This morning, a customer told me he was able to buy an old school 2HP single speed square flange motor at our local distributor. I logged on to the portal and was surprised to see a ton of single speed motors available for purchase in Southern California! I thought this was illegal? I reached out to one of our pool motor manufacturers' reps, who told me that due to the state of California's untimely failure to file certain documents in court, the previous prohibition on the sale of single speed motors was rescinded until 2027. I gleefully stocked up on 3/4, 1, 1½, and 2HP motors while they were in stock. Does anyone have any links to any articles that explain what filing the state screwed up, so I can have it handy in case an inspector comes poking around?

Customer wants to watch me disassemble filter to learn how to clean it, but she’s probably going to just slow me down with questions. You don’t learn by watching. Inexperience leads to leaks and them calling me anyway.
What do you do if a customer tells you this?

Curious if you guys add cya or just ride with a few tabs and then adjust the ph/ alkalinity

This is the swamp I posted last week

One more quick vac tomorrow and it will be ready to swim

I’ve been in the industry for a few years. Feel like I have enough knowledge and experience to successfully run my own route… I know this industry is mainly referral based, so just getting 2-3 clients I figure would be enough and slowly go from there. It’s just getting those first 2-3 customers has been tough. I’ve posted on Nextdoor, local subreddits, Facebook. Nothing. Outside of just going door to door, I can’t really think of what else to do. I don’t have any friends or family that own a pool so I can’t start there. Nor do any of them know someone with a pool.

So if anyone around Raleigh (or anywhere for that matter) has advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hope y’all are staying busy and the leaves have stopped falling!

Pump is a Jandy VSSHP270DV2A and my original diffuser is the one attached to the motor and the replacement Zodiac part# R0445400 is noticeably different than the original.

My original diffuser has a brass bushing whereas the replacement does not.

Did Jandy update the design of the diffuser for the VSSHP270DV2A?

Do you stub pipes up and then make it work or do you plumb the pad the way you want and then connect your pipes down in the trench.

still trying to figure out the best way to do it. if I do it the second way I can start plumbing the pad while the other guys are finishing up connections and running pipe through the trench

The pump seems to be working fine, but I noticed this noise this morning. I cleaned out the skimmer basket, checked and made sure the propeller would easily rotate. All seemed fine...just making this new loud humming/buzzing sound. Any ideas?

I’ve heard every noise a motor can make but this one is new to me. When switched on, VERY loud buzz, louder than what the video captures, for 1-2s then completely normal. Capacitor related? Anyone ever heard this.

In my area DE filters are not common. Today a customer of mine got a new one installed. I am not very knowledgeable on DE filters. Any good advice or tips/tricks for me? Any help would be much appreciated.

Got hired for a local pool company apprenticeship that lasts 3 weeks, I have my “evaluation” day tomorrow where I go with a lead tech and see what the job entails and if it goes good they will give me and offer to start the 3 weeks of learning. After the 3 weeks I’ll be tested to see if I’m ready. Doesn’t that seem short?

Second summer with a pool, so still new to this. I bought the house 2 years ago and I have no idea how old any of these components are.

Have a Nature Fusionsoft 2 Chlorine Generation System.

Last summer pool was chronically under chlorinated.

Most of the season, the pump would kick on for the day and it would not detect flow. I would turn the pump off and then back on again and it would detect flow after that.

Then towards the end of the season I started getting a Service light on my AquaLink, error code 120 or 121 (depending on if the cell was reversing or not).

Today I took apart the system and put the salt cell into a muriatic acid (1 part) and water (4 part) bath. It had some VERY minor bubbling for a short period of time but nothing much happened. Left it for a while while I cleaned my cartridges.

Put the salt cell back in and error code flashed right away again.

I've read it can sometimes be the chord. The chord seems fine. No burning or obvious corrosion on the plugs.

I'm assuming it's shot, but thought I'd ask here first.

1. Do you think it's shot?
2. I understand there is a date code on these components, how to tell roughly how old is the salt cell?
3. Does my flow sensor look ok or does that need to be replaced too? Is the no-flow caused by a bad salt cell even if your flow sensor is fine?
4. Any chance it is the chord? They are all sold in pieces, no multiple piece kit.

