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FlaPoolGuy

Gold Supporter
Oct 5, 2019
142
Florida
Hi everyone-

As I've mentioned, I'm in year 1 of pool ownership. It's been super awesome to just walk out of the back of the house and take a quick dip in the pool! Now I'm working to make sure it stays easy and simple. I was looking at my "pad" with pump and filter, and I am unable to identify all the parts. Can you help?

This is a picture of most everything from one side:
pool-pump-filter-01.png

Same shot, a little bit higher:
pool-pump-filter-02.png

And here is the view from the other side (there is a small fence with shrub in front of the setup so I can't get a picture perpendicular to the house):
pool-pump-filter-03.png

Ok, here is the first picture again, this time annotated:
pool-pump-filter-01-annotated.png
1: pool return
2: waterfall return
3: vacuum port
4: skimmer port
5: main drain port
6: automatic chlorinator???
7: ??? (I found this after I moved the hubcap you see at the bottom left of the picture)
8: ???
9: ??? (I'm guessing this is some sort of broken suction gauge to tell how much force the vacuum is sucking with? I have no idea)

I'm willing to get some gloves and gently dig some of this stuff out if necessary to get better pictures or more information.

Bonus question: why would I have two intermatic pool timers? (You can see on the third picture above) Currently I only use the one on the left, and it controls the pump. To date I haven't found an automatic pool cleaner, heater, saltwater chlorine generator, or anything else pool related that would benefit from a 2nd timer.

Thank you in advance!
 
Do you have an autofill on the pool? 7 has a valve to turn the flow off. It could be the feed for an autofill.

Follow the conduit out fo the dead timer and see where it goes. My guess is there was a cleaner booster pump at one time that it controlled.

Can you give a closer pic of 8 and maybe dig down around it a bit to expose it more?
 
I dug around 8 and 9, but its too dark to get a good photo. But it did make me feel like an archeologist (Indiana Jones?) to gently excavate around them, trying very hard not to damage the vintage equipment!

I also looked at pictures online of "autofills", and I noticed a lot of those pictures looked like someone converted their skimmer into a toilet bowl tank with lever float. I have two holes in the side of my skimmer at different heights (again, daytime pics to follow) which make me think there's an autofill and an overflow in the skimmer. The previous owner may have removed and/or deactivated the autofill flaot device due to the pool leak and unwillingness to either pay the high water bill or fix the leak.
 
The valve on 7 is off. So whatever it is connected to is not operational.
 
better picture of #7:
pool-pump-mystery-lever-01.jpg
This may be related to an autofill. I have two unexplained openings on the side wall of the skimmer. I can add a picture of those later too if someone wants to see them. I'm not going to turn this lever for the forseeable future as I'm concerned I may not be able to "unturn" it all the way leading to permanent slow filling of the pool with tap water until I replace the lever.
 
I'm going to take a wild guess here and say the busted vacuum gauge could be a/the source of my ongoing suction side air leak- am I right? And if yes, do you think I could remove just the round gauge (the part sticking out of the gray sleeve) and replace it with another gauge, or do I have to cut the PVC to take out the gray sleeve as well as the gray round part? Thanks again!
 

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I put on a thick glove just in case #9 shattered in my hand, amd sure enough it came out surprisingly easily. I took it to a Local Pool Store who said they didn't have the replacement. Subsequently, I've been to an additional two other competing Pool Stores, plus Big Box Store, plus a plumbing supply store who referred me to a "pump store" who referred me to a specialist irrigation and pump store.

Nobody has this. It's not the 1/4 NPT size.

So I went back to Local Pool Store again, this time not on a a Sunday. Spoke to one of the higher ups who says he can get the right size. He also said "not sure why you need this" since I manually vacuum, but he wants to do right by his consumer.
 
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