Ok so we have a little group of pool enthusiasts, I am sure it will grow in number as the weather warms up.
Does anyone have any questions on their pool or pools in general?
I would like to feature members pools as the picture for the SFN group maybe changinging them every few weeks, maybe admin could make it a slide show once we have enough members?
I know they are somewhere in the skimmer pipes but would rather not have to dig up all the paving stones to find the exact spot.
Hi Hugh,
still not certain where the leak(s) are then?
My pool is losing water in excess of what might be expected from evaporation and bodies jumping into the pool. I have narrowed the loss down to one of the skimmers and the vacuum whole. Does anyone know whether it is possible to use a mini camera (similar to the ones used for finding drain blockages) to determine where the leak in the pipe is rather than digging up all the paving stones round the pool. Or perhaps there is another approach.
Thank you.
Chris, you are already beginning to think 1950's regarding the water circulation. Bonde de fonds do not work, They take clean water from above the floor level and recirculate it at expense through the pump and back to the pool. The dirt stays put on the floor of the pool unless you push it in with a broom. You haven't got one so that's a blessing. They have also been proven to be dangerous from an entrapment point of view. The Virginia Graeme Baker case in the USA caused an entire re think of the situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Graeme_Baker_Pool_and_Spa_Saf...
3 pumps, ok one is the booster for the polaris, so you have the two pumps for circulation and filtering, what a collosal waste of your money on electricity. 1950's thinking, it's about horsepower, 2013 thinking it's about flow I have pools running in France with proper flow rates on 67watts (8m x 4m x 1.5m) and 114watts (12m x 6m x 2.5m) compared to your current setup which at a guess is a minimum of 1500 watts so producing a real saving of over €4200 (not including rises in electricity prices) over a 10 year period but more than that it produces far superior water quality and less maintenance.
Bag filters are not supposed to be used with flocculent, the slight caveat would be the jolly gel version as that doesn't glue up the bag fibres in the same way. Yes the bags appear to work as they are now catching finer particles but the fibres will be getting clogged up and that will reduce your already poor flow which in turn makes it a longer process to get the pool clear.
You have a very efficient salt cell producing chlorine at this very moment but you have a green pool? Partly this will be down to the flow around the pool but thankfully the Polaris can be put in the pool to stir up and circulate the chlorine around. No the chlorine levels in a salt pools are the same as directly dosed chlorine pools. The cell may produce a slightly stronger chlorine than the eau de javel you would dose but to keep your pool looking great the residual level in the pool would be the same. Only the water passing through the cell gets the little extra boost and in order to do that to almost all the water you need to turn over the water 5 times. That is from the Gage & Bidwell law of dilution, the water turnover is a dilution principle where incoming water from the filtration system mixes with the pool water and states that the amount of 42% for 1 turnover, 84% for 2 turnovers, 95% for 3 turnovers, 98% for 4 turnovers and 99% for 5 turnovers. This naturally means forgetting the temperature x no of hours and is all to do with flow rate.
As Roger asked, is your pool strictly for your own use or will it be shared or used by paying guests? This is important as salt chlorination is not allowed on anything but domestic non rented pools. Surprisingly, although this is well known the big 3 pool Co's in france pretty well ignore this and are still building pools that way. Hopefully one day they will all be forced into court and made to pay for their sins.
Meanwhile we need to deal with your green pool which I would recommend you run at a slightly higher chlorine level to offset the poor water circulation. Bearing in mind we are only talking in parts per million this is only a tiny increase but will save you some angst.
Hi again, Cl content humm now I'm stepping on hallowed turf. It all depends on what your pool is used for, as I said earlier if you have your pool open to the public, you have a gite or a Chambre d’hôte business, then you will need to have a fairly high concentration of Cl due to some laws that apply to public baths and you should study this document to comply.
