I'm back. It's nice not to have any issues to post about here for a few months, but here we are a day after starting to open.we finished it this morning.
We changed the sand in our filter before opening. Please don't tell me all the reasons we shouldn't have. We were aware of them and decided to do it anyway for peace of mind. Our pool builder was
and we honestly weren't sure at this point that he would have used the correct sand. It's never really filtered as it seems it should and we have had some other issues that may or may not be attributed to incorrect sand. We DIYed it so the cost was minimal.
In the process of taking off the MPV, we found that he had pretty much glued it into place with some sort of silicone sealant and stripped out the bolts on the collar. That was a beast to even open up without damaging anything. Then I had to carefully clean off all of the mess and go get a new o-ring. We tried to remove it last year to inspect the filter and realized it wouldn't budge. Decided then that it was a problem for 2024 and now I know why it wouldn't open as easily as anticipated.
Got everything back together and now I have some drips from the screws. I'm thinking I need to replace the internal MPV o-ring (and probably spider gasket while its open?) to address those. Maybe winter or all the movement when cleaning disturbed those?
We also have an air leak somewhere in the skimmer pathway that we knew about when closing and now need to address.
So 2 questions I guess (TLDR):
1. Where should I look first to fix the drips at the MPV screws? O ring?
2. Is there any guide/precious post/suggestions on finding an air leak in the skimmer assembly or (hopefully not) line that shows up primarily when vacuuming the pool?
Tia!
We changed the sand in our filter before opening. Please don't tell me all the reasons we shouldn't have. We were aware of them and decided to do it anyway for peace of mind. Our pool builder was
and we honestly weren't sure at this point that he would have used the correct sand. It's never really filtered as it seems it should and we have had some other issues that may or may not be attributed to incorrect sand. We DIYed it so the cost was minimal.In the process of taking off the MPV, we found that he had pretty much glued it into place with some sort of silicone sealant and stripped out the bolts on the collar. That was a beast to even open up without damaging anything. Then I had to carefully clean off all of the mess and go get a new o-ring. We tried to remove it last year to inspect the filter and realized it wouldn't budge. Decided then that it was a problem for 2024 and now I know why it wouldn't open as easily as anticipated.
Got everything back together and now I have some drips from the screws. I'm thinking I need to replace the internal MPV o-ring (and probably spider gasket while its open?) to address those. Maybe winter or all the movement when cleaning disturbed those?
We also have an air leak somewhere in the skimmer pathway that we knew about when closing and now need to address.
So 2 questions I guess (TLDR):
1. Where should I look first to fix the drips at the MPV screws? O ring?
2. Is there any guide/precious post/suggestions on finding an air leak in the skimmer assembly or (hopefully not) line that shows up primarily when vacuuming the pool?
Tia!
