Zero Edge Plumbing Question

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luckyc1423

0
Apr 8, 2017
165
houston texas
Since I built my own pool, naturally i enjoy sharing my lessons learned with friends. I have a friend building a nice zero edge pool with a pool builder that has a solid reputation. (zero edge is where the water and the pool coping is at the same height/level. there is a small gap before reaching the coping that allows the water to drop into a catch basin)

On the last 3hp pump that is for the zero edge, my questions is, and its killing me that i cant figure it out, why does their pool builder have a suction line coming from the pool and from the catch basin.

wouldnt you only want to suction from the catch basin? As, in my mind, the whole point is to suck water from the basin and into the pool to creating the mirror look of the water dissapearing. if your sucking from the pool and just re-injecting into the pool (alongside sucking from catch basin) doesnt that defeat the purpose?


1625889316591.png
 
I’m also building a negative edge with a pool builder. The skimmers are in the main pool, not the catch basin. You actually have to do a pretty good job of balancing the water returns between the main pool and the catch basin, with slightly more going to the catch basin. You could never turn over the water enough, if you strictly dumped everything into the catch basin. My PB has also installed two cartridge filter systems, one for the pool and a second smaller unit for the catch basin. Here is my equipment pad;
D7E37EED-76FD-4BB2-8CC0-C768A6329300.jpeg
 
BigPapaSmurf said:
I’m also building a negative edge with a pool builder. The skimmers are in the main pool, not the catch basin. You actually have to do a pretty good job of balancing the water returns between the main pool and the catch basin, with slightly more going to the catch basin. You could never turn over the water enough, if you strictly dumped everything into the catch basin. My PB has also installed two cartridge filter systems, one for the pool and a second smaller unit for the catch basin. Here is my equipment pad;
View attachment 353643
Click to expand...
5 pumps? Wow that pool has got to cost a fortune to run! Do you have more pics?
 
BigPapaSmurf said:
I’m also building a negative edge with a pool builder. The skimmers are in the main pool, not the catch basin. You actually have to do a pretty good job of balancing the water returns between the main pool and the catch basin, with slightly more going to the catch basin. You could never turn over the water enough, if you strictly dumped everything into the catch basin. My PB has also installed two cartridge filter systems, one for the pool and a second smaller unit for the catch basin. Here is my equipment pad;
View attachment 353643
Click to expand...
Bigpappasmurf - i checked out your pool build thread it looks amazing!! it looks like you have a infiniti edge though which i agree the skimmers should be in the main part of the pool. in my friends design his is a zero edge which is different than inifiniti edge. (similar principles).

I do have some questions for you though as i just love learning this stuff and how everyone does things differently.

1) Why treat the basin as its own body of water and have a seperate filter, what was the benefit there according to your pool builder? As in theory, if you only suck from the catch basin and offload into the pool adn the catch basin/overflow has its own pump, you can just run the catch basin pump 2-3 times a day to turn the water in the catch basin over a couple times to make sure the water stays filtered and clear. basically you remove the catch basin water and put it in the pool, then put the clean pool water in the catch basin a couple times a day, thus the catch basin is always clean. Doing it this way reduces the need for the second filter and maintenance that goes with it. But really curious to hear why your builder went a different route so i can learn.

2) You mentioned having to balance the returns in the catch basin and the pool, i totally get what your saying if you treat the catch basin as a seperate body of water (seperate filter). that balance will be crutial to ensure enough water goes to the pool for the overflow, and enough goes to the catch basin to clean the catch basin. but doesnt that add complexity to the system when not needed? (just learning) as if you did what i mentioned in item number 1 above, you have no returns in the catch basin and everythign goes to the pool. thus no need for balancing.

3) The comment on dumping into the catch basin and if you dumped everythign into the pool and over into the catch basin (no returns to the catch basin) you could never turn over the water enough (i assume in the catch basin your referring to) to make it clean? just curious, why not? as i would think its just a formula on water formula, basin size, and pump HP to get it done.

4) The one concern i might have about yoru setup, and curious what your pool builders answer is, is if you have suction from the catch basin, and the return from that suction going both to the pool and to the catch basin with more flow going to the catch basin, what happens when 10 people jump in the pool and you have water surge going over the overflow wall into the catch basin? since yoru also returnign suctioned water back into the catch basin wont it overflow?
 
