Pool-newb

Unless you want to get rid of your CYA. In that case, allow the cl level to fall to zero, go dig up a shovel-full of dirt from the nearest swamp or even your garden, scatter that dirt around the pool edge with the pump running on recirculate, then keep testing the CYA level. Once it's down to the level you want (possibly several days?), start shocking the heck out of the pool. Chem Geek - I don't know what you do during your day job but it seems like this could be a marketable item - get together with a microbiologist and isolate a set of the bacteria that eat CYA, then sell them as a treatment (replacing the dirt in the procedure above). Best outcome would be if you could package it in small envelopes like bread yeast, but even if you had to sell it in buckets of dirt I can imagine you'd have customers.

I also have the Northstar in a dual speed setup and I like the pump. First make certain you do not have any leaks anywhere. As I understand it, when a pool professional installs a pump correctly, he/she checks for leaks by pressurizing the system and looking for leaks. That may be difficult but try to find some way of making certain it is leaktight. Then the question is how long you are waiting for the prime to occur? It can take several seconds - even minutes. I recently replaced all my above ground plumbing with 2" and added valves and disconnects to every pipe out of the ground. This way when I clean the pump filter basket I can shut all the vlaves and the pump doesn't lose the prime, and when I do need to reprime it I can fill the pump bucket with water without it leakign back into the pool. If you do have valves, shut them, fill the pump basket with water as full as you can, turn on the pump then very quickly open the valves. This should leave enough water in the intake system to accelerate the priming function. If you don't have valves, you have checked for leaks everywhere, and you do have enough water in the pump basket to initiate the prime, then it should eventually fill and pump. So the next question becomes why you replaced the pump in the first place and if that same problem is still affecting the new pump; was it a performance issue? Do you possibly have a blockage in the return system? Are you certain that all the valves are in the proper positions? Do you have a hidden crack or other leak on the intake side somewhere that is sucking air?

Ooops, sorry. This one was Leslie's Pool And Spa Lube (Funny name when you think about it - why would a pool need lubricating?). Since that is a trademark name it will probably not be available in the other stores, but they will likely have something similar.

I got some stuff at the local pool store specifically designed for pool applications and it works great. Check at your pool store.

Thanks for the info, that's good to know and it reemphasizes my frustration at the inefficiency and design of this particular mdel. Do you know why the legislation was enacted? Were there problems? Maybe a councilman's neighbor has rigged up something home made and that got the ball rolling? And which city was this? I'd like to do some further research.

Started of with a really ugly badly metal stained vinyl liner pool that certainly has steel and probably has copper from a rusted out heater system (thank you previous owners for not monitoring pH and using the tabs). Dumped in ascorbic acid and was shocked (pun intended) at how quickly and thoroughly it worked. Added the sequestrant as everyone here recommended (and even the pool store guy!) and thought things were hunky dory (it was an EDTA based sequestrant). But suddenly had a horrendous cl demand - on the order of several to many ppm per day with constant medium to low cc levels. So after waiting about two weeks I started keeping the cl level high enough long enough and finally got the cl demand down but just as the pool approached zero cc, the stains came back - almost within the same hour of reaching 0 cc. Ok, this time being very careful about raising the cl slowly and keeping the pH around but the same thing happened again; ascorbic acid in, stains gone, EDTA sequestrant in, high cl demand, stains return as soon as cl demand under control (although the stains may be lighter this time). Is this going to keep happening? Any ideas why my pool store has never been able to find even trace amounts of metals? Will an HEDP based sequestrant break this ugly cycle? Has anyone found a product that really really really removes the metals and doesn't just keep them in suspension? Has anyone ever noticed a high cl demand and high cc with an EDTA based sequestrant? Has anyone managed to remove the stains then eventually stop using a sequestrant without the stains returning? If I keep doing this will the stains eventually stay away? I have read all the stuff at http://www.troublefreepool.com/ascorbic-tr...ains-t2298.html and haven't found any clear answers yet.

