Hi all,
total new guy when it comes to pools, my housemates are naturally anti-talented though and managed to turn our pool into a horror movie swamp complete with monsters from the deep. Have spent the last few weeks in the deep end and managed through lots of good advice and some luck to turn our pool back to clear water before stumbling upon this amazing site! Wish I had of found it earlier, would have saved so much time!
Anyway, long story short our S600 sand filter has possibly not ever had the media changed and I figured out eventually that it was contaminating the water. Tried deep cleaning the media, but after 4 hours of having the hose running into it with the top off and another hose sucking all the floating Crud out of it, it really didn't ever stop spewing out floc and what looks like dog Crud but is more likely some sort of clay/dirt so I bought some sand and will be changing it out this weekend. Seemed like a good opportunity to correct some of the more basic evils of the whole setup, of which there are many. The pipes are all routed in completely absurd ways, most have no less than 5 x 90 degree bends, when one would be fine.
Both the filter and the pump are off level by as much as 10 degrees - the enclosure in the photo is level, which shows how far on the lean the filter is. The pipes going into the pump are on the lean the opposite way. To make life more interesting, both the basket and the SWG have pipes crossing directly in front of them, which means disassembling the whole thing just to clean them. I grabbed an abundance of pressure pipe and bends and will use the opportunity while the filter is empty of sand to level it and re-do the pipes. My question is, do the height of the pump and SWG in relation to the filter affect operation? I've only ever seen the pump sitting on the same ground level as filters in photos of other peoples setups. Does the SWG need to stay below the top of the operating water level of the filter?
The whole setup is at most 8 or 9 yards from the skimmer basket and not much above the water level. I haven't measured, but I'd estimate less than a foot above the water level. The enclosure itself is poorly designed though - it's brick all the way to the ground, no slab or anything, just sitting on sand. Nowhere for water to escape if a leak occurred, and zero breather holes anywhere so no ventilation. The enclosure is bricked well above the top of the filter, and has a hinged ply lid which causes things to get hot in there - and very corrosive due to the moisture and chlorine which can't escape. The mains switch is heavily corroded, and appears to already have been replaced multiple times. I'll be dealing with all those issues at the same time, so if you have any tips I'd welcome them.
Thanks everone!
Shaun
total new guy when it comes to pools, my housemates are naturally anti-talented though and managed to turn our pool into a horror movie swamp complete with monsters from the deep. Have spent the last few weeks in the deep end and managed through lots of good advice and some luck to turn our pool back to clear water before stumbling upon this amazing site! Wish I had of found it earlier, would have saved so much time!
Anyway, long story short our S600 sand filter has possibly not ever had the media changed and I figured out eventually that it was contaminating the water. Tried deep cleaning the media, but after 4 hours of having the hose running into it with the top off and another hose sucking all the floating Crud out of it, it really didn't ever stop spewing out floc and what looks like dog Crud but is more likely some sort of clay/dirt so I bought some sand and will be changing it out this weekend. Seemed like a good opportunity to correct some of the more basic evils of the whole setup, of which there are many. The pipes are all routed in completely absurd ways, most have no less than 5 x 90 degree bends, when one would be fine.
Both the filter and the pump are off level by as much as 10 degrees - the enclosure in the photo is level, which shows how far on the lean the filter is. The pipes going into the pump are on the lean the opposite way. To make life more interesting, both the basket and the SWG have pipes crossing directly in front of them, which means disassembling the whole thing just to clean them. I grabbed an abundance of pressure pipe and bends and will use the opportunity while the filter is empty of sand to level it and re-do the pipes. My question is, do the height of the pump and SWG in relation to the filter affect operation? I've only ever seen the pump sitting on the same ground level as filters in photos of other peoples setups. Does the SWG need to stay below the top of the operating water level of the filter?
The whole setup is at most 8 or 9 yards from the skimmer basket and not much above the water level. I haven't measured, but I'd estimate less than a foot above the water level. The enclosure itself is poorly designed though - it's brick all the way to the ground, no slab or anything, just sitting on sand. Nowhere for water to escape if a leak occurred, and zero breather holes anywhere so no ventilation. The enclosure is bricked well above the top of the filter, and has a hinged ply lid which causes things to get hot in there - and very corrosive due to the moisture and chlorine which can't escape. The mains switch is heavily corroded, and appears to already have been replaced multiple times. I'll be dealing with all those issues at the same time, so if you have any tips I'd welcome them.
Thanks everone!
Shaun