PoolGate said:
Where is the other suction line? Is it a bottom drain?
Click to expand...
are you referring to the basin suction? its in the bottom of the basin where they are suctioning from.

Do you think they are just pulling from the pool as well if they didnt build the basin big enough to handle all the suction? to prevent the pump from making noises and burning up because if it suctioned air (not enough water in basin maybe)
 
luckyc1423 said:
are you referring to the basin suction? its in the bottom of the basin where they are suctioning from.

Do you think they are just pulling from the pool as well if they didnt build the basin big enough to handle all the suction? to prevent the pump from making noises and burning up because if it suctioned air (not enough water in basin maybe)
Click to expand...
Well, the basin can never be empty, so it has an auto fill, but my understanding is that you want to skim from the mail pool, not the basin. Additionally we want to have the vanishing edge “Feature” while we are using the spa.
 
I am totally unfamiliar with how a pool like this would/should be plumbed. Does all the water overflow into the basin/vanishing edge and is collected from the basin to recirculate? Do you have to run the vanishing edge all the time then? Or do you have traditional skimmers with a drain in the main area of the pool?
 
luckyc1423 said:
Bigpappasmurf - i checked out your pool build thread it looks amazing!! it looks like you have a infiniti edge though which i agree the skimmers should be in the main part of the pool. in my friends design his is a zero edge which is different than inifiniti edge. (similar principles).

I do have some questions for you though as i just love learning this stuff and how everyone does things differently.

1) Why treat the basin as its own body of water and have a seperate filter, what was the benefit there according to your pool builder? As in theory, if you only suck from the catch basin and offload into the pool adn the catch basin/overflow has its own pump, you can just run the catch basin pump 2-3 times a day to turn the water in the catch basin over a couple times to make sure the water stays filtered and clear. basically you remove the catch basin water and put it in the pool, then put the clean pool water in the catch basin a couple times a day, thus the catch basin is always clean. Doing it this way reduces the need for the second filter and maintenance that goes with it. But really curious to hear why your builder went a different route so i can learn.

2) You mentioned having to balance the returns in the catch basin and the pool, i totally get what your saying if you treat the catch basin as a seperate body of water (seperate filter). that balance will be crutial to ensure enough water goes to the pool for the overflow, and enough goes to the catch basin to clean the catch basin. but doesnt that add complexity to the system when not needed? (just learning) as if you did what i mentioned in item number 1 above, you have no returns in the catch basin and everythign goes to the pool. thus no need for balancing.

3) The comment on dumping into the catch basin and if you dumped everythign into the pool and over into the catch basin (no returns to the catch basin) you could never turn over the water enough (i assume in the catch basin your referring to) to make it clean? just curious, why not? as i would think its just a formula on water formula, basin size, and pump HP to get it done.

4) The one concern i might have about yoru setup, and curious what your pool builders answer is, is if you have suction from the catch basin, and the return from that suction going both to the pool and to the catch basin with more flow going to the catch basin, what happens when 10 people jump in the pool and you have water surge going over the overflow wall into the catch basin? since yoru also returnign suctioned water back into the catch basin wont it overflow?
Click to expand...
1) We want to run the vanishing edge feature while we are in spa mode. We also want the ability to run the all the water features, while in spa mode. To accomplish this, we need to treat the basin like a separate body of water.

2) YES. The complexity of what features, we want to run, at the same time is very challenging for the pool builder, plumber, and engineer. We believe the results will be amazing.

3) It all falls back to the ability to run the vanishing edge and the spa at the same time.

4) The auto leveler/ auto fill should manage that. But it is just my wife and me, and occasionally some neighbor. We don’t throw big parties, so this may never happen. We had a lot of discussion of what the plans were for this pool and a lot of the engineering/design was based on that. Time will tell if we get everything right, but one of the reasons we went with this PB is their experience with vanishing edge pools.
 

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PoolGate said:
I am totally unfamiliar with how a pool like this would/should be plumbed. Does all the water overflow into the basin/vanishing edge and is collected from the basin to recirculate? Do you have to run the vanishing edge all the time then? Or do you have traditional skimmers with a drain in the main area of the pool?
Click to expand...
Actually, both. We are planning on running the pool 24/7 although with the VS pumps the speed will be way down at night. We did this with our last pool and love the results and VS pumps actually aren’t that much higher in cost running all the time. The collection happens at both the skimmer, main pool, and the catch basin, but all returns go to main pool, if that makes sense.
 
