What to do with an old Caretaker 99 in-floor pool cleaning system

[Benno]

Hi. I have an approximate 12,000 gallon in-ground pool in Tampa, Florida. I bought the house from the original owners in 2010, and the pool had a "Caretaker 99" in-floor pool cleaning system installed. It consists of 14 pop-up "jets" in 5 zones, that pop up in sequence and run for a minute or so before going back down and the next zone pops up. The idea is to spread around the debris on the pool floor until it eventually gets sucked into the main drain. However, a couple years ago I had my pool resurfaced with marcite(?) and it added a good quarter inch to half inch layer on top of the original pool surface. The result is that the Caretaker jets have to push down "below" the new surface of the pool in order to recess back into their holes. And for some reason, when initially re-installed after the job, many of them kept popping out and seemed not to fit any more (all jets were obviously removed during the resurfacing, and they "attempted" to put them back afterwards). Anyway, now I'm left with some jets that are stuck in the down position, and some that just kept popping out and would not stay in place, so I simply pulled them out of the pool. Most of them don't work like they used to. It's been a giant pain in the Rear, and I'm not really sure what to do. I have a couple places in the floor of the pool with these holes for the Caretaker jets and it just seems strange and ugly. Should I buy a Caretaker repair kit (I've seen them sold online) and try to re-place all the jets? Or maybe cover them permanently somehow? (But then I think there would be stale water forever in those tubes that would just grow funky green stuff... gross!) I asked the company that did the resurface job to please re-install the jets that popped out, and they did retry -- twice! Anyway, it's been a couple years now so I'm not going to ask them for anything else. My pool service guy seems unconcerned and almost annoyed when I ask him about it. But it's my pool and I want it to look nice and operate smoothly. I hate walking around in it and part of my foot goes into one of these empty jet openings. Has anyone resurfaced a pool that has a Caretaker system and had a similar experience? (somehow I doubt it, but I thought I'd ask anyway). Any ideas or advice? Thanks!

Honestly, it would be nice to be able to either convert the Caretaker system into.. something that actually works, or just disable the darn thing altogether. It's been a pain to maintain, and never really worked "great" in the first place.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I think the heads should have been protected somehow before the refinishing. I'm not sure how you'll get them working years after the refinish?

Some folks just cap off those lines and refinish over them as it never there.

Sorry.... I'm bummed for you. Maybe someone else here will have a different idea?

Maddie

 

[Benno]

Here's what I meant by the pop-up heads (jets).

I'm not sure why some of them kept popping out, other than they just didn't fit that specific hole after many years of being installed in another. (They definitely got jumbled up after the pool got resurfaced and did not get installed into the same holes as previously.)

As far as I know, the hole diameters did not change.

 

[proavia]

When you had the pool replastered, did they not do a full chip out of the old plaster?
The new plaster should have been flush with the popups, not stick above the popups.

Does the pool have separate returns in the pool walls?

 

[Dodger]

Do you know if you have threaded heads or bayonet style heads?

The old Caretaker threaded heads are reverse-threaded, so you have to make sure to screw in ccw to keep them snug.

You may also want to identify if the receptacles are consistently the same (threaded vs bayonet), so that you are not trying to install a threaded head into a bayonet receptacle, or vice-versa. This happened in our pool, where a previous owner or builder "fixed" a slot that probably got damaged during resurfacing. The problem was that they fixed it with a newer-style bayonet receptacle, when all the other slots in the pool are threaded. A threaded head will not stay put in the new bayonet receptacle.

 

[Benno]

When you had the pool replastered, did they not do a full chip out of the old plaster?
The new plaster should have been flush with the popups, not stick above the popups.

Does the pool have separate returns in the pool walls?

I've attached pictures of when they were working on the resurface. The pool does not have separate returns in the walls. It has a single main drain at the bottom of the deep end of the pool.

 

[Benno]

Do you know if you have threaded heads or bayonet style heads?

The old Caretaker threaded heads are reverse-threaded, so you have to make sure to screw in ccw to keep them snug.

You may also want to identify if the receptacles are consistently the same (threaded vs bayonet), so that you are not trying to install a threaded head into a bayonet receptacle, or vice-versa. This happened in our pool, where a previous owner or builder "fixed" a slot that probably got damaged during resurfacing. The problem was that they fixed it with a newer-style bayonet receptacle, when all the other slots in the pool are threaded. A threaded head will not stay put in the new bayonet receptacle.

Thanks for the info about some receptacles being possibly reverse threaded. I'm sure the pool workers had NO idea about this. The top of the jets all have a "Caretaker 99" logo and the pool was built in 2000 I believe. I found the original design schematics in a drawer and it's dated March of 2000. The house was built in 1999. Was this around the time that they would've been using reverse-threaded heads? So maybe they just screwed up the threading direction when re-installing the heads.

 

[Dodger]

Regardless of build date, some of the collar receptacles could have been swapped out during resurfacing. Two things to try:

1. Examine the heads that won't stay in. They either have threads or they don't. Post pics if you like.
Here they are for comparison looks: Polaris Caretaker 99 Replacement Cleaning Heads

2. Under water, reach down inside the receptacles that won't hold a head. There is a smooth collar for about 1 inch, then obvious threads if it's for threaded heads.

Bottom line, you want to make sure you are putting threaded heads into threaded collars, or bayonet heads into bayonet collars.

If you don't already have one, you might want to invest in a head removal tool. The cheaper plastic tool should work if you remember the reverse-threading and don't wrench the plastic the wrong direction.

Once you get the heads to stay in, it may solve your second problem of some heads not popping up. They probably aren't getting enough pressure if they share a zone with a missing pop-up head.

 

[proavia]

Difficult to tell from those pics, but It doesn't look like a full chip out.
Were the popups basically flush with the pool surface before the replaster and now they are indented? If so, there is probably no fix shy of a full chip out and plaster job.
The top surface of the popups needs to be flush with the finished pool bottom when the popups are fully retracted.

As for the popups being bayonet vs threaded. The threaded popups are pre-1992.

Heads that won't pop up may have plaster holding them down, debris in the operating mechanism or are just worn out.