Just Purchased Project - Delaware

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mknmike
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Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Fri 02 Jul, 2021 21:18

Hello,

I’m learning a lot about pools after purchasing two days ago a 3-years vacant home with an uninspected pool and some broken PVC in the garage. We got the PVC fixed and figured out a way to connect water and get the pump/filter system working, but decided we were out of luck when putting a few things together.

1) 21 tiles (a string of 18, and a string of 3) tiles were in the bottom of the shallow end of the pool which is also closest to the house.

2) I filled the pool so the water level was about an inch or two above the tile bottom and we had a torential downpour last night (and the house gutters need work). Today the water level was at the bottom of the tile. The pool is leaking, and it seemed to have stabilized around 2” below the tile level.

3) we tried putting the ancient robot in the pool on one of the pressure outlets to see if it would run. It seemed to do so briefly. The. Stop. The water seemed to stop flowing through it. I suspect this is because we can’t run the skimmer due to the low level in the pool. It’s only sucking from one port, not two, and blowing out of two ports, one of which has the robot on it. I guess the water flows through the other port so the robot won’t run. So although we can make the pump run, we gave up on cleaning the water.

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I believe that the guys that helped me don’t REALLY know pools, and suggested pulling all the brick cap and the tile all off the pool after draining it. Then using an epoxy paint, cover the whole pool and replace the brick with flagstone. I’m here researching, and understand the need to pull the brick cap to be able to inspect and/or repair the concrete if needed, but now understand that the tile is not only to make easier cleanup of the water line, but also because plaster will crack if dry at the top of the pool where there’s no water.

I wish I had a vacuum attachment for the pole and a place to hook it. I guess maybe tomorrow I could go to the pool store and buy some fittings to make that a possibility and let the baskets and filters catch all the junk, and hopefully not ruin the sand filter (if that’s what I’ve got). I’d like to see the bottom of the pool. Maybe then I could get in there and see if there’s a connection to a stone pit in case we end up draining the pool. I don’t want hydrostatic pressure popping it out of the ground.

Any suggestions for a noob like myself?

Thanks!
Mike


Denniswiseman
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby Denniswiseman » Sat 03 Jul, 2021 02:41

First of all post your images on the site

Where you write a post
Click Full Editor & Preview
Click Attachments
Click Add Files or you can drag and drop

Hydrostatic pressure is a problem if you have a high water table. You could check with your neighbours
If water isn't an expensive problem fill and vacuum to waste
A manual vacuum does a better job. The idea of a robot is you start it and leave it
Your sand filter won't be ruined just clogged up (the pressure rises) then backwash
You have determined the level of the leak which isn't to low so when the pool is clearer you can investigate further
mknmike
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Sat 03 Jul, 2021 08:55

Denniswiseman wrote:First of all post your images on the site

Where you write a post
Click Full Editor & Preview
Click Attachments
Click Add Files or you can drag and drop

Hydrostatic pressure is a problem if you have a high water table. You could check with your neighbours
If water isn't an expensive problem fill and vacuum to waste
A manual vacuum does a better job. The idea of a robot is you start it and leave it
Your sand filter won't be ruined just clogged up (the pressure rises) then backwash
You have determined the level of the leak which isn't to low so when the pool is clearer you can investigate further

Thank you! I use Tapatalk for most online forums, and really prefer its image upload and understand it gives you links. But the process is so much easier than most online forums. I will try to use the web browser for all future uploads though. Sorry about that. I want to play by the pool rules. :)

I do think I’m lucky that the leak appears to be high. So maybe I can get away with just draining it a little and working in the water when it’s cleaner.

I got the robot working last night by attaching it to the middle port that doesn’t blow as hard when the main pump is on. There’s a second auxiliary pump that seems to power the robot and be on a timer. The robot worked well when I turned on the second pump which seems to blow out the middle port in the pool. That back one is always suction it seems and the front one seems to always blow hardest.

There’s something up in the tile line in the corner of the house that looks kind of like it would be a small light, it I think it’s an overflow drain. It had a rubber plug in it. I think it needs a grate over it.

Since you say I can backwash the filter when the pressure rises, I guess I can just let everything suck into the catch basket that is before the pump, and the small stuff will begin to clog what I assume is a sand filter. Then I backwash.

I’m quite excited! I’m heading off to the pool store now to get a vacuum hose and vacuum head.

