December 4, 2025 • 18 mins
Ever opened a pump lid and watched the pool start emptying onto the pad? We’ve been there, and today we map out the simple field habits that stop the flood, speed up service, and keep clients happy. From spotting below-waterline equipment to shutting down both sides of the system, we share practical, low-cost tricks that save a service day—think tennis balls in skimmers, expanding chamois in return stubs, and a checklist that prevents air leaks and lost prime.
We also dig into cleaner selection with real-world guidance that cuts through confusion. On plaster and pebble, geared suction units like the Hayward PoolCleaner or Polaris Atlas/Max deliver reliable coverage, with wide-body options gliding over tall anti-vortex main drains. On vinyl and fiberglass, bouncing diaphragm cleaners shine, climbing walls and handling slopes where geared units often stall. If pressure is your plan, know the plumbing: most Polaris pressure models require a dedicated booster pump; the Polaris 360 is the rare return-side exception that runs without one when returns are set up correctly.
To round it out, we clarify the heat pump vs gas heater puzzle. A heat pump needs a dedicated 220–230V electrical circuit and real amperage headroom; a gas heater needs a properly sized gas line and, often, an upgraded meter from the utility. Retrofitting either after a build adds cost and complexity, so we lay out what to check before promising a swap. The goal: fewer surprises at the pad, better system performance, and faster visits that impress clients.
• Identifying equipment set below the waterline
• Shutting both suction and return before opening lids
• Using tennis balls and chamois rags to stop flow
• Managing dual skimmers for vacuuming and cleaners
• Choosing cleaners for plaster, pebble, vinyl and fiberglass
• Navigating anti-vortex main drains with wide-body units
• Understanding pressure cleaners and booster pumps
• Differentiating heat pumps and gas heaters requirements
• Estimating real costs for electrical and gas line runs
• Verifyin
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going to goover some things that you should
know, you may not know, andthese are things that are common
mistakes you make with pools outon your route, and these are
things that can be avoided withjust a little bit of knowledge,
which I'm going to share withyou here to help you out.
(01:25):
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
the next level?
Join the pool guy coachingprogram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support.
From me, I'm a 35-year veteranin the industry.
Whether you're starting out orscaling up, I've got the tools
to help you succeed.
Learn more atswimmingpoollearning.com.
You kind of get where I'm goingwith this first example.
(01:48):
So this first one is somethingthat of course you should know
this, and someone should havetold you this, and this is
something you should learn intraining.
But if you're someone who juststarted doing pool service on
your own and never worked foranyone, you may not have been
told about pool equipment belowsea level.
And what this means is that thepool equipment is situated
(02:10):
somewhere in the backyard orsomewhere near the pool where
the equipment itself is belowthe pool water line.
And this is where the term belowsea level comes from.
It may be very obvious, you mayhave a pool that's up, you know,
in an area, and then you have towalk down some stairs to get to
the equipment.
Right there is a dead giveawaythat that equipment is below the
(02:34):
pool's water level.
Now, why is this critical?
Well, there's something calledgravity, and there's something
about how water works that youshould know, and water will go
to the area of least resistance.
So, what happens when you have apool with equipment below the
(02:56):
pool water level?
I'm gonna just say below sealevel here to make it simple.
Well, if you go to let's sayclean the pump basket out, you
turn the equipment off, you'lltake the pump basket lid off,
and then all of a sudden you'regonna see water just flowing out
of the pump like crazy.
You'll try to get that lid backon, and you're you're you try in
(03:17):
vain, especially if it's like awhisper flow and you're trying
to like put that lid on, thewater is just pushing up over
it, and the pool is drainingdown, water is just flooding
everywhere.
How do I know this?
Well, this has happened to a lotof people out there, in some
respect to me, and on a minorscale, but on a major scale,
this happened to a lot of peoplewhere they do this without
(03:38):
realizing what's gonna happen,and sometimes you can save
yourself very quickly if there'svalves by the equipment.
Now, these valves are usuallyjandy valves or ball valves, and
you have to turn off both thesuction and the return lines for
it to be effective.
You can't just turn off thesuction side and think that the
(04:00):
water is going to stop flowingbecause the water is actually
coming into the return side aswell, out the pump.
So turn off both the suction andreturn line together.
Now, if you're unfortunate andthere's no valves by the
equipment, there are some olderbuilds like this.
I don't know why they do this,but I I've had a few of these
where there are no valves thatwill control the flow of water,
(04:21):
or you maybe there were ballvalves at one time, but they're
all broken off, and all you haveis like the little stub sticking
out, the red handle's gone, thatthere's no way to turn that
valve.
You can do this by getting atennis ball and putting it in
the skimmer line, and that slowsdown the flow sometimes just
enough to get that pump lid backon.
