- Apr 15, 2016
- 35
- Pool Size
- 17500
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
So I’m pretty good at making mistakes and here are two this year:
1. Over winter I covered the filled pool and let the filter pump run a couple hours a day, in hopes of having an easy open. I ran filter 24/7 for a week before uncovering. Was still too cold for SWG to kick on, bleach was in short supply so I used some pucks and what bleach I had to get FC up- basically throwing them under the cover right on the pebbletec. Upon opening the pool I could see a fair amount of sediment on the bottom. After sweeping just a tad and running the Polaris, it became evident this was a LOT of DE. I checked the filter outflow and indeeed VERY dirty. Broken filter manifold! And within an hour or two the pool was completely swampy gray- opaque with 2 ft visibility! I put cover back on for safety (kids). Fortunately by this point the SWG kicked on so at least I had a good bleach source. I put filter on recirculate and opened things up to confirm manifold damage (original I think 18yr old). Ordered new from amazon 5 day delivery. After 1 week of new filter parts, running, backwashing, checking pressures, backwashing etc the pool looks great! Lesson is uncover the pool and check filter output before emptying all DE into the pool like that. Also I now recall hearing a popping sound in the filter that apparently was the plastic cracking at rising pressures but I assumed was air bubbles.
2. ahh those pucks. I’ve never used them.Friend told me I screwed that up- sinking 10 pucks on the pebbletec bottom. They can bleach the pebbletec grout OR cause heavy metal dark deposition stains. I lost sleep over this. Pool too opaque to scoop them out. I ran thePolaris Nonstop in hopes of moving them around enough. Polaris got the jets clogged by the DE daily. Ugh. Long story short the damage caused by the pucks to the pebbletec is minimal, hardly noticeable and not mentionable but did result in some darker swirly stains. Only I will ever notice. Fortunately no bleaching happened. Going to find a way to maybe acid treat those areas maybe. Not sure. Practically no one will ever notice though- phew! And yay pebbletec!
1. Over winter I covered the filled pool and let the filter pump run a couple hours a day, in hopes of having an easy open. I ran filter 24/7 for a week before uncovering. Was still too cold for SWG to kick on, bleach was in short supply so I used some pucks and what bleach I had to get FC up- basically throwing them under the cover right on the pebbletec. Upon opening the pool I could see a fair amount of sediment on the bottom. After sweeping just a tad and running the Polaris, it became evident this was a LOT of DE. I checked the filter outflow and indeeed VERY dirty. Broken filter manifold! And within an hour or two the pool was completely swampy gray- opaque with 2 ft visibility! I put cover back on for safety (kids). Fortunately by this point the SWG kicked on so at least I had a good bleach source. I put filter on recirculate and opened things up to confirm manifold damage (original I think 18yr old). Ordered new from amazon 5 day delivery. After 1 week of new filter parts, running, backwashing, checking pressures, backwashing etc the pool looks great! Lesson is uncover the pool and check filter output before emptying all DE into the pool like that. Also I now recall hearing a popping sound in the filter that apparently was the plastic cracking at rising pressures but I assumed was air bubbles.
2. ahh those pucks. I’ve never used them.Friend told me I screwed that up- sinking 10 pucks on the pebbletec bottom. They can bleach the pebbletec grout OR cause heavy metal dark deposition stains. I lost sleep over this. Pool too opaque to scoop them out. I ran thePolaris Nonstop in hopes of moving them around enough. Polaris got the jets clogged by the DE daily. Ugh. Long story short the damage caused by the pucks to the pebbletec is minimal, hardly noticeable and not mentionable but did result in some darker swirly stains. Only I will ever notice. Fortunately no bleaching happened. Going to find a way to maybe acid treat those areas maybe. Not sure. Practically no one will ever notice though- phew! And yay pebbletec!