Help me pick out a pool for this summer

[Mdragger88]

Here’s the cone - if you use a regular vac hose that’s standard size

Or you can use this too hook up an intex vac hose which is a little different diameter (this may be included with your pool)

Or just get the whole kit

 

[bkp22]

^^^ lol thx!!

 

[bkp22]

Aww yiss.

Ended up doing pretty well on the level. It's a max of 1.5" of variance all around. Hopefully it doesn't settle any further. This pool feels way larger than my last one. The lack of skimmer really seems like it added a lot of depth.

 

[bkp22]

So I ended up ordering that Intex accessory kit. It weirdly arrived in less than 24 hours. It's great, except the skimmer is missing entirely which was half why I wanted that. Well.. Anyway quick review; the handle/pole is actually super nice, and the vacuum works well, except that you have to purge all air from everything to use it.

No word from Intex on the pump leaking yet..

 

[bkp22]

One question about this intex accessory kit. It comes with one of those little top-hats used for temporarily plugging inlets/outlets. Except this one is white and has a hole in it and is listed as a "flow reduction adapter"

It's not mentioned ANYWHERE in the manual except for the list of included materials. Anyone know what it's use is?

Kinda seems like you could use it to increase vacuum flow but I would want to confirm that before using it.

 

[bkp22]

It looks like I answered my own question, it's apparently used in conjunction with the skimmer I did not get:

https://www.intexdevelopment.com/support/downloadmnl?filename=262___R0_1504_al.pdf

That said I imagine it would make the vacuum work better too, but no details on that.

 

[Mdragger88]

Glad you got it going!
Definitely send them a message that you were missing something from the kit.
All manual vacs must be purged of air before connecting. The good news is that you can now vac to “waste” separately from the pump by using the siphon method if you wish/need to. This wastes a little less water than vacuuming to waste using the pump. I imagine you will have only a few rare occasions where you need a vac to waste as you keep pretty close tabs on your pool but just in case! Storms happen!

 

[bkp22]

Fortunately I don't have to vacuum very often because the whole thing is a bit of a hassle. One of these days I'll buy a battery powered one.

So the skimmer part of that kit actually ended up showing up on a different shipment, which was nice. What was not nice is that at the highest possible height adjustment setting I would be required to drop the water level in my pool as far as a standard skimmer would require, making the entire exercise pointless as I really want those few extra inches of depth. I could have pretty easily modified it but opted to just return everything. Kind of annoying because the skimmer actually looks great and there is nothing inherent in the design preventing it from having a better range of adjustment. I actually feel like the vertical "weir" desigh is probably more efficient than a standard horizontal skimmer.

Found a betta se on sale "used" from the official seller (probably a refurb) on Amazon for $260 so I ended up just ordering that. I'll do a review once it gets in. I'm fanatical about water quality and spend a lot of time skimming (especially on this intex with no skimmer), so I think I'll be glad I went this route.

 

[Mdragger88]

Fwiw I have the intex battery powered stick vac & I like it. It has the shortish pole also. But i always vac from inside the pool so it doesn’t bother me. I mostly use it for my steps & the edges/crevices (yeah I got crevices) but I have vacuumed my entire 33’ round pool with it before.
The intex tools (poles & hoses) are usually smaller than standard.
You can probably scoop up normal sized stuff (vac head, hose, pole) at Walmart right now or wait until clearance happens

 

[bkp22]

Checking in with some measurements. Water looks fantastic:

7ppm FC
0ppm CC
80 ALK
7.6 ph (7.8 Hannah and 7.4 Taylor)
CYA 30

The only change I'm going to make is to add 7oz more granule CYA (pool volume: 5k gal). Otherwise, I feel like these are just about perfect numbers.

 

[bkp22]

Lighting installed. Great night to be in the pool.

 

[bkp22]

Mods feel free to rename this thread to something indicating it's more of a build log.

Today's project: a pool table:



Let's all take a moment to laugh at my woodworking skills. I used my miter saw to sharpen the legs into spikes and hammered them into the soil with a hand sledge. Last year's table had four legs but I was low on lumber so this year's has two legs. Two legs good, four legs bad. We'll see how it holds.

While it may look janky, it does exactly what I need which is to give me a spot to put a cooler, my phone, towel, etc. I'll probably add a holder for my skimmer net also. It looks a little better if you're in the pool:



It has been extremely annoying using the pool without having a table so I'm very glad to have this done.

 

[Mdragger88]

Now u just need an umbrella hole & you’re set!
I always would put my pool table & umbrella near the return for a couple reasons-
Umbrella Shades my table stuffs, people if they want & usually my equipment a little, table also provided some shade/shelter for equipment,
Its nice to have a table by where you do all the pool work on the outside of the pool(pouring in chems etc).
I usually always had my equipment hidden from my house view so the table would be a little hidden as well along with any stuff that accumulated there like poles/vacs/bleach etc.

 

[bkp22]

I like having the table by the walkway because I can go out, set my stuff down and get in, and then everything is right there.

My wife burns easy and would probably prefer an umbrella but I'm just out there rawdogging the sun the whole time.

 

[Mdragger88]

I have a deck now to sit all my junk lol but always just had random tables with my smaller pools. Can’t believe I never thought to build something like that.
I would fry without an umbrella! I have 4 around my pool now.

 

[bkp22]

Got a new pump in to replace the leaking one. I upgraded from 1500 to 2100. Huge difference! Easily 2x the flow, the laterals inside the filter are a totally different design, double the sand, double the filter housing volume, etc etc.

One question. I couldn't get all the air out and there's a small bubble at the top of this canister. Is that normal:

 

[bkp22]

One more question.

I needed to use the sand from the original filter in the new one to have enough sand (50lbs total needed).

Before I took down the original filter I ran a long backwash and rinse.

When I opened up the filter I noticed a pretty significant layer of gunk caked at the top of the sand. Like a solid inch or two. It was easy to manually separate that top layer out when I transferred the sand, but it made me wonder. If I've been backwashing properly, which I think I have, why is there a layer of gunk in a filter that was just backwashed and rinsed minutes prior? Is that normal? I would have thought the backwashing process would have cleared all that out.

Pressures have all been nominal pre/post backwashing (25% increase and then drop after).

 

[Mdragger88]

For the air bubble- unscrew the grey thing on top of the pump basket lid & let the air out until water comes out then screw it back in. Its should have tabs on the inside of the lid that prevent it from coming all the way out.

For backwashing-
Backwash until the sight glass runs clear(there may be a little sand in there) then rinse until no sand is in there. Sometimes I do two rounds just to be thorough as I only need to backwash every few weeks since that’s how long it takes my psi to rise 25% over clean pressure.

 

[bkp22]

For the air bubble- unscrew the grey thing on top of the pump basket lid & let the air out until water comes out then screw it back in. Its should have tabs on the inside of the lid that prevent it from coming all the way out.

No I know, I'm saying AFTER bleeding it there is still that tiny bit of air.

 

[Mdragger88]

No I know, I'm saying AFTER bleeding it there is still that tiny bit of air.

may have a little suction side leak then
Lube all orings- in the pump lid & all those ones in the hose fittings.
Or it may work its way out on its own since you just opened the system up to get things going again.
Be sure to backwash your new sand as well.