The same thing will happen ifyou're cleaning the filter, you
(04:43):
take the lid off, and then thewater starts flooding out
everywhere, and you can't getthe water to stop because again,
it's below the water level.
The water is just gonna flow outlike there was a leak, like a
submarine has a hole in it orsomething, and it's just one of
those situations where if youjust had a little bit of
knowledge, you would haveavoided that.
One example of this is I hadsomeone in my group servicing an
(05:06):
above-ground pool or doing a bidon it, and he's totally brand
new, and he's like over there,and he sees that the pump basket
is full of leaves and debris,and he's like, Oh, here's the
problem.
I mean, the person whoever wasin your pool prior wasn't didn't
ever clean this thing out.
So he takes that pump lid off,and water just starts draining
out like crazy from theabove-ground pool.
Because of course, above groundpool is three feet above the
(05:29):
pump, and he he texted me or hecalled me actually.
He's like, Hey, this ishappening right now, you know,
what do I do?
There's no valves or anything.
I said, Well, do you have at-shirt or a rag?
He's like, Yeah, I have at-shirt in my truck.
I said, stick that in theskimmer line really quick.
And he did that, he was able toget the lid back on.
But these things happen if youdon't know about it, and it
(05:49):
could be just a very slightgrade in the backyard, making
that equipment below sea level.
So don't assume that if it's atthe same level that you think of
the pool, that it's not belowsea level, it could just be a
slight grade of two inches, andthat's enough to cause the water
to start flooding out of theequipment when you open it.
So it's a pretty harrowingsituation when that happens, of
(06:11):
course.
So there are ways you can do tostop the water.
And what I carry also are these,I don't know if you've seen
them, but if you have like acar, uh if you probably have a
car or truck, of course, and ifyou wash it, there are these
rags that you kind of wring outand they're made of this like
almost like cowhide material.
I suggest carrying a few ofthese in your truck as well,
(06:32):
because there's been situationswhere I've done some repairs,
and this happened to me a coupleyears ago.
I was doing a repair, I cut outthe filter, and the water
started coming out of the line,and I realized afterwards that
there was a slight grade, and sothese rags are handy because I
stuck them in the return lines,they were stub pipes, and that
stopped the flow of water fromthe return.
Then I stuck a tennis ball inthe skimmer line, and that
(06:54):
stopped the flow entirely.
So these rags are a little bitbetter than just having regular
cloth rags because they kind ofexpand with the water, and
they'll really turn off thewater for you in a situation
where you have to actually turnoff the suction and return lines
together.
Here's another one kind ofrelated to this, where you have
two skimmers on the deck and youwant to manually vacuum the
(07:18):
pool.
How do you turn off one skimmer?
Or if you want to connect anautomatic cleaner to the pool,
there's no side port and youwant to connect it at one of the
skimmers, how do you adjust theflow on the other one?
Well, there are certain thingsyou can do, and a lot of times
the builders will put these dualskimmers in a pool with no
valves that control one skimmerover another.
If you're fortunate, there maybe a jandy valve where you can
(07:41):
actually adjust one of theskimmers at the equipment, or
sometimes there's a ball valveon the line and you can kind of
close that one slightly.
But in a lot of cases, I'venoticed that when they have two
skimmers, there's really nothingregulating the flow from one
skimmer to the other.
And one quick trick, of course,if you're going to do this, is
to put a tennis ball on oneskimmer, and then you can
(08:04):
manually vacuum with the otherskimmer really easily.
And if you do lift the the uhvacuum head out into the spa,
just note that the tennis ballis gonna pop out of that
skimmer.
You have to put it back in.
Tennis ball is perfect becauseit's the perfect size to cover
that hole, doesn't get suckedin, and it's pretty good at
staying in place in the skimmerwhen you have dual skimmers and
(08:28):
you want to use one to vacuumand you want to turn the flow
off to the other.
Because unfortunately, a lot oftimes, again, the builder does
not put in valves to control oneskimmer or to turn off one
skimmer to give full power tothe other skimmer.
Interesting enough, the ultimatepool tools they make carbon
fiber poles, but they also havewhat's called the ultimate pool
tools hyper valve, and this is athreaded one and a half inch
(08:51):
threaded piece that you couldput into a skimmer, and on top
are these kind of like this gatewhere you can close it.
So you can actually regulate oneof the dual skimmers very easily
with this.
You can actually close off theskimmer itself when you're
vacuuming, but I find a tennisball is quicker.
You can just put a tennis ballin, but you can thread this in,
and you can actually regulateone of the two skimmers on the
(09:12):
deck.
So let's say that you want toconnect an automatic cleaner to
one of the skimmers.
