lonestar23

What im suggesting is that most people dont use them anymore. They are a dead technology like laser disc. If you have a laser disc machine Im sure you can still use it. But if it dies it likely isnt worth the money to try to fix. Currently if you want you pool to have cool color effects, the LED lights do a pretty good job. A friend is actually fixing his fiber optic light but he even admitted that they dont put out that much light.

In Austin based on a few prices ive heard, ide say it raises the price an extra 50%. So a $4000 replaster is $6000 pebble sheen. They look nice but Im not sold on the 'lasts forever' hype.

Ide say about 80% of those Ive seen are no longer functional as they arent as bright as they should be and parts are hard to come by.

Gracias on the info. Yeah every bottle of NoMorProblems ive seen says "sodium bromide 40%" on the front. (The only other product ive seen with this is "jacks magic yellow stuff 98% sodium bromide.") Its been mysterious for me and I dont like using things i dont fully understand but I use it because it works for me. Some of the pools I take care of do have a high CYA and refuse to drain despite my warnings of plaster degradation and disease, so the bromine is obviously helping with this (as bromine cannot be stabalized.) I put 1-3 ounces in every pool without fail once it becomes warm.

just remember: a tablespoon of fecal matter per swimmer. avoid public hottubs.

Go into business for yourself. If not now some year soon. If you truely do whats best for the customer and tell them all the options you will have clients in no time. I quit my job. Thats why I have too much time on my hands and am "wasting" it online. I do enjoy this stuff though.

Have you solved this yet? On one Intex I took care of the fittings both inside and outside the pool were screw on fittings which left a 1 1/2" female threaded fitting. Generally, since its suction you dont have to have a great connection, you can just put the vacuum hose into the wall fitting (after priming the hose of couse - above ground pumps arent made to self prime or get any of the air out.) If you can get this part to unscrew and this still doesnt work for you, Ide take the fitting and hose into a pool store and see what they can do.

Just to prop up a point thats already been made: Your air is likely very humid. Storing chlorine in high humidity areas would knock out the bearings pretty quickly and cause corrosion on the electrical as well. Ive seen a few pumps knocked out by this alone, with an indignant customer yelling about crummy motors. Putting chlorine into the skimmer might be knocking out the shaft seal in the pump. If you ever see any water leaking from the pump (or wetness around the pump) I would consider replacing the shaft seal immediately.

oh and the quick answer is: if youre using a 400,000 BTU heater your burning 4 therms an hour. So how much do they charge you per therm in your area? and how many therms do they show on your bill you using? You can then figure out how many hours each day the heater had to fire itself up to heat the pool.

It would be extremely high to heat a pool. Most people dont heat their pools in winter time because of this. I would estimate $200-400. http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your...m/mytopic=13180 This website says estimated $1500 over the winter season... I used to know how to calculate that stuff but most of the things i see online are oversimplifying it in some way and leaving out the explanation and i dont do calculations based on numbers without an explanation why.

NoMorProblems is sodium bromide. Their labeling (and most of the industry) is made for pools up north. In Texas, I saw many pools that needed over 5 tabs added every week this last summer as water temperatures approached 95 degrees. Much of this was info from customers but I did see it myself in a few pools I maintained. The hot water does not hold chlorine at all. But it holds bromine. I dont fully understand bromine, as it needs chlorine or Monopersulfate to act as a catalyst. So if most of the chlorine burns out of the water how does the water suddenly stay algae free just by adding sodium bromide (which needs chlorine to act??) Strange stuff. But in Texas, I would put any pool on it. As I said the instructions are cryptic and talk about how much chlorine you add to the pool. But they dont take into account water temperature at all, so the dosage you actually need are far less then recommended. Otherwise, when you test you will see no FC at all. I must also say that chemgeek's calculations could be problematic for this region for the same purpose. Do you know the ppm of CYA added by each dichlor and trichlor per pound by any chance? Your calculations certainly show why people should drain often if they choose to use trichlor tabs. What I mean is, maintaining 1ppm FC at 90 water temperature would build up stabalizer EVEN QUICKER then at 75 or whatever your regional water temp sits at (as more tabs would be required to maintain it.) This will be the only time I mention this, as you obviously know more about chemistry than me and your calculations do a huge service to helping people understand the problem with CYA. There is much that is not taught in the CPO course. The handbook they give you is quite informative though on a number of subjects.

I dont mess with many fiberglass pools so....Just some thoughts: The tile ive seen in fiberglass had an indention that it was put into. If it has been retiled in the past maybe they didnt get all the grout out. If its really fiberglass over concrete you may have other issues as concrete and fiberglass contract and expand at different rates and different temperatures. I havent seen this personally, but supposedly the two dont stay bonded together well.

or something in the pump? like a sponge?

What were your complaints about the barracuda? What type of debris do you get in the pool?

For an indoor pool, I agree with the last guys. Suction side cleaners is all you should consider (and Polaris's suction cleaners are not good.) Pool Vac, barracuda, G3, they all work off suction from your existing system and will clean up any fine debris which gets on the bottom. Polaris are awesome for larger debris. Aquabots apparently are king in NJ but ive seen too many problems operating in other climates. (I used to work on pool cleaners.)

The water levels that connect at the side of the pool are good as a backup system but can and do fail. Most people I know (in austin) add water on a weekly basis. If I owned a pool (instead of servicing them) I would either hook up a water level at the edge of the pool or get one of those meters that turns the water hose off after either a certain time or a certain number of gallons. This is a small attachment for the end of the hose you get from a hardware store. Around 1/4 of the pools Ive seen have an automatic water leveler in the deck, BTW.