What Not to Touch Around Your Swimming Pool: Common Mistakes by Touching Things you Shouldn't

Like anything else a pool is pretty complex with many ins and outs and dos and don’ts and I will go over some things you probably should not touch around your pool until you gain more knowledge. Recently my home furnace went out, so I went up into the attic to see if anything obvious was amiss. I thought maybe I would be able to figure it out. I stood there for about five minutes and then decided that this was out of my league and I simply called my AC guy. I figured I would do more harm than good if I tried to “fix” anything myself. The same goes for your pool in many respects. If you don’t know how to do something, stop and don’t touch anything!

I will start with something that seems very basic, your pool’s timer. Generally it is an Intermatic Timer with a yellow dial and two trippers that control when the pool comes on and goes off. This mechanism uses a very simple principle, the “on” tripper has a notch that will cause the pool pump to turn on when the tripper is engaged and an “off” tripper with a notch that is slightly different the “on” tripper to turn the pool pump off. A lot of times I find that the homeowner wanted to reset his timer but failed to tighten down the “on” tripper or “off” tripper and either the pool was left running for 24 hours or only turned on each day for 20 minutes. Depending on which tripper was put on loose. I’ve also seen the “on” and “off” trippers reversed so instead of setting the pool to run for 4 hours it is running for 20 hours.

You can see something as simple as your timer can be messed up if you are not careful. Just make sure the trippers are on tight and that you have them on the right spot on the yellow dial.
Automated systems can be just as daunting, and you can also make multiple errors in programming the schedule on them. Since they are designed to hold multiple schedules one issue you will run into is that when you go to change a program you are usually adding a program. To change the program, you need to enter into that specific schedule and edit it. But many times, I have seen customers just add a schedule thinking they are editing an existing one.

Then we have the stand-alone Variable Speed pumps. One design feature in the Pentair VS pumps is the on/off (Start/stop) button. They put this here because you can’t program it while it is running and if you are using the pool and want to turn the pump off, you can by simply hitting the start/stop button. The problem arises when you hit the start/stop button and then forget that the pump will not turn back on until you hit the start/stop button again. This means that the schedule program will stay off all week and the pump will be off until you hit the start/stop button.

You can see just the timer of the pool pump can cause errors, so be very aware of what you are doing if you plan on resetting the pool run time or adjusting the schedule on your system.

Another thing that appears simple but can cause problems for you is when you go to empty the skimmer or pump baskets. There is a method to this and if you don’t follow it you can really clog up your system or even cause the pump to burn out.

Here is what I suggest you do for your skimmer basket:
Turn pump on. If there are too many leaves in the skimmer and the main drain engages, turn the pool off again. Scoop out some leaves without lifting the basket. Then turn the pool pump on and continue to scoop out the leaves. When the skimmer is now free of floating leaves and debris, you can pull the basket out and then dump the rest of the leaves and debris.

You don’t want to lift the basket out with the pool off since leaves and debris can get passed the basket when you pull it out and enter the pump basket when you turn the pool on. If there is a lot of debris it can even clog the lines. So, I prefer to empty the skimmer basket with the pool running after I have cleared the floating debris.

Pump Basket:
When you empty the pump basket the one thing key thing that you need to do is refill the pump pot area known also as the wet end of the pump. If you empty the basket and fail to fill this area with water before you put the lid on and start the pump, the pump could burn out if you try to prime it for a long period of time. The worst thing you could do is clean the pump basket and just put the lid on and the start the pump.

Here is what you should do:
Turn the pump off. Remove the lid. Empty out the pump basket. Fill the pump pot area with water from a hose or a bucket of water. Put the lid back on. Start the pump. Never walk away until the pump is primed and full of water.


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