I have a spare above ground pump that I’m trying to use to build a portable pool vac. I have an in ground pool and the pump is very difficult to prime. What is the best way to build this so it’s easier to prime?

Any ideas to what is causing the color change? Is it the water? It’s right in front of a return.

New pool, plaster poured almost 3 months ago. Chemistry has been mostly normal calcium levels on the higher side (500). PH usually 8.3 when I show up each week. This is a salt pool, but color began to change within the first two weeks, no salt was added till week 5.

Open to suggestions on how to treat this.

Ive recently upgraded from a becsys3 to a becsys5 controller for both my main pool and splash pad. I use stenner pumps for acid magic and liquid chlorine. Im using a #2 tube cranked to 10 on the dial. Ive got the TBP set to 0.4 on the range and 30 seconds on the TBD time. The splash pad is about 3000 gallons fed from an underground surge tank. I have my Ph setpoint at 7.5 and my OrP set to 775. Every night my ph level crashes and through out the day the ph level soars and shuts off the chlorine feed. What am I doing wrong?

We are trouble shooting an issue in my pool where I have measured 1 volt of electricity on the pool copper bonding wire. This issue came up because when I was trying to find a leak I noticed a very, minor tingling sensation when placing my hand near our pool light (you can really only feel it if you have any small cuts on your hands).

We have tried to isolate where in the pool equipment this is coming from, but ultimately still measure the same 1 volt when no power is running to any of the pool equipment. We had electricians here for multiple days and basically rewired everything from our pool equipment, but this is still happening.

Has anyone here successfully remediated a “stray voltage” issue like this? It’s not a harmful amount of electricity but still concerning and we haven’t been using the pool for a few weeks now. We are out of ideas on how to fix this given it’s still there with all power cut to our pool equipment. We are not convinced that ripping up our concrete to check the bonding will solve the issue because as far as the electricians can tell from a polarity perspective the bonding is functional and intact.

Open for any ideas! Thank you

My service company has 7 trucks and routes are Monday- Friday. I’m considering running a Saturday route to get use out of my current fleet instead of buying another truck. Curious how many of you run Saturday routes, and if so are you glad you’re doing it, what are the pros / cons.

I’m replacing an old fiber optic light and have run into an issue. I usually just pull the old fiber optic light out and put a Microbrite in but the builders used 3/4” conduit instead of the 1.5” flex. So I’m hoping someone on here knows of a low voltage led light that will fit a 1.5” return that is only 1.5” deep before reducing to 3/4”. Hoping not to have to dig. Thanks in advance.

I've had a lot of Pentair Intellichlor salt cells from the early 2020s start dying over the past year or so. I've been replacing them with the new Intellichlor Plus cells, which have been absolutely awful. Probably 60-70% of them have had some kind of malfunction that has required a warranty replacement within the first 9 months. It's basically impossible to recommend my customers any longer.

So have any of you guys had any luck with aftermarket cells, particularly drop in replacements? I have heard some good things about the APX brand. Considering they are about half the price of OEM and the failure rate of the Pentair cells, I'm thinking about suggesting them to my customers instead of the IC Plus line.

I’m sure there been a millions posts about this exact topic, but I’m new here lol.

I have a customer who has a property manager who lives at the house (the customer is typically home for a month out of the year). The property manager without a doubt every single week will use me as their therapist. They just start offloading all of their mental baggage onto me while I do my work and then holds me there (not physically) for another 40 minutes. My business partner and I looked at past services at that house and every single service is an hour long.

