Pool *spamm*

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gadget75

Pool *spamm*

Postby gadget75 » Tue 30 Jun, 2009 00:58

Ok, I fortunately just stumbled upon this forum...We bought this house and 13 yr old in-ground kidney shaped pool back in October...when we moved in, the pool was much like a frog pond...We've managed to shock it back to life with the help of a "pool guy" but fired him once we realized he wasn't really putting in the chemicals he was claiming to...so, we started maintaining it ourselves...seemed to be going ok...
We had to put in a new sand filter (the old one exploded!), and it seems to work well. We have also had to put in a new booster pump and buy a new auto-sweeper (we got a Hayward Viper)...The viper sucks probably because we don't know how to use it...it gets tangled up on itself and only cleans the same small path in the pool before entangling itself in the hose...We decided we needed to manually vacuum the pool and we went and got a hose and vac head...well, we don't get ANY suction. I know we are supposed to turn off some of the valves that are over by the pool equipment (pumps and filter, where the pipes come up from the ground)...but we don't know which ones. The previous owners neglected the pool horribly, they also didn't leave ANY information on the pool. There is a slide (this is the only "water feature") that doesn't work--the thing is cracked so we have the water turned off to it, at the slide. I guess I just need to know what valves I should turn off/on when I'm trying to vacuum...we have two skimmers (the holes in the coping with leaf baskets inside)...HELP!! Any useful info will be much appreciated!


Denali
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Joined: Tue 29 Apr, 2008 17:14

Pool *spamm*

Postby Denali » Tue 30 Jun, 2009 02:39

gadget75 wrote:Ok, I fortunately just stumbled upon this forum...We bought this house and 13 yr old in-ground kidney shaped pool back in October...when we moved in, the pool was much like a frog pond...We've managed to shock it back to life with the help of a "pool guy" but fired him once we realized he wasn't really putting in the chemicals he was claiming to...so, we started maintaining it ourselves...seemed to be going ok...
We had to put in a new sand filter (the old one exploded!), and it seems to work well. We have also had to put in a new booster pump and buy a new auto-sweeper (we got a Hayward Viper)...The viper sucks probably because we don't know how to use it...it gets tangled up on itself and only cleans the same small path in the pool before entangling itself in the hose...We decided we needed to manually vacuum the pool and we went and got a hose and vac head...well, we don't get ANY suction. I know we are supposed to turn off some of the valves that are over by the pool equipment (pumps and filter, where the pipes come up from the ground)...but we don't know which ones. The previous owners neglected the pool horribly, they also didn't leave ANY information on the pool. There is a slide (this is the only "water feature") that doesn't work--the thing is cracked so we have the water turned off to it, at the slide. I guess I just need to know what valves I should turn off/on when I'm trying to vacuum...we have two skimmers (the holes in the coping with leaf baskets inside)...HELP!! Any useful info will be much appreciated!


Hi,

There should be valves before the pump that controls the suction. If you can describe them or better yet, take some pics of them and upload them here, then we can help.

There may be a valve for each skimmer and one for the main drain. There are lots of ways it may be plumbed in. Some pics would be the easiest way to figure it out. If the valves that are there aren't marked you may have to experiment turning off one and seeing where the suction comes from.

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