Just wanted to add an update on this. I still like the heater despite the fact that I think the honeymoon is ending. We swam today in 90°+ water and I really enjoy water that warm. I still don't mind - even enjoy - splitting the wood, and I still don't mind tending the fire or cleaning out the ashes after a few days burn. I do wish it had better smoke control. While that may be in large part due to the wood I have and possibly because that wood is not fully cured yet, I just feel uncomfortable having the smoke float around the neighborhood while I'm starting up or putting in large amounts of wood. Nothing horrible or even irritating, just a bit distracting. Another thing that keeps staying in my face is the inefficiency of the setup. I can get really great temperatures out of it, and the water does warm up fairly fast but every time I stand near it I feel how much heat is being wasted, and I see how hot the chimney gets, and I start thinking about ways to supercharge it; - add insulation on the sides, - add baffles on the inside so the chimney gasses have to travel farther and over more heat exchanger before they escape out the top, - add a blower and some air intake piping so the air input can be accelerated on startup and better controlled for restriction - add a stovepipe damper so I can reduce the amount of chimney flow to a) slow down the fire and keep more heat around the heat exchanger for longer - Insulate the door or make it a glass door - Enlarge and lengthen the heat exchanger so it not only covers the top but also the sides and back. The last thing to mention is the lack of automatic control. There is no way to quickly disconnect the PVC if the pump should fail for some reason. I already had to replace a bunch of PVC when the power failed and I didn't remember to put out the fire soon enough, and since then I had another incident where the water was hotter than I expected and it made one section of PVC sag a bit. No leaks or failures but still irritating. Even forgetting to switch the pump to constant on when the fire is burning is an easy mistake to make that will cause big problems. I've given it a lot of thought and there is no easy or cheap solution to the dilemma. Anything that covers all possibilities - pump failure, power outage, leaking, would require a lot of engineering (some combination of battery back-ups, electric 2" valves, breakaway piping, fire extinguishers, etc.) This is a point where any other kind of heat except possibly solar wins by a huge margin. Still, having said all that it's great to swim in May in such a warm pool which gets so much shade but to still pay nothing for the heat. I can still recommend it in many situations. More later

The $372 doesn't include a tank, and it still requires lugging chlorine bottles. I finally swapped to salt for about $900 and I really like it. The only situation I would imagine not wanting an SWG is where the salt water could damage exterior hardware or stonework. But in this situation I would probably lean more towards this peristaltic pump. It's only a bit cheaper and you'll need to connect it to some kind of timer - or maybe the pool pump timer - but you won't need to divert any flow from the pump, it's a lot smaller, and it works against the pump output pressure up to 100 psi so I see it as a bit more exact dosing.

I finally made the decision and put out the money for an SWG. I decided on a Hayward Swimpure Plus (Goldline manufactured?) because my local Leslie's had them on sale for about $900 with rebate for the T-15 (for 40,000 gallons), and they have an input for remote controlling. While I have have done things on line (my pump, for example) I also much prefer to get things from a human being that I can see and who intends to keep doing business in my local area. If I have problems we all know who I'm gonna call so it sets things out in the open. Besides I probably couldn't have saved enough on the web to take the risk on an unknown device and seller. I am happy with mine so far and it looks like with it being so far overdimensioned I'll be able to run it at 15-30% for 12hrs/day and maybe still over-chlorinate. I still have some cl demand to deal with but things are looking After weeks of cold ugly gray weather (cold is of course relative; it was still short sleeve weather) we finally had fantastic weather here today and we spent a couple of hours in our wood-fire-heated 90°F pool-turned-almost-hot-tub.

If these bulbs use normal line voltage, a 120v or 130v rated bulb is the same. North American line voltage is standardized to be between 100VAC and 120VAC. If the bulb really is rated for 130v it will work fine at 120v or 100v with the possible exception that it will be slightly dimmer at those voltages and will probably last longer. Point is, either that test bulb you have is bad, or you still have contact problems. I think the best plan is to add more cleaning and rust removal, then use one really known good bulb (make sure that test bulb works somewhere before testing in the pool sockets) to check the sockets. You're on the right track.

I haven't had mine long enough to see anything like that but I would certainly be on the phone to the manufacturer. Did you ever check the connector where that the cell plugs into? Look for corrosion, it may not be getting a good enough contact. And it is always possible you have a bad cell out of the box. Also, from what I've read here I would recommend using bleach when you need to add a lot of chlorine fast. It works great as a sanitizer and isn't horribly expensive but it is bothersome to carry home and dump in the pool every few days (that\s why we have SWclGs). Using it as a shock or extra chlorine dose prevents the cell from having to work extra hard, over heat, wear out, etc.

