Waterfall Installation

[DPetrescu]

Hello,

I would like to get an opinion regarding the installation of a decorative chrome waterfall to an overflow pool. The waterfall has a separate pump. The contractor implemented in a way that draws water from the balance tank (basically a separate mini pool to store displaced water) with a single pipe and then splits to main circulation pump and waterfall pump. We have a disagreement with the contractor at the moment as currently two pumps affect each other when waterfall is turned on and off and also the water in the balance tank is dirtier in the sense than balance tank accumulates debris (dirt, hair, leaves) in time. I told him to draw water for the waterfall from the main drain at the bottom of the deep end instead. Is this a good practice? Another alternative is to put the waterfall pump in series with the main pump after the sand filter, but I don't know how practical this is.

Thanks

 

[Jimrahbe]

D,

You never put pool pumps in series and you never have two pumps sucking water from the same place.

Your waterfall pump should suck water from your main pool. I like your idea to use the main drain as a source. That said, you can't have the main drain to supply both the main pool pump and your waterfall pump, at the same time. Pools don't really need main drains, so I'd just use it as the source for the waterfall pump. Or add a valve that allows you to select if the main drain is used by the waterfall pump or the main pump.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[DPetrescu]

D,

You never put pool pumps in series and you never have two pumps sucking water from the same place.

Your waterfall pump should suck water from your main pool. I like your idea to use the main drain as a source. That said, you can't have the main drain to supply both the main pool pump and your waterfall pump, at the same time. Pools don't really need main drains, so I'd just use it as the source for the waterfall pump. Or add a valve that allows you to select if the main drain is used by the waterfall pump or the main pump.

Thanks,

Jim R.

Thanks for the info. Main circulation pump has two connections one to the main drain and the other to the overflow tank (as the main idea behind filtration of overflow water). Basically I can install a T pipe to the main drain and turn off the valve to the main pump (to be turned on only when the pool needs to be drained). Another option I forgot to mention is to install a separate pipe to the overflow tank. Since it is a large basin if the pipes are not very close to each other suction will not be effected, but that still leaves the issue of pumping not filtered water from the waterfall. One may of course argue that the water is pretty much the same in the pool and the overflow tank, but the bottom of the overflow tank is full of debris and cleaned every year.

 

[DPetrescu]

I will move this up once.

 

[HermanTX]

Thanks for the info. Main circulation pump has two connections one to the main drain and the other to the overflow tank (as the main idea behind filtration of overflow water). Basically I can install a T pipe to the main drain and turn off the valve to the main pump (to be turned on only when the pool needs to be drained). Another option I forgot to mention is to install a separate pipe to the overflow tank. Since it is a large basin if the pipes are not very close to each other suction will not be effected, but that still leaves the issue of pumping not filtered water from the waterfall. One may of course argue that the water is pretty much the same in the pool and the overflow tank, but the bottom of the overflow tank is full of debris and cleaned every year.

You don’t say what stage of construction you are in. Are you able to add plumbing to the main pool?

My waterfall is on a separate pump and the suction is from plumbing placed on the wall of my pool. So bottom debris does not get sucked up into it. The wall drains (as I call them) look just like the bottom main drain but are independent for the waterfall only.

You also mentioned that the main circulation pump has 2 connections - main drain and overflow tank. Do you have a skimmer? If so, where does that connect to?

 

[DPetrescu]

You don’t say what stage of construction you are in. Are you able to add plumbing to the main pool?

My waterfall is on a separate pump and the suction is from plumbing placed on the wall of my pool. So bottom debris does not get sucked up into it. The wall drains (as I call them) look just like the bottom main drain but are independent for the waterfall only.

You also mentioned that the main circulation pump has 2 connections - main drain and overflow tank. Do you have a skimmer? If so, where does that connect to?

We are at the very end. However I can still add a connection to the overflow basin without problems, but not to the pool itself. The pool is an overflow pool there are no skimmers. Why do you have debris at the bottom of your pool? We never had such a problem. All the debris is accumulating in the overflow basin.