BigPapaSmurf said:
Actually, both. We are planning on running the pool 24/7 although with the VS pumps the speed will be way down at night. We did this with our last pool and love the results and VS pumps actually aren’t that much higher in cost running all the time. The collection happens at both the skimmer, main pool, and the catch basin, but all returns go to main pool, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

Can you turn the basin overflow off? As I am sure someone else pointed out, you are going to have very high pH if the basin runs all the time.
 
BigPapaSmurf said:
1) We want to run the vanishing edge feature while we are in spa mode. We also want the ability to run the all the water features, while in spa mode. To accomplish this, we need to treat the basin like a separate body of water.

2) YES. The complexity of what features, we want to run, at the same time is very challenging for the pool builder, plumber, and engineer. We believe the results will be amazing.

3) It all falls back to the ability to run the vanishing edge and the spa at the same time.

4) The auto leveler/ auto fill should manage that. But it is just my wife and me, and occasionally some neighbor. We don’t throw big parties, so this may never happen. We had a lot of discussion of what the plans were for this pool and a lot of the engineering/design was based on that. Time will tell if we get everything right, but one of the reasons we went with this PB is their experience with vanishing edge pools.
Click to expand...

I am learning a ton, and its clear you did you research so excellent work!!

Additional question on item 1:

1) how does treating the basin as a seperate body of water affect your ability to run the vanishing edge while in spa mode? My idea would be to suction from the basin, and return to the pool with its own return (not tied to the actual pool return). the only thing controlling that is a pump. in the design i have in my head you wouldnt be chlorinating or filtering this pump. yoru simply suctioning from the basin, returning to the pool. since the pool water is already filtered and chlorinated, the water that overflows to the basin is also already clean thus no need to clean it a second time. in yoru design your actually cleaning it twice.
In the design in my head, couldnt you turn the pool to spa mode, and turn the spillover pump on at the same time? obviously the pool is no longer getting cleaned thus the spillover is no longer getting cleaned while in spa mode, but your not in spa mode all the time and the pool water will not get dirty.

Am i missing something? thank you for educating me...
 
luckyc1423 said:
I am learning a ton, and its clear you did you research so excellent work!!

Additional question on item 1:

1) how does treating the basin as a seperate body of water affect your ability to run the vanishing edge while in spa mode? My idea would be to suction from the basin, and return to the pool with its own return (not tied to the actual pool return). the only thing controlling that is a pump. in the design i have in my head you wouldnt be chlorinating or filtering this pump. yoru simply suctioning from the basin, returning to the pool. since the pool water is already filtered and chlorinated, the water that overflows to the basin is also already clean thus no need to clean it a second time. in yoru design your actually cleaning it twice.
In the design in my head, couldnt you turn the pool to spa mode, and turn the spillover pump on at the same time? obviously the pool is no longer getting cleaned thus the spillover is no longer getting cleaned while in spa mode, but your not in spa mode all the time and the pool water will not get dirty.

Am i missing something? thank you for educating me...
Click to expand...
The fact that the basin does not have a skimmer is why we are running the second filter, so yes we are filtering the water twice, in normal mode, but in spa mode we are only filtering/heating the spa, so the secondary filter is just additional protection since the main pool/skimmers are off but the circulation, via the basin is still functioning and pushing water into the main pool. We could have done this through some valves, but that just complicates things more. I could be wrong, but I like this set-up for everything we want to do. The other big factor was the heater and what we had to consider when heating the spa vs the pool.
 
BigPapaSmurf said:
The fact that the basin does not have a skimmer is why we are running the second filter, so yes we are filtering the water twice, in normal mode, but in spa mode we are only filtering/heating the spa, so the secondary filter is just additional protection since the main pool/skimmers are off but the circulation, via the basin is still functioning and pushing water into the main pool. We could have done this through some valves, but that just complicates things more. I could be wrong, but I like this set-up for everything we want to do. The other big factor was the heater and what we had to consider when heating the spa vs the pool.
Click to expand...

If you don't run the basin, does it stay full of water?
 
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