tb0ne

The water was quoted at $800, so the liner/labor was about 3400.

New house has a 15x32 rectangular inground that desperately needs a new liner. No stairs, one skimmer, two returns, and a main drain. I started the process of getting a few quotes, and the first quote I got came back at around $4200 dollars. This includes pumping remaining water out, liner replacement, and refilling with trucked in water (we're on a well). I don't know what this should cost me, but this seemed much higher than I was expecting. Just curious of others' thoughts on this. Thanks

This is my first year with a inground pool. We bought the house this spring, the cover was still on and had ripped resulting in very dark green water. Once I finally got the filter/pump working the way it should, the water turned blue within a couple days. It's now been 5 days and the water is still blue but I cannot see the bottom. I've been running the filter non-stop, and shocking continuously to try and keep the free chlorine up. PH and alkalinity are at normal levels. My question is, is this a normal time to clear up a pool? It does seem to be getter a little clearer every day, but with the quick turnaround from green to blue, I guess I expected the clearing process to be much quicker. I'm coming from the above ground world, so I'm used to opening the thing up and swimming in a few days. Someone told me that I should shut off the filter for a while to let the sediment fall to the bottom and then vacuum. Someone else told me to use a floculant. I'm a little confused at this point, and don't want to waste the money if I'm just simply not being patient. If it's still not clear in a couple days, I guess I'll take a sample to the store and let them try to take my money.

Lots of good suction from the skimmer now. Wasn't Christy's brand - I can't remember the name but it begins with an O. Came in a kit of both the primer and cement. Now since doing this I'm having pressure issues on the filter. I'm having to backwash every 5 hours or so, or else I lose most of the suction in the skimmer. I don't know if this is normal but hopefully it will cease once the water clears. Can you send pic(s) of the equip and valving? After seeing what the skimmer line originally looked like, I wonder if any of the return plumbing is the flex as well, with kinks and loop? The skimmer line is that flex stuff all the way to the pump. I'm getting plenty of flow through it at first though, so I don't think there' any more kinks.

Lots of good suction from the skimmer now. Wasn't Christy's brand - I can't remember the name but it begins with an O. Came in a kit of both the primer and cement. Now since doing this I'm having pressure issues on the filter. I'm having to backwash every 5 hours or so, or else I lose most of the suction in the skimmer. I don't know if this is normal but hopefully it will cease once the water clears.

The finished product. Currently drying, true test will be in a couple hours.

So assuming the existing pipe is *not* flexible PVC, how would I go about coupling the new PVC to the existing pipe? Should I use some sort of male/female coupling with hose clamps?

First time inground pool owner here. Inherited one with a new house - have experience with above-grounds, but this is the first inground. I opened up the pool this year not knowing the condition. After finding a vinyl liner on its last leg, and a dead pump, I now have the filter system running for the most part. One major issue was that I was getting very little suction from the skimmer. The install of this pool seems iffy at best - part of the skimmer line was actually above ground (the part with the black tape in he first picture), it looks like it was previously patched. Anyhow I could hear water attempting to go through the line, but it sounded like it was choking. I dug up that portion of the line, and found several kinks. I have no idea why this is like this, but I'm guessing from freezing/thawing (I'm in the northeast). I realize its a temporary solution and I should probably replace the entire skimmer line, but I want to cut out this section and replace. What's there currently is some sort of slightly flexible pipe. I'm not sure if it's flexible pvc, I don't know a whole lot about that stuff. Just looking for any suggestions on what materials to use, as well as how to do the couplings. Hopefully this makes sense - pictures attached. Thanks for any help.

