Gizmo came out due to ice thaw. Now what?

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reindeerboy

reindeerboy

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LifeTime Supporter
May 27, 2008
519
Jamestown, ND
OK everyone. Need some reaassurance maybe and some sound advice from the professionals.

I thought today I would open up my cover and just take a look at how much ice is left to thaw before we can open the pool.

When doing that, I found that during the last couple weeks, the ice retracted from starting to thaw and in doing that, it pulled the gizmo out of the wall.

I was able to put it back into the outlet. The reason why I am even using a rubber gizmo vs a screwed in cap is that this pool is 40 years old and started off as a cement pool before the previous owners put in a vinyl liner over the top of it. They also had old metal lines back then and the previous owners took one line out but the other is still there and the threads are worn out so we used a gizmo this past year as the plastic cover that they were using broke.

Well granted to say, I will not use that gizmo upon closing this year and have decided to go back to that plastic little threaded cap as I found another one and will use teflon tape and screw it in like was done in previous years with a bit of underwater silicon. I guess the lesson of the day is if it works, dont mess with it.

Anyway, I did put antifreeze in the lines and I feel that the gizmo held most all winter until the spring thaw started. The lines are 2 ft down and no frost is left in most areas now. My thought is if I was leaking water, I probably would have noticed the drop in the water level, but it has definitely stayed the same.

Does everyone think I may have dodged a bullet? I think that as long as it stays 30 degrees or better, that I hope to be ok upon opening the pool in the next couple weeks.

By the way, the ice is about 10 inches thick yet so it will be at least 2 weeks before I can open the pool and that is depending on how warm it gets outside. Its thawed enough away from the walls that I was able to get my arm underneath and put the gizmo back in anyway. :hammer:

Any thoughts if I can do anything different? My first thought is to leave everything alone and just open the succer up and see what happens. Am I correct in thinking that if there was a leak that the water level would go down?
 
If you closed well, and it sounds like you did a reasonably good job, you will have multiple lines of defense against any kind of damage. The gizmo should have taken care of it all by it's self. The anti-freeze should also have taken care of things all by it's self. So you ought to be safe. However, anything can happen, you won't know for sure till you have the pool up and running and can see if the plumbing leaks.
 
Thanks Jason.

I feel the same way. I am really anal in doing things correctly and used about 4 gallons of antifreeze throughout the whole pool system including the use of air to blow out the lines. My thought is that I should be safe. At least that is what I am hoping for. Its warmer now and I am guessing that the gizmo never came off until this spring when it started to thaw out the ice.

Lesson learned but hopefully its not an expensive one.

I guess when we first moved into the home, I found out the previous owner only used winshield washer fluid and never flushed air in the lines and we never had a leak that year. Got lucky there so I am hoping I get lucky again.

We will all see when the time comes. In the meantime, I had some antifreeze left over so I poured some more in the lines to be safe and shot a bit of air into it to try and get it to head towards the pool returns to mix in good. Seemed to work as that gizmo never came out again after i put it back into the line.

That water is cold! My arm was super RED! :hammer:
 
UPDATE:

Opener the pool today finally. Still actually had about 2 inches of ice in it which I decided to break up and pull out of the pool. Got it all out after about 2 hours.

Then I fired her up today. Looks like everything is running very smoothly. No bubbles or leaks whatsoever. Just a bit dirty from the winter and some algae growth due to the worms and bugs. Added about 4 gallons of chlorine so far and going to vacuum the heck out of the pool tomorrow. Running the pool now till its cleaned. Shouldnt take long.

Thanks Jason for the reassurance.

Happy Swims everyone.

:cheers:
 
you said it pulled the gizzmo out of the wall? Did you put the gizzmo into your return line?

Anyways if you can't use a threaded solid gizzmo because your skimmer lacks threads to screw into I would use a rubber compression plug and then for ice expansion in the skimmer I would take a jug of antifreeze and add stones or sand to the jug to make it non-buoyant. The jug can sit in the skimmer and absorb the pressure from ice expansion.
 
Yes the gizmo came out of the return line in the wall. The gizmo was the incorrect size that the PB decided to use without my knowledge. I do have the pool company close my pool every year and usually they do a fantastic job. The gizmo that I normally have to fit the old metal line works fine, but the PB did not use what I laid out for them and about the time I figured this out, the pool was frozen.

Anyways, upon thawing out and the ice contracted, the gizmo came out of the line. :rant:

Idiots! Granted to say, I am now going to be doing everything myself. The only reason I was using them was because they helped me get going when I first bought this home with a pool in 2007. They were very good and still are. Just one dude that didnt know what he was doing.

Anyway, if I did have any problems, the PB said they would stand behind fixing it. So I guess I would still of been ok.

Just goes to show that blowing your lines out and using antifreeze can do as safeguards to your system for winterization.

Thanks.
 
Yep, Thats how I see it! Thanks for the support!

Working on the cleanup of the pool now. Got it to that milky blue stage now. Have to vacuum it to waste today, brush, and then shock it again! CC is at 2 so its getting better. Not bad for just opening yesterday. A couple more days of this and it should be sparkling.

Have a good weekend everyone!
 
reindeerboy said:
Yes the gizmo came out of the return line in the wall. The gizmo was the incorrect size that the PB decided to use without my knowledge. I do have the pool company close my pool every year and usually they do a fantastic job. The gizmo that I normally have to fit the old metal line works fine, but the PB did not use what I laid out for them and about the time I figured this out, the pool was frozen.

Anyways, upon thawing out and the ice contracted, the gizmo came out of the line. :rant:

Idiots! Granted to say, I am now going to be doing everything myself. The only reason I was using them was because they helped me get going when I first bought this home with a pool in 2007. They were very good and still are. Just one dude that didnt know what he was doing.

Anyway, if I did have any problems, the PB said they would stand behind fixing it. So I guess I would still of been ok.

Just goes to show that blowing your lines out and using antifreeze can do as safeguards to your system for winterization.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

For the future I wouldn't put a gizzmo in the return line, it's not going to help anymore than a plug. The size of the gizzmo will just give ice something to grab onto and push and pull on. Just use a regular screw-in plug or rubber compression plug for capping on inlets or outlets on your walls.
 

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