First time pool owner, have an awful time and need advice on drain issue
- Thread starter DanielleOv
- Start date
Do you have a picture of the breaker that trips?
Do you have a picture of the pump wiring at the back of the motor?
Did the electrician measure the amps the pump was pulling to make sure that they did not exceed the breaker amp rating?
A good electrician should be able to tell you why a breaker is tripping. It's kind of their job.
Note that the breaker might be tripping due to a ground fault or an excessive amp draw.
Current in excess of 100% but less than 135% can take hours to trip. It's a common misconception that breakers trip immediately if the current gets to the breaker amp rating.
Breakers only trip immediately if there is a direct short or ground fault.
A breaker up to 30 amps doesn't have to trip until it gets to 135% of the rated current. Even then, it can take up to an hour to trip.
At 200% of rated current, the trip time has to be less than 120 seconds.
At 100%, the breaker should not trip.
At 101% to 134%, the breaker might or might not trip depending on how much heat is generated in the breaker.
If it does trip, there is no set time that it's required to do. It might take hours.
https://goodsonengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/CircuitBreakerMyths_web.pdf
Based on a trip time of hours, I would suspect a bad breaker, an overloaded breaker at 101% to 134% of the breaker amp rating or an intermittent ground fault.
The electrician should check the volts and amps at the motor, that the volts match the pump voltage setting and that the amps don't exceed the motor label amps or breaker rated ampacity.
The electrician should check for any ground faults.
Do you have a picture of the pump wiring at the back of the motor?
Did the electrician measure the amps the pump was pulling to make sure that they did not exceed the breaker amp rating?
A good electrician should be able to tell you why a breaker is tripping. It's kind of their job.
Note that the breaker might be tripping due to a ground fault or an excessive amp draw.
Current in excess of 100% but less than 135% can take hours to trip. It's a common misconception that breakers trip immediately if the current gets to the breaker amp rating.
Breakers only trip immediately if there is a direct short or ground fault.
A breaker up to 30 amps doesn't have to trip until it gets to 135% of the rated current. Even then, it can take up to an hour to trip.
At 200% of rated current, the trip time has to be less than 120 seconds.
At 100%, the breaker should not trip.
At 101% to 134%, the breaker might or might not trip depending on how much heat is generated in the breaker.
If it does trip, there is no set time that it's required to do. It might take hours.
https://goodsonengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/CircuitBreakerMyths_web.pdf
Based on a trip time of hours, I would suspect a bad breaker, an overloaded breaker at 101% to 134% of the breaker amp rating or an intermittent ground fault.
The electrician should check the volts and amps at the motor, that the volts match the pump voltage setting and that the amps don't exceed the motor label amps or breaker rated ampacity.
The electrician should check for any ground faults.
Update:
It's an Inground Pool, hardwired, 220Volt. It's a tandem breaker switch (2x 20 amp switches in one); the electrician added an additional GFCI in the circuit breaker, labeled interrupt rating 10000A, 60Hz, 120/240V.
It's a Hayward Super Pump (added model info in my signature). The info on the pump says: 1 HP, Volts: 115/230, AMPS: 15.0/7.5 amp mode, 60htz.
It's an Inground Pool, hardwired, 220Volt. It's a tandem breaker switch (2x 20 amp switches in one); the electrician added an additional GFCI in the circuit breaker, labeled interrupt rating 10000A, 60Hz, 120/240V.
It's a Hayward Super Pump (added model info in my signature). The info on the pump says: 1 HP, Volts: 115/230, AMPS: 15.0/7.5 amp mode, 60htz.
Hi All,
Update: sent info to my electrician but no response yet. Since then we've mostly just been running the pump at night and it's ok. We've been vaccuming as much as we can. Today (am) I was able to scoop about another 3/4 rakes full of leaves and of course in doing that the water turns brown again. Good news is the test kit arrived, I haven't even had a chance to open it yet but will tonight. It looks intimidating so if anyone can offer some tips that would be great. So I'm ready for next steps...I'm assuming I should go get alot of shock and chlorine to have on hand??? What else? about how much? Again this is about a 35-40k gallon pool-very brown/green. We've been doing a gallon of bleach a night for about 3 nights and last night did 3 bags of shock. We're going to focus as much as possible this weekend so should we wait to start anything hardcore til saturday or definitely start the SLAM process tonight?
As always, thank you!
