Where is this plumbed to?

[tydell]

Hi all. I bought my house almost 10 years ago and I have a mystery I really think I need to solve. I'm in AZ, have a single speed pump. For the past several years, I've had a Hayward Phoenix 4x pool cleaner and it's time for me to order some new parts for it - tires & gears as well as some other pool maintenance stuff. Additionally, I have a Zodiac Cyclonic leaf catcher that does a pretty good job catching all the solid stuff that makes it up through the vacuum. The price of all the parts for the vacuum is pretty steep so I figured before I order parts, I should evaluate whether this is the best cleaner for my situation. I have palm trees directly over my pool so I get both strands of palm fronds and so many palm seeds that make it into the pool. Additionally, when we get wind/dust storms, dirt gets deposited all along the bottom. I also have dogs that kick little rocks into the pool during fetch and these rocks will often jam up the turbine on the cleaner, necessitating a rescue on my part. For the entire time I've had this pool, I've largely only been able to skim or vacuum - not both. I did try one of those skimmer baskets with a vacuum port, but that needed more maintenance/fiddling than what it was worth. I installed a SWG last summer to ease up on my chlorine use and it's been great. When I'm vacuuming, the pressure isn't enough for the SWG to kick on and generate, so that's also a problem I'd like to solve.

I'd really like to be able to skim and vacuum at the same time and by all appearances, my pool is plumbed with a vacuum port, though I've never used it as I've never been able to get suction to it. This is the mystery I'm hoping to solve. Over on the pump on the suction side, there appears to only be a single inlet that comes in from the pool. In my skimmer basket, there is a plugged port that I think is plumbed to the drain, but I'm not 100% sure - it's been a few years now since I last tried to solve this mystery. I've never posted about it though so I'm hoping this may help solve things. I'm hoping to solve this mystery in parallel to seeing what new vacuums are out there that the community recommends.

Anyone have any ideas as to how I might be able to solve this mystery? I'm not averse to digging to investigate.

Here are some pics of the relevant plumbing parts. Excuse the dirt - we just had storms and I'm working on getting things cleaned back up. Certainly doesn't help that my vacuum has stripped gears and is out of commission til I get new parts or a new cleaner.

 

[Jimrahbe]

Ty,

The port in the pool appears to be for a suction side cleaner...

The input to your pump has obviously been 'modified' from the original design.. And, it appears your suction side input has been disconnected.

The skimmer has the main drain hole plugged, which normally would mean that the main drain was plumbed back to the equipment pad.. But, in your case, it could just mean that the main drain has just been abandoned.

If this were my pool, I would carefully dig around the equipment pad near the pump and see if I could locate any abandoned pipes...

Show us a few more pics so we can see what your complete equipment pad looks like.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[tydell]

Thank you Jim! It makes sense that old plumbing may have been abandoned. That will likely be my next step - digging, that is. Here’s a more complete look at the equipment pad, including my skimmer hole that has a leak due to a crack that appears to have caused a minor collapse in the corner of the pool deck. I’ll be remedying that with a MEK/ABS mixture (with respirator and gloves of course).

 

[Jimrahbe]

Ty,

On most equipment pads, the plumbing all comes up on the same side...

So, I would expect to find any 'extra' pipes on the same side as the where the SWCG, current pipe into the pump, and the small pipe controlled by the blue ball valve are located..

That would be my best 'guess' anyway...

Jim R.

 

[proavia]

The flow switch for the SWG shouldn't be installed with flow going down.
It should be in a horizontal position or with the flow going up. Based upon your pics, when (not if) the flow switch fails, it will not remove power to the SWG when there is no flow.

 

[tydell]

Ty,

On most equipment pads, the plumbing all comes up on the same side...

So, I would expect to find any 'extra' pipes on the same side as the where the SWCG, current pipe into the pump, and the small pipe controlled by the blue ball valve are located..

That would be my best 'guess' anyway...

Jim R.

Duly noted...thank you! I'll get to digging...

 

[tydell]

The flow switch for the SWG shouldn't be installed with flow going down.
It should be in a horizontal position or with the flow going up. Based upon your pics, when (not if) the flow switch fails, it will not remove power to the SWG when there is no flow.

Well shoot...I must have missed this in the install manual. Thank you for pointing that out! Might be getting more PVC cutting/joining practice in by the end of all this.