Hello everyone. New guy here!
So, this is my first pool and I've had it for almost 2 years. It's a 33,000 gallon built in 1971. Everything was going great until a couple of months ago when the pump suddenly quit working. I thought the pump was shot, but I wanted to do some troubleshooting first. Now I'm no electrician, but I'm a pretty good DIYer, so I figured I could track down and fix the problem myself. Between work, family, and cold weather, I was unable to spend much time on the pool. The water just got nastier and nastier. Finally I decided to call in an electrician to help me do some troubleshooting. The run from the main electric panel to the pool is about 250 feet with 2 junction boxes along the way. It took us a whole morning to figure out that the conduit running under the driveway and garage was corroded. I didn't even realize that the junction box behind the garage was for the pool. It was behind a bunch of overgrown weeds and whatnot. When we opened that box we could smell an electrical smell. As we sat there messing with it, we started hearing an electrical buzz inside the conduit. The electrician said it was moisture in the conduit and the wires were welding themselves to the metal conduit. Instead of breaking the concrete and patching the old conduit, we decided that it would be better to just go around the garage from the first junction box to the second one. So that's what I did. I dug a 120' trench, put in PVC conduit and pulled new wired through it. I put in new bigger junction boxes and thought I was done. Before I turned the power on, I decided it would be best to replace some of the old conduit and junction boxes by the pool equipment. The conduit was corroded through at the ground, so I figured I would dig until I found good conduit and replace everything from there. I got lucky and found PVC conduit about 4 feet away from the pool equipment. I think whoever put the PVC in decided not to go all the way to the equipment because the old metal conduit passed under some concrete for a fence post. I broke out the concrete, and that gave me room to cut the PVC and replace everything up to the equipment. I put in some new junction boxes and tried to clean some of it up. I still need to replace the plate on the junction box with switches. Home Depot was out. So, I've got all my electrical stuff fixed and I'm ready to turn it on. I flip the switch and hallelujah the pump is working! Wait....where is that water coming from? The stupid old heater sprung a leak! Will it ever end? The heater hasn't worked in who knows how long, so I just cut the pipes going to it and capped them off. Inch and a half copper caps aren't exactly easy to find. With that done, I turned the pump on and everything worked fine...Whew! Now I'm almost finished clearing the swamp I wish I would have found the SLAM method before I started this. I've gone through a ton of chlorine and 2 and a half boxes of DE. At the beginning, my filter PSI would go from 10 to 30 in under an hour. After a day of backflushing every hour, I took the grids out and did an acid wash. That helped but only for a little while. I just kept backflushing and adding chlorine. I've been doing that for a few days now and I can see the bottom of the deep end. I'm down to 1 or 2 back flushes a day. The test kit I have is a Taylor K2005. I don't think that goes as high as 30ppm CL. Anyways, I thought ya'll would enjoy my story. Here are some pictures.
This was in the summer. Nice and clean.
Here's what it looked like after the pump sat idle over a month.
Digging the trench by hand.
Old stuff.
Removed some of it.
Old conduit.
Cut the conduit. Sorry for the blurry pic.
Soap to lube the wires.
And the wires are free. The black is soap mixed with dirt.
Got everything buttoned up. Those wires go to old landscape lighting. That's a project for another day.
Old heater leaking. No that pump doesn't do anything.
Cut the pipes going to the heater.
And capped them.
With the pump on, it's getting better.
And better.
I'm almost there!
So, this is my first pool and I've had it for almost 2 years. It's a 33,000 gallon built in 1971. Everything was going great until a couple of months ago when the pump suddenly quit working. I thought the pump was shot, but I wanted to do some troubleshooting first. Now I'm no electrician, but I'm a pretty good DIYer, so I figured I could track down and fix the problem myself. Between work, family, and cold weather, I was unable to spend much time on the pool. The water just got nastier and nastier. Finally I decided to call in an electrician to help me do some troubleshooting. The run from the main electric panel to the pool is about 250 feet with 2 junction boxes along the way. It took us a whole morning to figure out that the conduit running under the driveway and garage was corroded. I didn't even realize that the junction box behind the garage was for the pool. It was behind a bunch of overgrown weeds and whatnot. When we opened that box we could smell an electrical smell. As we sat there messing with it, we started hearing an electrical buzz inside the conduit. The electrician said it was moisture in the conduit and the wires were welding themselves to the metal conduit. Instead of breaking the concrete and patching the old conduit, we decided that it would be better to just go around the garage from the first junction box to the second one. So that's what I did. I dug a 120' trench, put in PVC conduit and pulled new wired through it. I put in new bigger junction boxes and thought I was done. Before I turned the power on, I decided it would be best to replace some of the old conduit and junction boxes by the pool equipment. The conduit was corroded through at the ground, so I figured I would dig until I found good conduit and replace everything from there. I got lucky and found PVC conduit about 4 feet away from the pool equipment. I think whoever put the PVC in decided not to go all the way to the equipment because the old metal conduit passed under some concrete for a fence post. I broke out the concrete, and that gave me room to cut the PVC and replace everything up to the equipment. I put in some new junction boxes and tried to clean some of it up. I still need to replace the plate on the junction box with switches. Home Depot was out. So, I've got all my electrical stuff fixed and I'm ready to turn it on. I flip the switch and hallelujah the pump is working! Wait....where is that water coming from? The stupid old heater sprung a leak! Will it ever end? The heater hasn't worked in who knows how long, so I just cut the pipes going to it and capped them off. Inch and a half copper caps aren't exactly easy to find. With that done, I turned the pump on and everything worked fine...Whew! Now I'm almost finished clearing the swamp I wish I would have found the SLAM method before I started this. I've gone through a ton of chlorine and 2 and a half boxes of DE. At the beginning, my filter PSI would go from 10 to 30 in under an hour. After a day of backflushing every hour, I took the grids out and did an acid wash. That helped but only for a little while. I just kept backflushing and adding chlorine. I've been doing that for a few days now and I can see the bottom of the deep end. I'm down to 1 or 2 back flushes a day. The test kit I have is a Taylor K2005. I don't think that goes as high as 30ppm CL. Anyways, I thought ya'll would enjoy my story. Here are some pictures.
This was in the summer. Nice and clean.
Here's what it looked like after the pump sat idle over a month.
Digging the trench by hand.
Old stuff.
Removed some of it.
Old conduit.
Cut the conduit. Sorry for the blurry pic.
Soap to lube the wires.
And the wires are free. The black is soap mixed with dirt.
Got everything buttoned up. Those wires go to old landscape lighting. That's a project for another day.
Old heater leaking. No that pump doesn't do anything.
Cut the pipes going to the heater.
And capped them.
With the pump on, it's getting better.
And better.
I'm almost there!
