots of yellow plumes when brushing. Going to help them vacuum tomorrow directly to filter to try to get more of it out and see some progress.
 
Well... my charity work is going very slow. The pool hasn't made a lot of progress from a clarity standpoint, if at all. It's really only has been dosed up to SLAM levels 1-2 times per day over the last weeks. Homeowner has been ill and not able to brush/dose much but now kids are around to help them brush 2 times per day and dose up the FC once. I'm backwashing and dosing each evening, then brushing like crazy.

To me, it seems like it's not filtering very well. A couple days ago I deep cleaned the sand filter and the next day there wasn't a lot of improvement as well. Filter is about 2/3 full of sand, which seems normal. Deep cleaned for 15 minutes and there was still some fine material coming out. Clean filter pressure did not change from before and after but there was so much material settled on the filter bottom that it wouldn't drain. Now it does slowly. I also added some DE yesterday evening to help try to improve filtration. We'll see how the pressure has responded today. Pressure is only rising by maybe 2-3 psi per day. Vacuuming doesn't seem to be very effective, but I'll be giving that another go tonight.

Working on my patience but I would have hoped for some clarity change by now, even with not dosing and brushing often enough to really attack the issues, until the last 3 days. It was open, with inverted flow, for at least a month so it will take time, just hoping for more progress. Anything I've missed? I'm even tempted to bring my robot over to help things along...
 
Holy moly on vacuuming tonight. The first few times I had done it last week did very little. This time around... every 5 minutes filter pressure would climb from 10 psi to 20 psi while vacuuming. 5-6 backwashes later, it was still going strong. Even pulled out a few acorns. :p Back at it tomorrow.
 

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I'm now at a loss on this pool. Sad to say but there has been zero progress in the last week and a half. It's acting like the filter is doing nothing, or next to nothing most of the time. It's been being brush 2-3 times a day and I've vacuumed the last 5 days, every night. Chlorine gets dosed up twice a day at most (which isn't enough to attack it quickly, I know). nearly every days tests look like this:

Initial tests:
FC: 5-8 ppm
pH: 7.4 (have dosed it downward several times from 7.6 to 7.2)
CYA: 30 but now drifting down toward 20 after lots of backwashes
psi: 15-17 psi

Tests after vacuuming, then dosing:
FC: 12-16 ppm ( a few overshoots)
psi: 14.5 after backwashing, always before and after deep cleanings

There's plenty of material on the bottom, still. Very cloudy green/yellow/grey. It's just never getting filtered out. Several times when I've vacuumed the psi has gone from 10 psi when first hooking up vacuum then to nearly 20 psi, backwash, back to 10 psi. Rinse repeat 4-5 times to get the whole pool. Other times I backwash pressure hardly rises despite seeing LOTS of green/grey material going through the pump basket. Every time I vacuum (even when I get pressure rise), when there is visible yellow/green material being picked up by the vacuum seen in the pump basket, lots of the same color material is coming right out of the return. It seems lots of material is bypassing the filter.

I have deep cleaned the filter twice now with massive clouds of grey material coming out each time. It seemed to help filter better after the first, too soon to tell on the second as I just did it tonight. Sand height is about 6" from top of standpipe, which seems appropriate.

Pump: 1.5 HP Hayward Power Flow Matrix, 115 V
Filter: Hayward S180T
1 skimmer, 1 return

Is the pump overpowering the filter? Channeling it? Many times when I vacuum, the suction is so strong the head gets stuck to the bottom if I'm not careful with pushing down too hard on the head. I've tried adding some DE twice, and it seems to help pressure rise more on the days I've done it.

Update: S180T
Recommended flow rate for sand filter 35 GPM
Maximum flow rate: 40 GPM

Pump (Flow vs. Resistance to Head)
Model ------10 ft----------20 ft---------30 ft ---------40 ft---------50 ft
SP1593------91 GPM ------91 GPM ------80 GPM -------62 GPM ------32 GPM

There is about 5 feet of 1.5" corrugated hose between filter MPV and return. Not much head in the system other than the filter.
 
Have you thought about a drain and refill (I think you can do that with a AGP without damaging the liner?)? That might be the easiest way to clean the junk off the bottom. 9k gallons of water is pretty cheap in MN.
 
Flow rate of the pump probably exceeds the recommendations, 60 GPM. To get the flow rate down to 40 GPM, filter pressure would need to be around 22 PSI. If the return side has a valve, you could try closing it off some to get the pressure up and flow rate down and see if that helps. Dead algae passing through most sand filters so it will be difficult to filter it out. You might run the filter pressure higher for longer.

Lots of DE would accomplish the same thing although backwashing will remove it.

Otherwise, there could be something wrong with the filter.
 
Yep, investigate the sand. This year I got my water to about that color and it just stayed there for a week. In my case, I chose to replaced my sand due to my past abuses (floc to filter each of the previous 3 years), kids were swimming in 8 days.

june 5th
6_5_2017 pool.jpg

june 12th
6_12_2017 pool.jpg

replaced my sand on 12th 5 hours after that pic was taken

june 15th
6_15_2017 pool.jpg

june 17th
6_17_2017 pool.jpg

june 19th <- could see drain, passed OCLT, waited 1 more day
6_19_2017 pool.jpg

june 20th <-- first day of swimming. The pump was max speed so top of water is disturbed greatly. It was clear to the drain.
6_20_2017 pool.jpg

june 23 <-- added Fiber Clear on the 22nd and followed the directions on bag, just keeps getting better
(if you have proof about CF vs DE & sand, feel free to join our discussion in the agree to disagree forum, don't hostage this thread.. and bring pics!)
6_23_2017 pool.jpg

*my history of floc to the filter, replacing the sand was an easy decision to make. Your mileage may vary.

good luck,
 
If the pump is overpowering the filter, the issue of poor filtration will continue, regardless if I drain and fill or change the sand. I'd rather remedy the root of the problem as a sand change doesn't change that.

I've deep cleaned the filter twice, which is the nearly the equivalent of a sand change. I'm not confident at all that that would change the quality of the filtration.
 
What I'm doing now is every time I backwash, adding 6 tablespoons of DE (roughly 3/8 cup). This raises the filter pressure from 14.5 to 15.5-16 psi. This seems to be more productive for vacuuming, with less material (maybe?) passing through the filter and visible coming out of return. When I was done vacuuming, I added 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) and the psi was about 18.5 psi. Not sure why the big jump from 6 to 8 tablespoons. I left it circulating like this and have been checking/homeowner checking as frequently as we can. There is noticeably less velocity of water coming out the return when pressure is this high versus 14 psi. Pumps is also much quieter.

If this were my pool... I'd downsize to a 1 HP, 2-speed pump and upsize to a 24-27" filter... I doubt that's in the cards for them though. Might just have to put their filter on a permanent diet of DE after backwashes. I have 20 pounds of the stuff and I backwash 3 times per summer. Even if they were backwashing 5-6 times per summer or more (once pool is clear), even 5 pounds would go a long way.
 
BTW, thanks for your suggestions on how to increase backpressure/head on the system and some validation that the pump is oversized for the filter, Mark. I'm hoping for more improvements in the next few days with the DE and will have them get a 3/4" eyeball opening rather than the 1" to see how that goes.
 

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