Glacier Pool Cooler - Help

[twillux]

When you say spray wands do they actually spray. My wands have streams of water coming out when the fan is stopped. Does turning the fan on cause them to spray.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.

No problem; I went through a lot of research setting mine up too.

The fan has nothing to do with the wands. Water flowing into the cooler with enough pressure will cause the wands to rotate. As they rotate, water will stream out of holes along each wand and drip down into the basin. You’re right, it’s definitely a drip or stream, not a spray. The important thing is that water is clearly coming out of all wands, and most importantly that the wands are rotating between 7-12 revolutions per minute. You can time the rotations with a watch and count how many full rotations one specific wand makes in one minute. If you’re outside of the 7-12, you adjust the inlet ball valve to change the amount of water going into the cooler.

 

[Jeff McGuire]

My wands look like they have streams of water coming out - not spray. Of course I’m seeing this with the fan off. Does turning the fan on cause the water to become a spray/mist?

Let me see if I can offer some help. (I'm in Houston area- Katy) Went through this 2 years ago and installed and programmed my own cooler. There was some trial and error involved and I will tell you its not like a night and day difference but we are still happy with the overall outcome. I ran my cooler yesterday and over night an my pool is 84° this morning. Dew point was at 79° so that is within 5° of the maximum temp you could reach so I'll call that pretty good.

Your spray wands should not spray. They should just have a gentle stream that have enough water pressure coming out of them to make the wand spin at a nice slow RPM. The RPM listed above is a bit slow if you ask me. I don't recall if it was the tech at Glacier or I read it somewhere, but I know you want the wand spinning where the water is not slinging on the inside walls of the cooler. I tune my rpm so that outer hole is just barely not slinging on the wall. As far as the basin, i was told by the tech to have it draining every 2-3 minutes but as mentioned above my number could be off.
Speaking with a tech he recommended I set my floor/skimmer return valve right in-between the two like at a 45° so it limits both just a bit. This will force the pump to pull a bit more of its water from the cooler and not just out of the pool (he said it will actually pull it past the sump even when its not on pumping and that was OK).
I suggest just giving the install a once over. Its really easy to follow once you wrap your head around it. The intake side of cooler (closest to drain on cooler) should come off the pressure side of pump (pressure side it the pipe coming out the top). And the exit side of cooler should come back into the pump on the intake side which comes in the front or side of pump unless it was a new build in which case its ok just to plump it straight back to the pool.

 

[Treetopp]

Let me see if I can offer some help. (I'm in Houston area- Katy) Went through this 2 years ago and installed and programmed my own cooler. There was some trial and error involved and I will tell you its not like a night and day difference but we are still happy with the overall outcome. I ran my cooler yesterday and over night an my pool is 84° this morning. Dew point was at 79° so that is within 5° of the maximum temp you could reach so I'll call that pretty good.

Your spray wands should not spray. They should just have a gentle stream that have enough water pressure coming out of them to make the wand spin at a nice slow RPM. The RPM listed above is a bit slow if you ask me. I don't recall if it was the tech at Glacier or I read it somewhere, but I know you want the wand spinning where the water is not slinging on the inside walls of the cooler. I tune my rpm so that outer hole is just barely not slinging on the wall. As far as the basin, i was told by the tech to have it draining every 2-3 minutes but as mentioned above my number could be off.
Speaking with a tech he recommended I set my floor/skimmer return valve right in-between the two like at a 45° so it limits both just a bit. This will force the pump to pull a bit more of its water from the cooler and not just out of the pool (he said it will actually pull it past the sump even when its not on pumping and that was OK).
I suggest just giving the install a once over. Its really easy to follow once you wrap your head around it. The intake side of cooler (closest to drain on cooler) should come off the pressure side of pump (pressure side it the pipe coming out the top). And the exit side of cooler should come back into the pump on the intake side which comes in the front or side of pump unless it was a new build in which case its ok just to plump it straight back to the pool.

Jeff thanks for the info. The part about setting the skimmer/floor return to 45 degrees is a good one…. Had not thought of that. Makes sense to try and pull more water from cooler to mix with the other water returning from skimmer/floor.

 

[TheoneAB]

Were you able to get it working?

 

[jark87]

based on your model number, the spray wands should make one full rotation 7-12 times per minute.

That’s pretty interesting. I was told by my installer to have the wands going at a “fast walk” speed. I never paid attention to RPMs. My chiller has done a good job of cooling, but in the past, I’ve had it going around 30 RPM. I just adjusted it down to 15 RPM, which is still above the recommended speed in the table. We have been out of town, so I just turned my chiller on today. I turned it on around noon and even though we had a 105° day and my pool gets full sun exposure in the afternoon, my water temp dropped from 89° to 87° during the day. Had it not been on, I’m certain that the water temp would have risen to well over 90°. I’ll be running it all night and hope to get the water back into the low 80s, which is where I can usually maintain the temp. I normally start the chiller up before it gets really hot, but that wasn’t the case this year.

