mercurial

What a classic thread. Dude asking about piping, everyone says use rigid PVC, dude asks the same damn question 20 time over, and then finally listens to no one. What a waste of everyone's time

You paid for a new pool, not a pool with a crack. Look at your contract carefully, and note whether there is any language that mentions that cracks are normal and acceptable. Contact a different builder and ask him if this condition is normal, and if water pressure is a likely cause. Finally, check your contract language and see if the $3000 was an estimate or a fixed fee. If indeed the $3000 is a fixed fee and cracks are not called out as normal or otherwise acceptable, you should withhold any further payment to the builder and consult with a different company on a repair estimate.

Actually, I was encouraging you to ask for a discount. The discount itself would presumably be sufficient to eliminate their margin on this deal, and would probably make it a net loss for them. As companies are in the business to make money, not lose it, your discount would encourage them to be more cautious in the future. Since your pool will likely be just fine, although filtration will be slightly impaired, it would make more sense to ask for a discount then to force them to rip up all the work and redo (but it's nice to have that option just in case!). Anyway your call in the end, good luck with it.

Your pool will be fine, although circulation will not be as good in the shallow end so you may need to brush a bit more during peak season. You could let the pool builder off the hook, but then again this is pure negligence on their part and they are liable for their mistake. I would negotiate with them and leverage this to get a significant discount off the work they performed for you. If they refuse, you are legally entitled to fix the problem and charge them for the additional work required. Keep in mind as well that if you let this slide, you are encouraging this company to continue to be sloppy and future customers may suffer when their remodels do not go as planned.

I donned my snorkel, and started sawing away. sawed two notches, about 1/8 inch apart. Jammed in screw driver, and managed to knock out the 1/8 inch chunk, then the rest of it folded right out. The original piece had no inside notches, and no hex shaped lip for extraction with a pipe wrench. I have no idea what the original installer was thinking, and how I was supposed to extract it except by doing this hacksaw method. But thankfully, its all good now, the new piece does have the notches you guys have mentioned and a hex shaped lip. Thanks for the advice everyone.

Not exactly constructive advice, but I wonder whether its even worth having a salt-based chlorine system? Seems like the systems are expensive ($500-$1000) and the cells routinely fail at around 4-5 years. I don't understand how anyone sees any ROI over using regular liquid chlorine.

9-10 hrs seems excessive for 17000 gallons. I would try running your pump less often if you don't want to buy any new equipment.

Thanks for all the advice guys. The new fitting that I purchased has some protrusions at the end where you could jam a large bar, and then turn the bar (using a wrench or vice grips of some sort). However, I don't think the old fitting has these same protrusions. I can't fit the old broken part on and torque like a socket, that definitely won't work. I bought a very small, sharp handsaw and am going to delicately saw the damn thing out. Probably will jump in the damn pool and put a mask on so its at eye level. I'll tell everyone how it goes!

Its already oblong, and the part you can grip broke right off. The only way I can think of getting this thing out is some kind of huge reverse tap. I've done a lot of work on my pool but I might be a bit over my head at this point.

I was repositioning my polaris sweep because it got tangled, must have been a little careless in how I jerked it because there is a plastic piece which screws into the sweep pipe coming out the side of the pool, and this piece has two little nubs on it which both broke. So, I need to replace this piece but I can't get it out. Seems to be frozen solid, screwed into the tube. Anyone have any tips for getting sweep and return line plastic adapters off, and then replaced?

Thanks for the replies. Anyone have any experience with the Gigawatt2? It looks like a pretty slick little unit, and can be found for around $200.

I have a newly installed 2 speed pentair ultra flow pump (1.5/.25), a .75 HP booster, and a solar array. Pool is around 12-13k gallons. I'd like to be able to run: Winter: 45 minutes high speed/booster, 2 hrs low speed Summer: 45 minutes high speed/booster, 4 hrs low speed (solar array is off), OR 45 minutes high speed/booster, 2 hrs high speed (solar array is on because pool temp is below X degrees) Is there any setup that will allow me to do this? If not, what is the best (cheapest) digital timer out there for 2 speed/booster combinations that switches between high speed and low speed automatically? Thanks for the advice!

Although I would always love to learn about places that sell chemicals for cheaper, this question is more in regard to why pool chemicals are so expensive in the first place. When you look at the basic chemicals that control a pool's pH and sanitize it, they are incredibly basic compounds; muriatic acid, calcium/sodium hypochlorite, cyanuric acid, etc. The former two chemicals are in widespread industrial use, and should be incredibly cheap to purchase. So why are calcium hypochlorite buckets so commonly sold for $100+? Equally shocking is the fact that internet "discount" pool supplies places seem to have only marginally lower prices, if at all, to brick and mortar retail establishments. In a similar vein of thought, why do companies like polaris get away with charging $40 for a leaf bag that cost 10 cents to make? In the short time I have been a pool owner, I have been repeatedly shocked at the apparent lack of competition and the exorbitant prices leveraged by various merchants for pool related goods. I see no reason why this industry is not ripe for a well funded company to come in and start producing discounted, aftermarket parts for all major equipment, or distribute foreign-sourced, discount labelled calcium hypochlorite (buffered or otherwise) for 50% of vendors currently charge. Competition is broken in this industry, which seems like a pretty big business opportunity if you ask me.