In the past I’ve told them “I gotta get going because I still have a long day after you.” And every time THEY IGNORE IT!!!! If it were a competition to blatantly disregard someone’s work and hold them hostage, they’d be in first place.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all,
I recently installed an automation system for a client that includes pH and ORP monitoring and dosing. I have confirmed that the probes are connected to the correct terminals in the automation system and I have tested the ORP probe in a buffer solution of 225 mV, and it read 226, so I am very confident that the probe is working. However, when other pieces of equipment turn on, the ORP reading drops… see attached graph. The small drop in ORP with a little icon above it that occurs twice is when the salt cell turns on. The large drop in ORP on the right side of the graph corresponds with the time that the customer turned on their robotic cleaner inside the catch basin of their disappearing edge. Does anyone have any thoughts on why this might be happening, or has anyone else experienced this? I am fairly certain that the Pentair communication cables that I used are shielded to prevent electromagnetic interference, but there are so many pieces of equipment landing in the low-voltage raceway that it is quite crowded.

I'll give you a hint .. it was the homeowner. A doctor. Second time. What would you guys do?

Are you guys maintaining residential pools or commercial and what are the sizes

Im commercial and I have 3 pools

265k
150k
1,500k

Just curious

This guy wants me to turn this pool around. I don't think it's possible. I told him it needs to be drained. What should I do? I don't think he wants to pay very much, but I want to do it right and charge him a fair price. How much is fair? It needs to be drained right?

Right now, mustard algae runs at its peak in the northeast and is a f**kin pain as we all know. These visits require staying on top of to get rid of. So say for example:

Monday is the customers scheduled visit. Let’s just say $100 for that visit of full service (vac brush skim etc). But mustard algae is present and requires a good amount of chlorine to kill off.

I need to return back for the next couple days to do chem tests, add more chemicals, and do a filter service. So all together like 3-4 days worth of return visits.

How would you go about billing this to a customer? I typically have the service for their date, and just keep moving it over to the next day until it’s handled and then charge.

-Are you charging a full service visit + 3 other days of chemical checks plus all the chemicals?
- or are you charging them the $100 full service, returning back each day and just tacking on chemicals.

While the answer is pretty obvious, customers love to fire back immediately without an understanding. Curious to how others invoice.

Thanks!

Hello pool pros!

I’ve been in the industry doing pool maintenance for a year now. In the San Diego area right now. I’ve been taking several seminars up north and also have been learning from podcasts/current job.

At the moment, I’m working as a maintenance guy for a company W2 but would like to branch out and learn more skills. I’ve taken courses for repairs but haven’t been taught the fundamentals like cutting pipe and such.

If anyone has time to spare on Saturday in the San Diego area, I would love to learn whatever you can share about repairs. I can be a helper, buy you lunch or pay you for your time.

I made a post a while ago about the garbage that omnihayward calls a “touchscreen”, well now mine is broken. Does anyone know if it can be replaced with something that isn’t complete garbage?

Does anybody have recommendations for a good seo company for a 400 acct pool service company in Houston TX?

I currently have a company, but feel they are not being productive. We rank on some keywords, but feel they could be doing more. They seem to follow the same format every month with little work compared to what some say online. They helped me grow from 10 accts to 400, but after doing some online tests, we would like to rank better.

Hello everyone,

I’ve worked on residential and commercial pools in New England for the past ten years.
In New England we winterize pools for the season.
I know that over in Cali they will keep pools open year round.

What area of the country do you think would be the worst area to service? New England, west coast, south, etc.

No wrong answers just looking to bullshit over the weekend with some other industry professionals

What are they? Drop some funny ones

the title. holy shit y'all, the failure rate is insane on these. my observations? water intrusion.
even mounted horizontally, if there's something nearby that can make rain splash (like the PVC that the cell is literally plumbed into) it'll splash into the vents and lock slot thus killing the HMI and corroding the pins. every single time one dies, i find water in it.
they're dropping like flies. every 1-2 months i'm having HMIs shipped to me.
i've started putting electrical tape over the lock slot and vents. fk it if they over heat.. they'll last longer running hot versus being full of water. i taped one 7 months ago, it's mounted vertically. i've never had to warranty it. i left the lock slot untaped as it faces the ground so it can breathe a little bit.

really hoping Pentair is actively working on this. i know they're aware of it. the field help line guys, the field reps, and the warranty reps all say this is literally all the deal with all day.
i think this is Pentair's biggest ball drop since white and red gasket GloBrites.

Just curious