Thank you!
Denniswiseman
Pool Industry Leader
Pool Industry Leader
Posts: 2592
Joined: Tue 06 Sep, 2011 05:48
My Pool: 10k inground fibreglass, Telescopic Cover, Hayward Powerline pump, Quality filter with glass media, 27kw output heat pump, K-2006C test kit
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby Denniswiseman » Sat 03 Jul, 2021 11:26

The only reason I ask to post the images with the post is because it's a pain to go to everyone separately and the images stay with your post

If a port has a bung over it, it maybe a vacuum port

Remember to turn off the pump before moving the multi port valve (MPV) to back wash and also to rinse after backwashing
mknmike
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Sun 04 Jul, 2021 09:10

Denniswiseman wrote:The only reason I ask to post the images with the post is because it's a pain to go to everyone separately and the images stay with your post

If a port has a bung over it, it maybe a vacuum port

Remember to turn off the pump before moving the multi port valve (MPV) to back wash and also to rinse after backwashing

It’s interesting that this forum doesn’t put the images inline when the img tag is used. I started typing a message in the web browser and saw that it uses those tags. So it sounds like this forum might be a bit more difficult to use that others. Well, this wikihow seems to be written for the type of sand filter I have. The knob is a six position one like this, and the cover is the same. I’m just now learning about doing that. I need to backwash often while vacuuming the bottom of the pool. I got clouds of brown water coming out yesterday after I bought a hose and floor vacuum attachment.

https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-a-Sand-Filter

I really just want to be able to see the bottom before trying to drain this pool. It’s nice to know the backwash and waste settings go to a drain in the garage floor, and that’s a way I can drain the pool. I may do that instead of renting a trash pump. I don’t know.
Denniswiseman
Pool Industry Leader
Pool Industry Leader
Posts: 2592
Joined: Tue 06 Sep, 2011 05:48
My Pool: 10k inground fibreglass, Telescopic Cover, Hayward Powerline pump, Quality filter with glass media, 27kw output heat pump, K-2006C test kit
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby Denniswiseman » Sun 04 Jul, 2021 10:34

It's not difficult to place images in your post just follow the previous instructions. I just dropped the image onto this post in Full Editor & Preview
Attachments
Add image.jpg
Denniswiseman
Pool Industry Leader
Pool Industry Leader
Posts: 2592
Joined: Tue 06 Sep, 2011 05:48
My Pool: 10k inground fibreglass, Telescopic Cover, Hayward Powerline pump, Quality filter with glass media, 27kw output heat pump, K-2006C test kit
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby Denniswiseman » Sun 04 Jul, 2021 10:40

When did the brown water come out of the returns, as soon as you started, it may have been best to rinse first or backwash to make sure the sand was clean first or it didn't have sand
mknmike
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Mon 05 Jul, 2021 12:04

So most recently I’ve started sucking out some of the debris from the bottom, only to have the main jet to the pool start spewing brown clouds, which makes the whole pool too murky to see. So I run to the pump and shut it off and begin the backflush process, including swirling up the sand for a second backflush. I think that I’m dumping so Mach water and getting so little sucked off the bottom that I should try switching to the Waste setting and see if maybe most of what I suck off the bottom will go out the drain pipe instead of through the sand filter and back to the pool. If that doesn’t work, I think hooking my vacuum hose up to a trash pump is going to be the way to go.
mknmike
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Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Thu 08 Jul, 2021 22:47

Well, I will continue to document my story here.

The pool man that I went to high school with now runs his dads family business and ironically he used to service this pool som years ago. He figures this pool was probably made in the 1950’s.

I got a ballpark of $10,000 to redo all the tile around the top and fix the cracks in the plaster, but it sounds like I should really budget another $8000 to repair concrete and replace the “coping” which is now regular bricks with no expansion joint for the flex and heaving of the earth. So getting correct coping and adding that extension joint sounds like the correct thing to do.

The pool man said that when the diverter was on the waste setting, no water should be going back to the pool. But when I’m on the waste setting trying to suck the filth off the floor, I get brown clouds from the pool jet after just a minute. He said my gasket must be bad. I opened up the diverter and found there was RTV of some sort out under the gasket and it clearly wasn’t flat and smooth like the disk that sits on it. I’m not sure this is the whole problem because even if most of the water was heading to the drain, I wouldn’t expect the clouds I saw. It’s almost as if it’s just set on filter when I set it on waste. There’s 6 pipes going into my diverter, and I verified the waste pipe is where water should go when it’s in the waste position. So I’m at a loss. Here are the links to the pictures. Sorry, it’s just a ton easier with tapatalk uploads.