My wands look like they have streams of water coming out - not spray.

Same with mine. Good luck getting your water cooled down. I’m in DFW and love my Glacier!

 

[jark87]

Speaking with a tech he recommended I set my floor/skimmer return valve right in-between the two like at a 45° so it limits both just a bit. This will force the pump to pull a bit more of its water from the cooler and not just out of the pool (he said it will actually pull it past the sump even when its not on pumping and that was OK).

@Jeff McGuire I’ve never considered this and am wondering if I might be able to get a little more cooling by adjusting my valve. I have 2 skimmers and the chiller is plumbed to the one labeled “West Skimmer”. In the picture below, the valve appears to be completely open. Is that the valve I should adjust to 45°? Thanks!

 

[Jeff McGuire]

@Jeff McGuire I’ve never considered this and am wondering if I might be able to get a little more cooling by adjusting my valve. I have 2 skimmers and the chiller is plumbed to the one labeled “West Skimmer”. In the picture below, the valve appears to be completely open. Is that the valve I should adjust to 45°? Thanks!

I can't see in the picture but I assume the line coming from the right side, into the west skimmer at that valve is your east skimmer? If you restrict that other skimmer to the right a bit it should pull more from the cooler and west skimmer.

Mine works for this situation because my cooler is plumbed after my skimmers and the floor drain. That is how I'm able to restrict all three fairly easily.

 

[jark87]

I can't see in the picture but I assume the line coming from the right side, into the west skimmer at that valve is your east skimmer? If you restrict that other skimmer to the right a bit it should pull more from the cooler and west skimmer.

Mine works for this situation because my cooler is plumbed after my skimmers and the floor drain. That is how I'm able to restrict all three fairly easily.

Ah - thanks for that clarification! Yes, the east skimmer is to the right of the west skimmer. So I’ve adjusted from this:

To this:

Is that what you’d recommend? Thanks again!

 

[Jeff McGuire]

So by doing that you are letting both skimmer function fully and just cutting down flow from the floor drain. If you adjusted only the valve on the west skimmer line it would cut flow from east skimmer and floor drain.

 

[jark87]

So by doing that you are letting both skimmer function fully and just cutting down flow from the floor drain. If you adjusted only the valve on the west skimmer line it would cut flow from east skimmer and floor drain.

So what do you believe the optimal setting is? Leave as-is (cutting down floor drain), reset East/floor valve and adjust west to cut flow from east/floor, or put both valves at 45°? Thanks!

 

[Jeff McGuire]

Haha, I sure wish I knew!! I'm still trying to figure the optimal setting for mine myself.

 

[jark87]

Haha, I sure wish I knew!! I'm still trying to figure the optimal setting for mine myself.

Since my floor drain is 10’ down, I’m going to reopen it fully and cut the East skimmer back. I figure the water at the bottom of the deep end is cooler than what is pulled from the skimmer.

 

[Jeff McGuire]

Since my floor drain is 10’ down, I’m going to reopen it fully and cut the East skimmer back. I figure the water at the bottom of the deep end is cooler than what is pulled from the skimmer.

I agree. Give it a try and see if you see any difference. Any bit of help is appreciated when its as hot as its been here lately.

We have friends down the road that have a pool built within a few months of ours by the same builder and we are in a new neighborhood with 0 tree shade. I usually check in with him to see his temps since they don't have a chiller. With 7k more gal than mine and a bit deeper they are usually 1 deg. cooler than our pool. When i run the cooler i am around 3 deg cooler than theirs. 3 deg might not sound like a lot but its a world of difference in these super hot days!

 

[Treetopp]

An update on my Glacier Pool Cooler operation. Came home from vacation yesterday to 96 degree pool water. Turned cooler on around 4 pm and ran overnight with pump at 3000 rpm. This morning the pool temp was 86 degrees

i made the following adjustments based on input from everyone here at TFP.

First I adjusted the wands so the streams are pointing more down and just barely to the right. This allowed for a lot more water to flow into the cooler without splashing all over the place. The wands were turning about 15 to 20 rpm (which is a little higher than recommended). Because more water was going in I opened the outlet valve a little more and was able to achieve the 2-3 minute cycle of the basin filling and then the pump kicking on to push the water out. (Prior to adjusting the wands the water flow was so slow the outlet valve was practically completely shut and the cycle time was probably well over 10 minutes.)

Lastly I shut off the return water from the main drain and set each skimmer return valve to only 1/2 way open. So more cool water was being pulled by the pump to mix with the skimmer return water. This was Jeff McGuire’s suggestion and I think it really helped. I could actually feel the colder water coming out of the pool returns jets. Before making these adjustments I wasn’t really able to feel any temperature difference in the water coming out of the return jets vs. the rest of the pool water.

