Hey there everyone,
I've been lurking for about a year and have learned so much from this community on maintaining the 15k gallon in ground pool we inherited when we moved. After maintaining with liquid chlorine the last year, I decided to put a SWG in for this season. Since I was already on the upgrade train and Duke increased their incentive for energy star pumps, I bought one and am looking to replace the 17-year-old Pentair pump they had in there. Looking at the manual for the new pump, it's telling me I should have 12.5 inches of straight pipe before the inlet (2.5" OD). How critical is this? The new pump has a coupler so I will need to modify the current pump inlet anyway but, it's currently a lot closer to that 3-way valve than the manufacturer recommends.
After we got the place I had to fix several suction side leaks including cracked 3-way valve housings and I basically replumbed the same way the builder had it but, added the 90 degree sweeps with new valves (please feel free to laugh at my horrible PVC cement job!).
I'm looking for some opinions on if I should just add the coupler to the short inlet pipe and be done with it? The new pump has the same inlet/outlet configuration so I would just have to add the coupler that came with the pump.
Alternatively, I am thinking about re-plumbing to extend the straight inlet section to 12.5" and move the 3-way valves back in line with the 3 supply lines from the main/skimmers. At the same time, I would replace the pump outlet plumbing to add sweeps, move the hose fitting, possibly get rid of the 2-way valve that goes to the vacuum port (seems redundant?), replace the canister that's leaking, and replace the coupling that goes to the spider valve.
See my pictures, hopefully they give a better picture of what's in my head. (The circuit on the left with the black jandy pump is separate for a waterfall. I have no idea why it was done that way but, that's what the owners did when they built the place. I have a bunch of other problems from the winter with this that I'll save for a separate post hah). Unfortunately, I think I would have to throw out those two new jandy valves I just replaced if I moved everything but, also seems like a good opportunity to streamline the plumbing?
I've been lurking for about a year and have learned so much from this community on maintaining the 15k gallon in ground pool we inherited when we moved. After maintaining with liquid chlorine the last year, I decided to put a SWG in for this season. Since I was already on the upgrade train and Duke increased their incentive for energy star pumps, I bought one and am looking to replace the 17-year-old Pentair pump they had in there. Looking at the manual for the new pump, it's telling me I should have 12.5 inches of straight pipe before the inlet (2.5" OD). How critical is this? The new pump has a coupler so I will need to modify the current pump inlet anyway but, it's currently a lot closer to that 3-way valve than the manufacturer recommends.
After we got the place I had to fix several suction side leaks including cracked 3-way valve housings and I basically replumbed the same way the builder had it but, added the 90 degree sweeps with new valves (please feel free to laugh at my horrible PVC cement job!).
I'm looking for some opinions on if I should just add the coupler to the short inlet pipe and be done with it? The new pump has the same inlet/outlet configuration so I would just have to add the coupler that came with the pump.
Alternatively, I am thinking about re-plumbing to extend the straight inlet section to 12.5" and move the 3-way valves back in line with the 3 supply lines from the main/skimmers. At the same time, I would replace the pump outlet plumbing to add sweeps, move the hose fitting, possibly get rid of the 2-way valve that goes to the vacuum port (seems redundant?), replace the canister that's leaking, and replace the coupling that goes to the spider valve.
See my pictures, hopefully they give a better picture of what's in my head. (The circuit on the left with the black jandy pump is separate for a waterfall. I have no idea why it was done that way but, that's what the owners did when they built the place. I have a bunch of other problems from the winter with this that I'll save for a separate post hah). Unfortunately, I think I would have to throw out those two new jandy valves I just replaced if I moved everything but, also seems like a good opportunity to streamline the plumbing?