The links are in my signature, you'll probably need a little bit of muriatic acid. Read through the pool school first to understand the concept, then use the pool calculator to determine how much of everything you need. Enjoy!

The cells actually do wear out. There is a coating of very expensive metals on those plates inside there that keeps them working for as long as they do. Weaker metals would probably corrode away within within days or even hours but even the hardened coatings they use don't stand up for ever. But I still think in your case there was something else in the cell that was bad - just plain broken, not worn out. Either way you got to where you needed to be and even at ~$125 per year for me that is certainly worth the cost of constantly adding bleach, or lugging those bottles, staining my clothes, etc. For the bumps of white scale I would recommend starting a new post for that one. That's one I haven't ran into in my brief time owning a pool.

Well, so far it looks lilke there are no polar bears or even penguins on this board :-). Thanks for the votes everyone but I'm surprised that there were no comment as yet. If you haven't voted yet, please do. The results are interesting.

Dang - sounds like the cell is in need of replacement - but still have it checked at the pool store if you can, or even exchange it with someone you know that has the same system. How large is the pool? Do (did) you set the controller to 100% while the pump was running or was the setting lower? Higher setting will tend to wear out the cells faster. My understanding of those cells is that they can wear out but they don't go straight to zero, and if they often did, there sure wouldn't be that much warranty left on them. There are other things inside the cell besides just the plates and wiring that could be bad - have you unplugged it and inspected the connections on the cell? If the connection is bad, sometimes just unplugging and reconnecting will get things connected again. If your display reads fine for everything that means water flow is there, just no generating light and salt at zero? I know there are some reset codes floating around for that unit but I don't know what they are exactly. Maybe before or after the cleaning it "confused" and needs a hardware reset.

Do you have enough water in the pool? Same thing happened to me once right after a backwashing. the water level wasn't enough to fill the skimmer fast enough.

Glad I could help, let us know how it goes!

Can your local store check the cell? I am near a Leslie's and they have a test rig. The cells do wear out over time but it sounds like something else is going on. What exactly does the salt display read: three zeros or are there really a bunch of question marks? It sounds more like a warranty case with a problem in the controller.

Any reason why you'd want to? Anything specific you're trying to do? (I'm always looking for ideas that I probably don't need )

I have found that a shop-vac running backwards with the hose end weighted at the bottom to be very effective at aeration. Just be careful that the hose and vacuum are really clean before you do this because you don't want to blow dust and dirt into the pool. I burned up a leaf blower, and I think a normal air compressor couldn't provide enough volume to be very fast.

The transformer puts out 12/24 V as listed at this link. Not just possibly, it is certainly custom. From what I can see the installer worked cleanly but I'm not as sure about how close to code he worked. There are two relays, a 110 to 12/24 stepdown transformer, a 4 amp circuit breaker and 110v outlet into which is plugged a remote control receiver. I can't see the specifics of the wiring and I'm not certain of the function of the two relays but this is what I would do: - Check for 110 at the outlet, correct if missing then - Check for the remote receiver functioning by measuring voltage across the two output screw terminals. Voltage should be present when off, and zero when on. If no voltage in either state check it again by removing one of the wires and check for resistance when switched on and off. When remote on resistance should be near zero, when remote off it should be infinite. fix it it it's bad. Then - Check the input of the transformer with the remote on. It should be getting 110v, possibly also when the remote is off. I can't say anything else from here because the photo is not detailed enough to tell, and I'm not certain what the relays do. From the look of the box I'd say it has some years on it and a bit of weathering but it also looks like a weather-tight enclosure so the weathering shouldn't be too much a problem.

I have a SwimPure Plus and I believe they are identical. I just bought it Monday and it also has r1.5 I've been able to figure out most of the display info but I don't know any of the reset codes. I'm hoping I won't need them.

Thats a good point but I haven't heard it before. I will google it but in the meantime, any links you can give me would be great!

Any idea what the software version is? Mine has 1.5. I'm assuming you didn't just make this procedure up - can you post a link? I would love to know all the secrets they put in the firmware.

The instruction manual for the Hayward SwimPure Plus I installed Monday says that below 50°F the "Generating" led will begin to flash and the SWG will stop generating chlorine. I believe that this is because it is assumed at those temperatures the cl demand is extremly low (algae stops growing) and it won't need to generate any. But it also has an override which allows it to generate for 24 hours when the temps are too cold.