A big thanks to all who gave their suggestions for tweaking all the settings on my Cooler so that it is actually cooling.

 

[TheoneAB]

Let me see if I can offer some help. (I'm in Houston area- Katy) Went through this 2 years ago and installed and programmed my own cooler. There was some trial and error involved and I will tell you its not like a night and day difference but we are still happy with the overall outcome. I ran my cooler yesterday and over night an my pool is 84° this morning. Dew point was at 79° so that is within 5° of the maximum temp you could reach so I'll call that pretty good.

Your spray wands should not spray. They should just have a gentle stream that have enough water pressure coming out of them to make the wand spin at a nice slow RPM. The RPM listed above is a bit slow if you ask me. I don't recall if it was the tech at Glacier or I read it somewhere, but I know you want the wand spinning where the water is not slinging on the inside walls of the cooler. I tune my rpm so that outer hole is just barely not slinging on the wall. As far as the basin, i was told by the tech to have it draining every 2-3 minutes but as mentioned above my number could be off.
Speaking with a tech he recommended I set my floor/skimmer return valve right in-between the two like at a 45° so it limits both just a bit. This will force the pump to pull a bit more of its water from the cooler and not just out of the pool (he said it will actually pull it past the sump even when its not on pumping and that was OK).
I suggest just giving the install a once over. Its really easy to follow once you wrap your head around it. The intake side of cooler (closest to drain on cooler) should come off the pressure side of pump (pressure side it the pipe coming out the top). And the exit side of cooler should come back into the pump on the intake side which comes in the front or side of pump unless it was a new build in which case its ok just to plump it straight back to the pool.

Jeff,
What part of Katy do you live in? Im about to install one of these chillers and I might need help if I cant figure it out.

 

[jark87]

Even though I’ve made some of the adjustments, our pool is roughly where it is normally at this time of year. Water temp is 81° around 7am and has maxed at 84° when ambient temp hit 103°. I’ll take that all day! The past couple of days had lower humidity, which helps.

I shut my chiller off today because it’s cloudy and the humidity has risen a bit. At 6:30pm, water temp is 82°, so it stayed cool. Chiller will come back on at 3am tomorrow. Pool water level had dropped close to an inch each day over the past couple of days, so I’m glad to give the refill line a break!

 

[KevMo]

It has been extremely hot in the Houston area recently. Over the last 2 weeks the water temp has averaged 93F during the afternoon and only down to 89F overnight. I now have a Glacier GPC210 on order now. The necessary plumbing was roughed in during the build and my equipment pad was built with room for the cooler. I will post back my results once I get it dialed in. It will be A DIY install so I may be back with a few questions along the way.

 

[jark87]

It has been extremely hot in the Houston area recently. Over the last 2 weeks the water temp has averaged 93F during the afternoon and only down to 89F overnight. I now have a Glacier GPC210 on order now. The necessary plumbing was roughed in during the build and my equipment pad was built with room for the cooler. I will post back my results once I get it dialed in. It will be A DIY install so I may be back with a few questions along the way.

I think you’ll find the Glacier one of the best investments you can make it your pool equipment, at least for hot environments like Texas. While our pool gets full sun, the pool equipment, including the chiller, sits in a heavily shaded area and never gets direct sun, so that helps.

In the first few years after building our pool, we found that water temps would reach low- to mid-90s around the 4th of July. No one wanted to get in the pool because it was not refreshing at all. Now, with the Glacier running, water temps rarely reach 85° and usually max out at 83°. I had the chiller off all day yesterday and it kicked back on at 3am this morning. When I checked around 7am, water temp was 79°, which is right around where our low overnight ambient temp was. It will probably only rise 2-3° during the day, which translates to a VERY refreshing pool! I don’t know if it’s truly cause and effect, but my chlorine demand also drops when I can keep the water cooler, as I’ll dial down the SWCG when running the chiller.

In the end, Glacier gave us our pool back. Example: Friday was really hot - just over 100°. I spent all day at the pool, with the water temp in the low 80s. Wouldn’t have even been outside without the Glacier.

Good luck with your installation!

 

[Jeff McGuire]

Jeff,
What part of Katy do you live in? Im about to install one of these chillers and I might need help if I cant figure it out.

I'm in City of Katy.
The physical install is quite simple if your already plumbed for it. Getting the ball valves set is the mystery that we all play with in order to achieve the optimal cooling from it.
I have a omni logic controller so there was a bit of work to get it all working properly, but I was able to figure it out.

 

[Jeff McGuire]

Do all your wands have a lot of water that comes out from under the wand where it rotates on the shaft? I assume there is no sort of o-ring there as it would cause a friction point but i seem to loose a good bit of water from under the wand that just runs down that pipe and down into the bottom tank.