Equipment Pad Design

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NullQwerty

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Apr 23, 2008
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Hey everyone,

I just bought a new top mount filter and I'm getting a heater for the first time so I thought it's time to just replumb everything by my equipment pad since it needs it anyway. I attached a picture of the design I came up with.

I have 2 points of concern with it:

1) Too many unions. Unions are great, but they can also be points of small air leaks.
2) Exiting the heater I have 2 Jandy valves rather than just 1, so that I can plumb in my water slide. I feel like there must be a better way to plumb in a slide. Thoughts?

Thanks!
 

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  • Equipment Pad.jpg
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I am not as expert as some on here, but I am pretty sure you want your Salt Chlorine generator after your heater. That is how mine is plumbed and it makes sense to avoid corroding the heater with high concentrations of chlorine.
 
Your return lines out number your suction lines which can cause pump issues such as air in the pump basket and even cavitation in extreme cases. Is your skimmer line bigger diameter than the return lines?

Also, an alternative to the return plumbing is that you could go with a three way header and a 2-way valve for the slide or even two way valves on all returns if you think you want to adjust the flow to the other returns. Not necessarily better than what you are showing just a different way to do it.

As for the unions, they are only necessary if you need to remove equipment for any reason such as winter closing so I am not sure why you showing them with the valves. If you ever have to replace the valve housing, you are better off re-plumbing the area. Also, if you only need to remove equipment to replace it, then you can probably do without them as well. However, I do think unions are a good idea for the pump, since that is the one piece of equipment that will fail soonest and may need work more often.
 
Thanks. Yeah, I've got 2 returns and 1 skimmer. Just the way the pool was done like 30 years ago. But I redid the piping last year and went from 1.5" all around, to 2" for the skimmer and 1.5" for the returns.

The slide was never plumbed in the past. I used a garden hose. It's just such a pain in the butt though, that I'd like to just plumb it in. I figure I'd use a bunch of reducer bushings till it's finally the size of the small tubing it uses. But with it being reduced to such a small size, I imagine that won't add to the concern you mentioned, right?

The unions are a tough call. I feel like I've replumbed things so many times due to new equipment or repairs or replacements. At the same time though, I've never not had issues with air leaks at the union points, so... Maybe I'm using the wrong types. I'm getting the ones from Home Depot's plumbing section. Are the ones from pool stores different and/or better?
 
Quality of unions can vary but you can probably find better online for not much more. But again, I would only put them on pumps and maybe the filter for maintenance reasons. Putting them on valves doesn't make sense to me. The valve will probably outlast the union.
 
mas985 said:
Quality of unions can vary but you can probably find better online for not much more.
Click to expand...

Do you have a brand name or a suggested site I should look at? So far, all I can find are generic ones that look similar to the ones in HD. For example, this site: http://www.parpools.com/page/pool/parts ... alves.html
Or is it the case that these probably are better than the ones in HD?

*EDIT* Sorry...just realized that some of those are Haywards. Answered my own question. Thanks!

mas985 said:
But again, I would only put them on pumps and maybe the filter for maintenance reasons. Putting them on valves doesn't make sense to me. The valve will probably outlast the union.
Click to expand...

Well that alone would remove 4. So that would be helpful.

Thanks!
 
One quick question I thought of. I've read that heaters can be pretty sensitive to imbalanced water. Should I build in a bypass to the heater so that if my pool is ever far out of balance, the water never goes through the heater? Or is it only a concern if I turn on the heater and try to heat unbalanced water?
 
Some heaters can have a lot of head loss. Therefore having a bypass for when the heater is not in use can give you better flow.

Of course the question is then, do you have a valve that completely shuts off the heater path ... leaving stagnant water in it.
Or do you put a valve between the heater inlet and exit so that most of the water bypasses the heater, but some still passes through. So that when you close the valve, all the water goes through the heater.

I was going to use the 2nd method, although now undecided if I will hook the rusting heater back up at all.
 

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A heater bypass is only rarely worth the extra effort, especially if it is a larger heater (say 300,000 BTU or larger).

If you can turn the heater 90 degrees, so the inlet/outlet is facing down in the drawing, you can shorten the plumbing slightly.

I am not a fan of using unions. PVC plumbing is very easy, so I just make sure there is enough straight pipe at each obvious spot so that I can cut it if needed for changes/repairs.
 
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