My Supplier left me a handy booklet for private, family use which being an abnormal sort of bloke I actually read :-) In it for starting the pool they suggest that you run your Électrolyser for 24hrs at 100% (similar to a shock treatment in traditional javel pools) if at the end of that time the Cl reading is less than 0.6 ppm then you need to run for a further 24hrs, should the reading now be between 0.6 and 1.6 ppm then the normal automatic cycle can commence and you should be able to hold a 'taux de désinfectant' at that level, checking daily and adjusting the % setting on your control panel and the time run to keep this figure. On sunny days, without using Cyanuric acid in the pool it will be nearly impossible to maintain 1.0 ppm in the afternoon, this is why I run overnight so that first thing in the morning or as soon as I take the cover off, I have a freshly sterilised pool.
Have to assume by now that you have managed to bring your Ph up to scratch?
That makes sense Roger: my pumps [3] are powerful enough, the cotton or wool filters do appear to work with flocculant, and we have a very efficient electrlytic cell which is producing chlorine at this very moment! Am I corrcet in beliebving that the cl levels in salt system pool are much lower than with a chemicval system?
Yes well, you probably have a 1.5hp pump ATM and that would be more than powerful to operate your Balai and your robot, certainly it will provide more that enough flow to keep your pool clean. A smaller say 0.75hp pump would be adequate (and less costly to run) solely for filtration and some companies will offer a second pump in parallel with your big boy for day to day use.
I think it was me that said that bag filters were useless with Flocculant, I was thinking at that time of the bag which is often attached to a robot, there are fibre filters which might work with Flocculant, and maybe that is the case with yours as I see it now, its just a case of how fine the filtration is.
The Steriliser is the piece of kit that contains the electrolytic cell that turns salt into chlorine
I see that the difference is mainly the positioning of the inlets and outlets. By having a bonde de fond and the refoulement at the opposite end of the pool to the skimmer, you'd obviously get better circulation. I can't do much about the bottom, although having a robot running about may help [?] , but if I run a pipe round to the far end, will the pump be sufficiently powerful for the extra ten [well actually about 12] metres?
Another question: someone said flocculant tablets are useless with bag filters. Why?
Finally: what is a steriliser?
Hi Chris, the filtre unit very similar to the Desy by the description, Desy didn't invent it they just bought the rights to re badge it the same as others like Magiline do. A lot come out of factories in the old eastern block like Filtrinov http://www.filtrinov.com/ Not the same obviously but you get the idea and you understand about the water circulation as it seems you have already remodelled it. Not knowing your pump but taking a guess at a Desy pool if you had to buy one of those you'd know what I mean.
A quick google brought up several suppliers of your heat pump although you may well be right about trading, heat pump sales are high so i would be surprised if any were closing. https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=filtrinov&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGHP_en-GBGB417GB419&q=pompe+a+chaleur+cristaline&gs_l=hp..3.41l70.0.0.0.512047...........0.Lvga-9OyQAA
Roger has already shown a variation to your setup, not sure if that's the route you were looking at but long term it would provide a much better system however even that diagram is based on pools contructed in the 50's and time has moved on for some of us. I see no point in turning the clock back when I already have pools running in france on far superior setup using 1/10th of the electrical energy yet producing far superior water quality.
Back to your pool, Maybe you could post a picture of your equipment pad as it sounds like you are using the bag filters and the pump(s) are remote in a cupboard. You are going to need an accurate tester for chemicals if you want to look after your pool properly
Have a look at these two sites and spot the difference! unfortunately your pool set up is almost guaranteed to fail, as you have already moved the pump to another location, it may well be worth installing a sand filter there too downstream from the pump and place your steriliser down stream from the filter and although it will mean digging a trench for 10+meters installing the outlets from the pump at the other end of your pool thus improving the circulation. Any competent Pisciniste should be able to supply both the Filter and install the outlets without tremendous expense,
Thank you John [and Roger] for much information, much of it very useful, some confusing. The pool was supplied, built and installed for our previous owners by PPL in Gaillac and has the name "Escalfilkid"; no indication that it has any connection with Desjoyaux. The bag filters do indeed suck the water through. There is no sand filter; is there any way of installing one in line with the pump pipes? I have chlor-shocked and anti-algued 3 days ago, then added 3 litres of PH- and two bags of salt, one of which contains stabiliser, the other pure salt. Ph is now at 7.3 and the electrolytic thingy is producing chlorine at a good rate, but the overall Cl level remains low. Never thought of using Javel - how simple! I'll get some tomorrow, too tired to go out again today! I daren't use more chlor-choc after your comments above.