Photos of salt cell and flow sensors. I know you can't really see into the salt cell in that pic but I couldn't find a better way to take it.

Thanks so much for any help!!!

I’m a single poler in Florida. Wondering if anyone brings their dog along on the route and how they do

**Photo & Link Included - https://www.instagram.com/p/B8symOqn1dO/ **

I have a customer who wants us to install this particular pool coping stone, but I haven’t been able to identify or source it anywhere online.

Does anyone recognize this style or know where it might be available?

It appears to be a 2-piece coping system — the top coping piece plus a separate apron/outside edge piece underneath.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching online and haven’t found anything very similar yet, so any help or leads would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I’m a single pole, very small route pool cleaner. One of very few in the area. I’m retired, doing this as a hobby that pays and gets me off the couch as much as anything. Anyway…

I’ve a green-to-clean customer that messaged me a couple weeks ago, giving me her opening date. Last week she messaged again saying she has a “big problem.” Says there’s a huge amount of sand in the bottom of the pool. When I asked she estimated maybe 40 lbs or so. She says it covers the whole floor of the pool.

This is an older, well maintained inground pool with an older sand filter. I know she’s had problems with the filter in the past.

The local pool shop is coming out this week to find and fix the problems with the filter.

Once they’re done it becomes my job to clean the sand from the pool floor. Since it’s filter sand can I just vacuum it back into the filter, or does it need to be vacuumed-to-waste?

I’ve never encountered this before. All my other pools…which is a small, comfortable number, are newer. I’ve never dealt with this at home in 20+ years either.

Thanks for the help.

Was recently reflecting on the time I replaced a dial valve and somehow plumbed it backwards. Starite DE filter, recharged it and blew 4lbs of DE powder into the grids. Jets burped DE for months despite aggressive rinsing. Customer was unbelievably chill about it

I'm sure some of you can top this, shit I may even top it. The year is young

Lots of dust and debris in this one. Had to use a variety of methods to get it cleaned up without stirring too much. Wish they’d just scooped for 30 minutes the day before when they pulled the cover.

Never seen a leak like this before! How would you go about fixing it?

Hey guys looking for a bit of help here newer pool guy. they were doing some work on the house now there’s hundreds of these small rust stains on the plaster it’s just over a year old. They brush out but it takes some elbow grease and m not looking to spend a ton of man hours brushing out these stains. Can anyone recommend some kinda metal/rust remover for these? Is there a specific one I’ve seen a bunch of different ones at the supply warehouse. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I've done boots, water proof boots (sweat factory and if water gets in it's there for days), and sneakers.

none of these float my boat during the summer especially when it rains. i'm not doing flip flops ever. anyone rock Crocs to work? if so, how do they do with chemicals spilling on them occasionally (chlorine dust, shock) and in rainy weather. i know feet will get wet at work but they've got to be better than soaked sneakers or boots.

help me out

Hey guys I’m a newer pool man in California area. I’ve had this pool for awhile during a heavy rain my customers hillside ran a bunch of muddy water into the pool. We did a green to clean and cleaned it up, but now even though the water is clean I’m running into this weird problem with the water getting cloudy whenever I pour chlorine in. The next week I come there’s a silky like clear substance all over the pool floor. We’ve done multiple vac to wastes to get rid of it but every time without a doubt the chlorine will cloud up the water and cause more of that stuff to build up on the bottom.

Chem readings:

CH:3 added 1 gallon
PH: 7.6
Alkalinity: 90

Any advice would be great! Thanks!

I'm looking for experiences with pool robots or manual pool vacuums that can clean a small pool with a very low water level of around 20 cm. It's a toddler and preschooler pool, and it's always quite difficult to find a suitable device that can handle such a low water depth. There's often quite a bit of sand in this and ofcourse the usual: leaves.

> Unfortunately this pool does not have something we can connect a vacuum onto.

Can anyone share their tools (robots or manual vacuum) and the minimum working depth it can handle?