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Even after trying to get all the RTV out, it didn’t feel like the gasket was sitting quite smooth, and I got the same behavior on the waste setting.

I did as a friend suggested and put a lot of sponge material in the pre-pump basket. And now I’m able to vacuum a little longer before brown clouds come out. Then I wash the sponges and backflush the sand filter.


So now the water level is just barely above the first / top step, and it’s starting to get close to the jets. I’ve only got a few more inches to go. That’s because I’m doing so much backflushing and rinsing after I start getting brown clouds out the jet. The good thing is that the floor of the shallow end is almost clear. Most of the work looks like it has to be done in the shallow end too. So even though I hope to get the muck out of the deep end, this might be brought to do work on the top of the pool while in the water if needed.

Maybe tomorrow in the daylight I can see if there’s a hydrostatic pressure relief in the shallow end. Or now that I’ve got a “system”, maybe I can get to see the bottom of the whole pool.

I think I should buy a new diverter. I wonder if I can get this same model in order to not have to modify the PVC plumbing.

My pool guy said he won’t put the tile back up on the temporary fix he will do next week before we embark on the big project. I already told him I’m going to want to glue the til on top of his work to make the pool look complete for this season.

Thanks for letting me document my saga here.
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Fri 09 Jul, 2021 12:28

My pool guy came over with a pump with a real pre-filter on it today and pumped directly into the garage floor drain and cleaned the bottom of the pool in no time at all. He’s awesome. Olympic Pool in wilmington, Delaware. He’s going to chip away and patch up the cracks at the top of the pool to see if we can get it to hold water for the season and then bite off the bigger project when things are slower for everyone.

I realized that even though I get the error that my images are too large, they seem to upload anyway, at least the single one. So here goes…
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Fri 09 Jul, 2021 12:30

Oh. Trying full editor and preview.
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Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Fri 09 Jul, 2021 12:31

Ok. Failed upload from the phone, so posting via Tapatalk again.

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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Sun 11 Jul, 2021 07:39

We feel like we are close to up and running. We filled the pool to the point where the drain that’s centered in the tile was starting to take in water. Anything more seemed like a waste. Perhaps I should plug the drain so I can fill it higher to find where the water will stabilize on its own. First I will check to see if it will even hold water at this level though. I tested the skimmer, and with both valves wide open (wall suction and skimmer) the skimmer was sucking down the water faster than it would fill, and the basket bottom would be in the air. That’s not good as air was getting into the system. So I tried to close the valve a bit to find a balance. It was tough to do since this is a PVC ball valve (not a gate valve). In any case, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the skimmer running knowing the water level could drop. So it’s clear that I’m going to have to plug the overflow drain in order for the skimmer to work. I’m not sure if this is common or not, but does help explain why there’s no grate cover for the overflow drain. It seems like the overflow drain really should have been installed higher, and I wonder if maybe I should make a 90 degree fitting to allow the overflow to be functional, but also let the level of the pool get higher for skimmer operation.

Ok. So that’s the pool level stuff.

I can’t wait to get to the pool to check where the level is this morning after filling it last night. I sure hope it hasn’t dropped.

Now for the PH. I used my first test strip, and everything was registering a little low, as in not enough chlorine, too low of a PH, etc. I’d only put two chemicals in the pool I estimate to be about 13,000 gallons:

- one bag of shock (good for 10,000 gallons), which says it should be used about once a week (I think). I can check my receipt, but I think it was about Tuesday or Wednesday that I bought this and put it in the pool. I tested Saturday night, about 4-5 days later.

- after the shock, I noticed that the water was looking green and algae was growing on the walls, and there was a bottle of algae control in the garage of this house I just bought with the other pool equipment. It is a 32oz bottle, and I put in about the 11 oz recommended for a 10,000 gallon pool for when algae growth is bad, not the preventative lower doses. I can’t remember what day this was, but probably Wednesday or Thursday.

Friday the scum and disintegrated leaves from the bottom was finally sucked out, and the cracks were patched.

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon we began filling and sucked the sand and more debris from the bottom, scrubbed the walls more.

- then after running the PH strip, I decided to toss in another bag of shock to try and up the chlorine level to where it needs to be. I understand this might make the water more cloudy. I was probably at about 6.8-7.2, so maybe right at 7.0. It’s not quite 12 hours later now. And that’s about when we turned off the water.