Update: sent info to my electrician but no response yet. Since then we've mostly just been running the pump at night and it's ok. We've been vaccuming as much as we can. Today (am) I was able to scoop about another 3/4 rakes full of leaves and of course in doing that the water turns brown again. Good news is the test kit arrived, I haven't even had a chance to open it yet but will tonight. It looks intimidating so if anyone can offer some tips that would be great. So I'm ready for next steps...I'm assuming I should go get alot of shock and chlorine to have on hand??? What else? about how much? Again this is about a 35-40k gallon pool-very brown/green. We've been doing a gallon of bleach a night for about 3 nights and last night did 3 bags of shock. We're going to focus as much as possible this weekend so should we wait to start anything hardcore til saturday or definitely start the SLAM process tonight?
As always, thank you!
Just use liquid chlorine. Using bags of "shock" will either raise your CYA or your calcium, and we don't know what those levels are yet. If either is too high you will need to replace some of the water. You can always start the slam tonight and hit it hard over the weekend. This link will show you videos of how to perform the tests: https://www.youtube.com/user/tf100testkit?feature=results_main
Stupid question: By liquid chlorine, do you mean liquid shock or just plain bleach?
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,573
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Plain bleach is liquid chlorine. No scents or other additives. 12% is preferred if you can find that potency.
Either. They're the same thing, Sodium Hypochlorite, just different strengths. Read the labels. If they won't give the strength, it means they're ashamed at how weak it is and you don't want it. And you don't want any fancy additives -- no scents, no splashless, no fabric guard. If you find stuff marketed for pools, it won't have any of that stuff in it.
So not the type at a supermarket?? I should be looking for this at a specialty store
They may have some at the grocery store without all the additives. Or you can check all the big box stores like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes. You have to read the labels.
Grocery stores, laundry aisle are usually 3% or 6% now. You might find some locations with 8.25%.
Based on your size pool it’s probably worth trying to find the 10% or 12% due to the number of jugs you’ll have to carry.
There are at least two threads on this forum that talk about where to find cheap/good pricing on bleach/liquid chlorine
Based on your size pool it’s probably worth trying to find the 10% or 12% due to the number of jugs you’ll have to carry.
There are at least two threads on this forum that talk about where to find cheap/good pricing on bleach/liquid chlorine
if you have a wal-mart or home depot or lowes they all carry 10% liquid chlorine wal-mart lowes i think is pool essentials 10 % if its real dusty it could be old so look at the bottle there is a date code it should start with 18 the the number of days this year it was made like 156 being day 156 in 2018 to days date code would be 18 193 you want as fresh as possible not any that is say 18 060 you want it stored in side so if it outside it need to really fresh. btw welcome to TFP you will get very soild advice here please read posts here you will see there are thousands of pool owners just like you looking for help i was one last year good luck .
Danielle:
Ocean State Job Lot in South Plainfield may be closest. They have real strong 12.5%, which IMO is at a higher concentrate. I would call first to see if they just received a shipment in. $11.99 for 4 gallons, + tax. From East Brunswick, you can jump on Rt. 9 heading towards Edison, get off 287 North and the South Plainfield exits are right there. Below is the information. You have to weigh the travel time and distance to determine if it is worth it.
South Plainfield
6305 Hadley Road
South Plainfield NJ, 07080
908-561-1012
Ocean State Job Lot in South Plainfield may be closest. They have real strong 12.5%, which IMO is at a higher concentrate. I would call first to see if they just received a shipment in. $11.99 for 4 gallons, + tax. From East Brunswick, you can jump on Rt. 9 heading towards Edison, get off 287 North and the South Plainfield exits are right there. Below is the information. You have to weigh the travel time and distance to determine if it is worth it.
South Plainfield
6305 Hadley Road
South Plainfield NJ, 07080
908-561-1012
Wow, so I finally opened up the test kit...thinking i can work on this while my daughter naps. COMPLETELY overwhelmed. I feel like I need a PHD first before I even test my water. Ugh, this struggle never ends. So I won't be able to tackle this until we have more time, hopefully tonight when hubs and i are together and tag team it. For now,I'm going to see if I can find this strong bleach somewhere. I live near a lowes, walmart and home depot. My hubs didn't realize we needed stronger bleach so we've just been using regular bleach for th epast week. So I guess we're starting from scratch yet again.
If you can not find the 12.5%, then stick with the 8.25%, no big deal. Test PH, and lower to 7.2 as this is where you will need to be for the PH. Test CYA carefully and follow the SLAM chart. Add enough bleach to keep at SLAM level. You may want to add the amount of gallons in your signature. Again, use Pool Math to determine how many gallons. Post all your results and we will guide you from here.
Inside the test kit, there should be a laminated card with the directions. Follow the directions and it will walk you through each test, step-by-step. It may look daunting but it really isn’t difficult.
- May 3, 2014
- 62,729
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40