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Hi, Thanks for the great ideas. Sorry it's taken a while to get back here. Had a hard drive crash and I ran chkdsk with auto recovery and it ran for about 80 hours! I just left it alone, it seems to have fixed the disk. I did go out and check the pressure and it was about 21 psi. So backflushed and it dropped to about 11. It is still leaking very slightly but definately a difference. I'm gonna keep an eye on it for a few days and then decide if I want to take it apart again and check the seal plate flatness. I'll post again.

I have a Hayward RS pump that is leaking a small amount of water. It seems to be coming out the bottom side between the motor and impeller case. I recently installed a new motor and cannot figure out where/why it is leaking. I had leslies put a new seal kit on when I bought the motor from them and I also got a gasket set. I was very careful when installing the flat gasket that goes into a groove on the pump side, put a little lube on it, and snugged the 6 bolts up in a crossing pattern. When I turned it on it leaked visibly between the seal plate and motor mounting plate so I snugged the bolts a bit. It still seems to be leaking somewhere but I can't see where as it's underneath everything. I think I got that large flat housing gasket installed correctly so where else is likely to be leaking from? Is there a common issue here? Thanks for any help.

Thanks for reply. I will try to get CYA level tested today. How did it get so high do you think? I drained the pool year before last and put in fresh water. Is it just from using the Leslie's 3" stabilized tabs for two years that It got excessive? Water is too expensive down here to throw away every two years....

Hi, About 2 weeks ago I went out to get the pool water ready for the summer. It's been hot here in S AZ but we haven't had a chance to use the pool yet. I kept chlorine tabs in the floating dispenser all winter. I took a sample and noted very high chlorine. pH was somewhat low and Alk was about 200. I took the floating chlorine dispenser out of pool and adjusted pH and Alk. They are pretty good now, 7.4 pH and about 140 Alk, but I need to go get some more muriatic acid to reduce Alk some more. But chlorine is still way high. It's been 2 weeks now and chlorine is still off scale above 5. I have a Leslie's DPD test kit, about 20Kgal inground pebble tec pool. I was sure that this sun would burn the chlorine out but it's as though chlorine is still being added. What is going on? Thanks.

When the gate valve is wide open, or nearly so, is precisely when the tapping issue happens. I have found that I could prevent it from happening by throttling the valve way down. It seems to allow enough water flow to keep the pool filled.

Thanks for the replys! I recently drained and refilled the pool. That was when I realized that the shutoff (gate) valve was leaking. I tried to tighten up the packing nut but that only slowed down the leak some and it was still trickling into the pool. I already replaced the auto fill valve out by the pool. It's just a "Corky" toilet tank valve. Do you think that is what is causing the tapping noise? I wonder if wind across the water surface can cause water to rise and fall inside the "well" that the auto fill valve is in. That might cause the auto fill valve to cycle open/closed rhythmically. At any rate the shutoff valve to the autofill (currently a gate type valve) needs to be replaced. There is also a backflow preventer immediately downstream from the gate valve. I was going to replace both as the backflow preventer also seeps sometimes when the hose is used. It seems that if the gate valve is kept throttled way down that the tapping does not occur. I read somewhere that gate type valves are not a good choice for throttling flow this way. What is typically used by pool builders? Here's a pic of what I have: Thanks for any thoughts about how to prevent the tapping noise too!

What kind of valve is recommended to put inline with the pipe out to my pool filler? Currently there is a 3/4" gate valve in there that leaks. I have had noises come from this valve too and that is also a problem because it is right off my bedroom and sometimes it makes a rhythmic tapping noise. It's annoying at night and I have found that by closing it nearly to off it doesn't make that noise. I have read that gate type valves are not a good choice for places where you use them at less than fully open - I guess they are not good for trying to limit pressure on the line. Anyway, sorry for the lengthy confusing story, but what would be a better choice for the type of valve used?

Well if anyone is still interested I picked up a new box of muriatic acid yesterday. This new one came from Ace Hardware, the older box with yellow colored acid came from Home Depot. The new acid is nearly clear as described by chem geek. Interestingly, the new, clear MA is stronger than the yellow MA. The new MA is labeled 29% hydrogen chloride and the older MA is labeled 14.5% hydrogen chloride. Does that mean that the new MA is twice as strong as the old? I'm going to use the clear MA in my pool tonight to lower the pH. I'm curious if anyone else has some of the yellow MA they have used?? I guess it's probably OK, just weaker? If anyone is really curious I put up a couple of pictures here: muriatic acid 1 muriatic acid 2 Thanks for reading.

Thanks for your reply Richard. I'm sure it's not liquid chlorine - I shock with that so I have a few boxes of that here too. In fact I shocked last evening and the chlorine was a pale yellowish-green color. I'm convinced I got a box (two 1 gallon jugs) of tainted something. It's marked Muriatic Acid but I really don't want to open it or put it in my pool. Thanks for reading.

Huh - nobody has a jug of muriatic acid that they can look at and tell me the color?

Filter maintenance would be a good topic.

Greetings! I've been adding MA periodically to keep the pH from drifting up. When I opened the box of MA a few minutes ago I was shocked to see that both jugs were a deep yellow in color (no lie - looks like jugs of urine - ick!) This is KEM-TEK brand MA. I remember the MA I used previously being much more clear in color. I don't remember what brand I used previously. Do you think there's a chance I got a tainted batch? Thanks for reading.