I agree about the water circulation: the filters and outflow are all at the step end of the pool; although you can get extra flow through the Polaris pipe by detaching the robot, leaving the pipe at the bottom of the pool and running the robot pump. I doubt we lack pump power and they don't seem too expensive to replace [we lost two in a flood a couple of years ago, before we moved the pump machinery from the below-ground poolside container into a separate shed a couple of metres away].
Never a dull moment, eh? Further question: the plastic heat excahnge cylinder on our pool heater [air-eau pompe a chaleur] has split and repair with glue and inox bands was in vain. Can you get replacement parts? The manufacturer, Cristaline, has ceased trading but I suspect the "innards" are fairly standard.
Aha Chris, most likely you have a Desjoyaux pool, quite common in France as one of the big three constructors, infamous for the bag filter and a few other bad ideas. No matter what I write on here though Desy pool owners will come to your rescue and make me sound like the villain!
You really have your figures round the wrong way, you need high chlorine and low pH well at least for killing the algae off. Your chlorinator unit will be on the small size for your pool, sufficient to keep it running when all is ok but not very helpful when things go wrong. It does produce chlorine but slowly and you need to have lots of chlorine available quickly to kill the algae. Chlorine get used up quickly killing algae so you need frequent top ups to maintain the choc level. Choc'ng is proccess not a product. So I suggest you take a trip to your local Brico and buy a couple of 20lt biddons of eau de javel 9.6% active for around €15.
Lower your pH closer to 7 as chlorine is a more potent killer at the low pH than higher. Add 7.5 litres of the javel (they are date stamped so buy the freshest) which should take your free chlorine figure to around 10ppm, keep the pump running 24 continually to keep the water turning over and brush the side and bottom of the pool frequently, choc'ng is not a spectator sport!
Now the biggest ingredient you'll need is at least 10kg of patience. Dessy pools have really poor water flow and filtration as you have already noticed so what could take 24 hours in a good flow proper filter pool could take you 4-5 days to achieve. You will need as you are no doubt aware to keep cleaning the filter bags ( I hope you have spares).
Can you get your water tested for the other parameters I mentioned as they all play a part in the overall balance of your water and the cyanuric acid level in managability. Try to avoid dip strips for testing as they are not wonderful and on cyanuric acid (CYA) they are hopeless. Not sure where abouts you are but maybe someone near you has a good tester? This is important as packaged product like choc and multi action galets contain CYA so it can get buit up in the pool over time as it's not removed except by dilution and partial refilling.
As Roger has said, long term you may want to think about improving your system with a different filtration and flow system. Why is the Dessy so bad? well they work other wise they wouldn't have convinced so many people to buy them but only just, when things go wrong they are far more trouble to correct. Dessy hope you'll call on them to do that €€€. The biggest issue is the hydraulics, the same with Magiline pools et al. They put the filter bags in front of the pump and not behind. Pumps are not good at sucking, much better at blowing. Try sucking out the candles on a cake compared to blowing and you'll get the idea. That means using a bigger pump than normal to overcome that problem and the pump is both expensive to replace and power hungry oh and it's also made so only their pump fits €€€.