I bought a house a couple years ago which included a Thermospas Chesapeake hot tub. It hadn't been used in a while, so I went through and replaced all the cracked yets and leaks, and we used it for one winter. It didn't get used a lot, so at the end of the winter I drained it and removed as much water as possible from the jets with a shop-vac, and it hasn't been used since. I would like the thing gone, but I'm not sure of the right approach. I initially was going to throw it on Craigslist for free, provided the people who took it had it professionally moved (my main concern is getting this thing out of my yard safely and without damage to my property or any people moving it). But now I'm thinking that's just going to attract a bunch of crazy people looking for free stuff. So my question is, is this hot tub worth anything? If not I'm just going to have it removed and trashed. Otherwise I will put it on craigslist. The Good: It was working last time we used it. It appears to be less than 9 years old judging by the date on the spa pack. Overall it's in pretty decent shape. The bad: There's two little spots on the bottom wherer the material (acrylic?) has peeled up. One of the corners has split, probably due to my laziness in removing massive amounts of snow from the cover in the winter. It needs a new cover. The cover now gets water-logged. Sorry for the long post. Pictures can be seen at the following link. I tried to get pictures of all the damage too. http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n51/tbone63078/hot%20tub/

I had a little bit of an eye opening experience this weekend. I spent most of the day opening and refilling the pool on Saturday, only to have a return hose break on me on Sunday. As water was gushing out and I was draining via waste into the lawn to get the level below the skimmer, I was wishing I had some sort of valve below the skimmer to prevent having to do this. What is the standard procedure for working on your filters, pumps, plumbing, etc without draining below the skimmer? Is the only option to do some sort of hard-plumbing with pvc and valves or something of the sort?

You can drain it for the summer. If you live in an area that can freeze you should also winterize it just in case you do not get it up and running before a frost. To help keep mildew out of the lines, take a shop vac and put it on every jet sucking as much water as you can out(this is also part of winterizing) open the pump unions and drain them out, suck out water in filter, get as much as you can out of the tub. Ther is 15 gallons and up of water left in the tub after draining depending on how many jets etc. you have. Pull out filters, clean and leave them out. Clean cover well and let dry before placing back on tub. Put inscect/rodent repelent under the cabinet. When you start it back up, fill it and super shock it! If you see junk coming out of jets, you can put some jet clean or swirl away in, let it run a little bit, then drain and refill. Check pump seals when you start it back up, sometimes they dry out after a tub has been drained and sitting and will leak. If they are leaking, take care of them right away. Plumbing should be fine. If you leave the tub running, you still need to keep the water chemistry. Letting the PH go off is just as damaging to the tub and if you don't have sanitizer you will have more than mold growing in the water. You can keep the temp turned way down and set it for the shortest filter cycle (unless you have a 24 hour circ pump) as long as you check the water chemistry. Thanks for the great advice. Would it be wise to run a little bleach through before draining it?

I will not be using my tub during the summer. Am I better off draining it, or just letting it filter throughout the summer? Ideally I'd like to drain it, but I worry about mold, and the plumbing drying and cracking and stuff like that. I'm also due for a water change anyway. Or should I throw a little bleach in there and just let it filter all summer? I'd rather not pay the electricity costs, but if it saves the tub, so be it

After the 5000 inches of snow we've had this winter, my cover is starting to give up. Even with my pillow still inflated i'm starting to lose the cover on a couple sides. My question is, what can I do to prevent a complete a complete disaster come spring? The cover is still solid ice so there's nothing I can do to pull up the cover as of right now. Should I buy a pump or something to pump the water as it melts to prevent it from getting in the pool?

My best solution to you try to research and find out who the jets are made by, some are easier to replace than other's but don't give up it wil be worth the time and effort. They're 8-piece mini jets if that helps at all...

For those of you who haven't followed my story, I bought a house with a Thermospas (I know, I know) tub. The tub is in decent enough shape, but leaks when filled. I brought someone out to do a once-over, and we found 2 or three cracked jets. How difficult is it to replace jets? It doesn't seem like it would be rocket science to me - the parts are cheap enough that I'm willing to give it a go myself rather than pay 100/hr to have someone come do it for me. Any words of wisdom?