Buying Home with 14 year old gunite pool- need advice on inspection

[webfeet]

Hello, all! I haven't been here in ages. We sold our house and moved to Texas. Just got a contract on another home. The chlorine pool is a free form, about 15 -20k gal, with hot tub. Both the pool and the hot tub are heated. The hot tub flows over into the pool. I think it has a suction side cleaner, that runs on the return jets? The owner swims in it, but replastering would make it look better. What questions should I ask the pool company that comes out to inspect it? What should I look for?

Main concerns that I have are:

leaks
new heater
efficent pool vacumn (would like to add polaris with booster pump)
adding salt system
replastering
expenses related to these items
do I have to heat both the pool and tub? Or can I heat just the hot tub?


Thanks so much for your help.

Webfeet

[kelemvor]

I've got a pool with a spillover hot tub. It's nice looking but you need to keep in mind you'll want to set the plumbing to drain from the hot tub and fill to the hot tub when you heat it up "hot". It would be expensive and probably not all that great feeling to heat the pool to 100 degrees. My heater will burn about 2 gallons of propane an hour if I run it that long and it takes about an hour to get a 1 degree temp rise in my whole pool. On the other hand, I can heat the spa only from under 60 to 100 in about an hour.

If the vacuum is running from a return, it's a pressure side vac. It may be that there is a dedicated vacuum line (mine has one) which other than having a cover over it instead of an "eye" looks the same.

If you go salt, you'll need to consider metals in the pool (such as the heater) as they will eventually corrode and need replacement. I've got a salt pool with a copper heater, eventually the heater will fail from the corrosion as I understand it.

[waste]

Hey Web Long time, no see!

The inspection is to tell you the general state of the pool you are inheriting, your list covers most of what they should be checking.

Unless you have a dedicated cleaner line that you can add the booster pump to, it'd be a good bit of work to install the Polaris, have them check out the one that's there and see what they think.

The salt system ought not be a problem, as long as you have a long enough stretch (~2') of return line at the equipment pad (after the heater) to accommodate it.

As for the heating of the pool v.s. spa, there should be valves so you can isolate the suction and returns to only be open in the spa. This allows you to only use the heater when you want to use the spa and you won't be spilling the heated water into the pool.


Don't be such a stranger Let us know how the inspection goes and what's going on with your new home and pool.

[Watermom]

Welcome back! Nice to see you here!

[webfeet]

Thanks for the info! I want go salt, that is what I had before. But I didn't have a heater or a spa. So I will have to give a lot of consideration to my decision. I wonder what the average life of a heater is? Hmm... Any way, thanks for your input!

[webfeet]

Hi Ted!,
Long time no talk! lol Thanks again for all the help you have been in the past. I will try not to be a stranger! The only experience I have is with inground salt water vinyl pool. This forum was invaluable to me when I was building and learning to take care of it. I love the salt water pools! But, I may not want to change this one over to salt, if it will damage my heater.
Anyway, I will let you know how the inspections go. If all goes well, we will move in the end of September. Just in time to close for the year. ):

Thanks watermom! I am glad to be back. Hope you have been well.

[Watermom]

Thanks, Webfeet. So far, so good!

[webfeet]

The pool is in good shape for its age. The pool inspector (builder) says the ceramic tile and coping around the edges will clean up nice with acid wash. We couldn't test the heater, since there was no propane in the tank. The spa worked, but became very frothy bubbly in about 2 minutes, like soap bubbles. That was kind of creepy. The owner has been using chlorine tabs from Walmart. Thanks for your input. By the time we get in the house, it will be time to close the pool.

[Jimmy C]

Before switching to a salt system there needs to be a checklist of prerequisites that must be present before switching. I will try to name a few:


* The pump, SWG controller, pool re -bar all need to be bonded per todays NEC. Even then problems occur which having salt makes matters more extreme since salt greatly increases the conductivity of the water. See thread:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ctrical-Shock&
* Filter must not be stainless steel; needs to be non-metal
* Any metal in the filtration system is suspect.
* Pool heater will fail quickly unless it has a Cupro-Nickel plated heat exchanger. Even then heater warranty may limit TDS to 2000 ppm upper limit. They do this cleverly sometimes without mentioning salt.
* The pump impeller, and shaft seal may need to be changed.
* The pump if two speed, or variable speed may not have enough flow at low speed to satisfy the SWG flow switch. Also at low speed hydrogen will build up in the return lines until the flow switch state changes. This turns off the SWG. Ask me how I know this. :-)
* Any metal patio furniture near pool will rust quickly
* Stonework around pool needs to be non porous
* If pool is in an area with low average rainfall, The landscape around the pool will get steadily more salt concentrated from swimmer splashout. This may kill valuable trees, bushes, and grass.
* If pool is in an area with extremely large rain storms, the pool will overflow. This will dilute the water, and possibly trip the salt PPM lower limit (often 2500 ppm). This turns off the SWG. So if you are away, and a big rain follows, when you need chlorine the most, the SWG shuts itself off from low salt. Ask me how I know this. :-)
* If you need to backflush the filter, where to you discharge that salty water? Sewer- Illegal in some areas. Lawn - might kill grass and trees. Street - might be illegal, and will leave white residue if filter has DE media.
* If your municipal fill water has high alkalinity (TA), then controlling the water PH will be a constant battle. One alternative might be to tap into the house water softener to use as pool fill water. Otherwise a salt system might not be the best choice.

My suggestion is to buy the house, and next spring follow BBB and buy Wallmart bleach. Do so for at least the first season until you work through the pool issues that you are yet to discover. Said another way, wait till spring 2013 before joining the salt club, or just be happy pouring liquid chlorine.

Jim

[webfeet]

Thanks Jimmy, you sure gave me some things to think about. We had a salt water pool built several years ago and we loved it! I will show my husband your post, as he is the one that will install and maintain the equipment. I will keep my eye on the ph.