Have you checked your pump room to see if you have a sand filter? With a bag filter any addition of floculant is totally useless,
I'll support our pool experts on this one, You really do need a proper sand filter if you are serious about having a pool, the bag type filters are only useful for removing leaves etc and will not clean out the fine particles. Cartridge filter kits are available and will filter down to the size required BUT the cost of replacement cartridges is prohibitive whereas the sand (or glass or Diamites) can be recycled over and over. You do need to bring your Ph to between 7.2 and 7.6, if you are not sure whether that is Ph + or - nae problem, if you get it wrong you can just add twice as much of the other stuff :-) OK that was a joke! adding the salt will have very little effect on the Ph, just add enough to bring the level up overnight and recheck and adjust the Ph down (there's a clue!) in the morning after the salt has had a chance to dissolve.
Stabiliser is 'Acide Cyranurique' Basic trade name will be 'Stabilisant' which should be between 25 and 50mg/l (or ppm) add only sparingly because if you exceed 75mg/l you will need to dump a lot of water to reduce the concentration check before adding any because many pastilles and shock tablets contain stabilisant and so there may already be an appreciable concentration. Too much 'stabilisant' is often the cause of poorly operating pools because too high a concentration will block the action of the Chlorine while giving great readings for Chlore!
Thank you Roger, your comments are most helpful; firstly, the levels of salt you suggest are higher than I have been putting in. Perhaps I should also cover the pool whenever we are not using it, not just open it in the morning and close at night or when we go out. You mention "stabiliser" - what is this? Can you give me some French generic or brand names?
Hello John,
I have analysed the levels and chlorine is very low and PH very high. I guess I should add another sack of salt; do I also put in some Ph- ? The other problem we have is that with cloth bag filters and a Polaris, it is very difficult to get the dead algae out of the pool, so that the suspension of particles makes the pool look green even if we have killed off the algae.
Just seen your other post on 'car insurance' Do I take it that you have not been able to maintain your pool regularly due to frequent absences? And that every time you return to your new home/pool you have had a problem with green gunge?
Welcome Chris,
Have you had a chance to read my post on opening up for the season, it will give you an overview of what the chemicals do.
http://www.survivefrance.com/group/swimming-pools
Now in order to give correct advice we need to know what the water figures are for your pool. Essentialy it's about having sufficient chlorine in the pool to keep it clear of algae and bacteria. What type of filter does it have? The important thing to know is that choc'ing a pool is a process and not the addition of products called choc which are in reality no different to ordinary galets, they just disolve quicker.
Please come back with more information when you have it.
Hi Chris.
Like you I have a Saline pool, using an electrolyser, unlike you I have limpid water , so what is the problem with yours? I run the pump and electrolyser for 13 hours a day ATM because the water temperature averages 26°C (Hrs=1/2temp in °C) I've split this to 8 hours overnight and the rest in the Afternoon when the pool is in use. The Electrolyser is set to 70%.
I also have a safety cover which keeps the dreaded UV out of the water and stops odd animals/kids etc drowning It also helps to stop green algae which need lots of light to multiply, it also needs food and so anti social habits ( dog swimming and dirty bodies entering my pool) are banned!
Please make sure that the Ph (acidity) is within normal bounds ie 7.2/7.6 and that you have sufficient salt in the pool to allow your generator to work 3-6Kg/M3, You should also check to make sure the hardness of the water is as low as practicable, your last water bill will give you the duretee out of the tap, judicious use of 'Anti-Calcaire' will help to stabilise your pool. Your pool Chlorine level should also be measured, in my case, (not operating a public bath) I do not become worried unless the Cl falls below 0.6ppm but if you have heavy usage ie a gite complex or similar then a reading round 2.0ppm should be maintained and in that case a dose of stabiliser should be added to your outdoor pool.
As a quick check pop down to your favourite supplier and buy a set of test tablets or strips unless you already have a test kit.You might be lucky as I am in being able to have a full analysis by popping a litre or so of pool water into my local Pisciniste for a free check.
We have a 5x10 metre pool operating on the saline electrolysis system but despite using clor-choc, anti-algues and flocculant as well as filtering and Polaris-ing frequently, the pool has a tendency to go green and needs fierce intervention to get it back to normal. Any helpful hints, please?