We bought out house with a strange 14K gallon pool last October, and the owners were going through a divorce and neglected the pool in the process. I spent the fall getting the water clear using the SLAM and advice from browsing the forums here. Everything was great until we went on Christmas break. I got a call from the house sitter asking why the pool pump was making noise. (it is on a temperature controlled freeze protect timer and was a bit noisy anyhow) I assured him it was OK and it is just loud, but running to avoid freezing over, something we rarely do in this part of the US. I had just replaced the digital pool timer and the box it was mounted in before we left for the trip. A few days after our return the pump noise stopped, the bearings had had enough and it was seized. That night, while I was researching pump motors, we received the one freeze of the year.... It busted the pump housing and one PVC line, the one from the main floor drain, thus emptying the pool once it warmed back up. I took that opportunity to drain our strange above ground concrete pool, go through the entire Chlorinated Rubber paint process to refinish it and I have installed a new Pentair pump, replaced a lot of PVC parts to include all of the valves, and just finished refilling and stabilizing the levels. That was a long intro. Lets hope this summer is worth all the work! And thanks for a great forum and a better way for the DIY person to take care of a pool.