That’s it for PH, Chemicals etc.


And then we jumped into trying to figure out the pool light that we haven’t been able to turn on. This looks like something we may need to investigate and replace when we do the big project. I sure would LOVE to see a night time pool light, but can admit that this just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now that I see the condition of the wires. There’s a metal plate in the bricks around the pool, and there was no insulation on some braided wires that must be the wires to the light. Also, when I was trying to remove the wire nut from the romex black wire, it broke. So a new supply wire will be required. Regardless of how I switched the switch wire before, I wouldn’t get any power signal. So it’s possible the wire was already broken, and I just ended up ripping the insulation that was holding it together. Otherwise, there’s more problems with the light.


Also, getting a bit away from pool-specific topics, but still related, the Fence around the pool was damaged from a tree falling in the back yard. I used metal bars and c-clamps to get it back into shape, and once it’s ready, I will have my friend that I lent my welder weld a tab on for the gate. The tab that should go into the latch is missing, broken off. This fence is going to need a ton of grinding and paint everywhere. Right now I’ve got bigger fish to fry though, and just getting some method of the gate latching is important for safety IMO. The back yard is fenced, but this metal fence allows people to have kids run around the back yard without concern so long as they don’t squeeze through the bars or climb over.

That reminds me about debris. There’s a lot of landscaping and mulch too close to the pool. It seems like it’s going to be really hard to keep debris out of the pool. I was thinking that some fabric on the fence might help, but that’s not even enough as there’s also landscaping inside the fenced area. I wonder if there’s some temporary fence that I would be able to use to keep debris out while yard tools are being used. Anything to catch some debris will be helpful IMO. I guess this could be a bar run from fence to fence with a drop cloth hung from it. Time to get creative.

That’s all for now.
Guest

Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby Guest » Mon 12 Jul, 2021 01:37

Looking good!
[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/0e1f82ac4f47b64381c7ef3e73d9e0fe.jpg[/IMG]



Here are some PH strip pictures.


[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/fee5d185273709d9a19fdd2a0ce82a7d.jpg[/IMG]

It’s been in need of alkalinity and stabilizer I think.

[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/254f5ceb4e0fffe20a7effbfe59f8b34.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/25ffe6361ebf829dd8a202457c3f1994.jpg[/IMG]


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So tonight I read that baking soda will help with alkalinity, and I dumped almost a pound of baking soda in. And I figured that wasn’t enough.

I decided to compare the texture to the unlabeled bag in the garage. Baking soda has a little granular texture to it. This big unlabeled bag of white stuff looks like baking soda, but is more dusty fine. Baking soda pours right into the pool. This other stuff blows in the wind a bit.

The pool got cloudy tonight. I decide that because the chlorine level was looking a bit high, I’d shut off the valves to the brominator. I verified they are bromine tablets I am using.

I am hoping for clear water and higher PH and alkalinity tomorrow.




[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/3cd418e6172172cdbbf8876cdbad324a.jpg[/IMG]


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mknmike
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Re: Just Purchased Project - Delaware

Postby mknmike » Mon 12 Jul, 2021 01:37

Looking good!
[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/0e1f82ac4f47b64381c7ef3e73d9e0fe.jpg[/img]



Here are some PH strip pictures.


[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/fee5d185273709d9a19fdd2a0ce82a7d.jpg[/img]

It’s been in need of alkalinity and stabilizer I think.

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/254f5ceb4e0fffe20a7effbfe59f8b34.jpg[/img]

[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/25ffe6361ebf829dd8a202457c3f1994.jpg[/img]


[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/3e17d5d44850d6509b4d6c1fa61580bb.jpg[/img]


So tonight I read that baking soda will help with alkalinity, and I dumped almost a pound of baking soda in. And I figured that wasn’t enough.

I decided to compare the texture to the unlabeled bag in the garage. Baking soda has a little granular texture to it. This big unlabeled bag of white stuff looks like baking soda, but is more dusty fine. Baking soda pours right into the pool. This other stuff blows in the wind a bit.

The pool got cloudy tonight. I decide that because the chlorine level was looking a bit high, I’d shut off the valves to the brominator. I verified they are bromine tablets I am using.

I am hoping for clear water and higher PH and alkalinity tomorrow.




[img]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210712/3cd418e6172172cdbbf8876cdbad324a.jpg[/img]


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