I'll just say the Hayward poolcleaner, just for default.
You can actually use this devicein one skimmer to pretty much
close it off completely, andthen have the other skimmer with
the cleaner with the regulatorvalve.
Or you can plumb the othercleaner, you can plumb the
cleaner directly into theskimmer without the regulator
(09:35):
valve and use this to adjust theother skimmer.
There's options, and this isreally good if you want more
power to one skimmer and less tothe other.
Again, just go to their website.
I think it'sultimatepooltools.com and look
for the hyper valve.
And this is one easy way toadjust a dual skimmer pool.
Since I'm talking aboutautomatic cleaners, I might as
(09:56):
well cover this one, and it'sreally one of those things where
it's not a no-brainer to whatcleaner to put into a pool.
There's some thought involvedand some skill, and you'll learn
this as you're doing poolservice.
What cleaner is best for thatpool.
Now, there are some pretty soliddefault cleaners that you could
put in and have really noproblem with, but there are
(10:18):
certain things you have to beaware of with certain pool
types, surface types, andcleaners.
So I'm just gonna give you aquick rundown that may help you.
In most pools, pebble tech andplaster pools, you can easily
put in a gear type cleaner likethe Haywood pool cleaner or the
um Polaris Atlas or Max Cleaner.
(10:40):
Now, the anti-vortex maindrains, those gigantic drains
that look like a you know gianthat or strainer that's on the
bottom that's like eight inchestall at the top.
A lot of cleaners have troubleon these.
The Haywood pool cleaner willhave trouble on these.
But the good thing is that thePolaris Atlas and the Polaris
Max has such a wide body thatthey won't have any problems
(11:01):
with the anti-vortex maindrains.
So, as a default, if you have aplaster pebble tech pool with a
gigantic main drain, go with thePolaris Atlas or Max.
If you have regular drains inthe pool, the Polaris, the
Polaris, the Haywood poolcleaner would be a great fit for
that pool.
Those are my two go-to cleaners,the gear type cleaners for those
(11:22):
pools.
Now, if you have a fiberglass orvinyl pool, I wouldn't recommend
a geared cleaner at all.
I would get a bouncing cleanerlike the Zodiac Ranger or the
Zodiac G2.
I would say creepy crawly, butthey don't make those anymore,
or they're gonna discontinuethem.
So go with the Zodiac Diaphragmcleaner for those.
The bouncing cleaners do a lotbetter on fiberglass and vinyl
(11:44):
pools than the geared cleanersdo.
They can't really sometimes getup that slope from the deep to
shallow end, and they certainlycan't climb the walls as
effectively.
Now, the MX6 is a pretty goodcleaner for a vinyl or
fiberglass pool.
It does do fairly well climbingthe walls, and you may get away
with it with the Polaris Atlasif you have enough suction, but
(12:05):
I do prefer the bouncingcleaners in vinyl and fiberglass
pools because they seem tonavigate the shallow and deep
end better and also clean thewalls better than the gear type
cleaners.
And a lot of confusion is aroundthe pressure cleaners, like the
Polaris 280.
That's just a go-to pressurecleaner out there.
They have a Polaris, you know,3900 Sport, the Quattro cleaner.
(12:28):
All of these operate off ofwhat's called a booster pump.
So the builder had to put in adedicated separate booster pump
with a dedicated separate linefor these pressure cleaners to
work off of.
Now the only exception, andhere's where a lot of confusion
comes in, is the players 360,which is a return side cleaner,
(12:48):
which works off of a return linewithout a booster pump.
Now you have to close off somereturn lines sometimes, and you
(13:15):
have to have the right kind ofreturn lines, one and a half
inch threaded return lines, forthis to work.
But the players 360 will work ina pool without a booster pump.
I know it's confusing, but justremember that the only pressure
side quote cleaner that worksoff of a return line without a
(13:35):
booster pump is the Polaris 360,and you don't have to worry
about anything else after that.
All the rest of them, thelimited amount of ones that
Penta's making now.
I believe Hayward discontinuedthe Trivac already, so it's only
the Polaris 280, 380, 3900, andQuadra that need a booster pump
to operate in the pool, and thatshould have been put in when the
(13:58):
pool was built by the builder.
Let me touch real quick on heatpumps and gas heaters because
there's some confusion, and Ijust got a message about this
from someone about connecting itto an intermatic timer, a heat
pump that is one thing about theheat pump that you need to know
is that they need their owndedicated 220-230 volt line run
(14:22):
directly to the heat pump fromyour electric panel because they
use like 30 to 40 amps, and youneed to have a dedicated line to
handle that amperage.
You can't just connect the heatpump to an existing 240 line
that's running your pump, youknow, that's running you know
anything else, you know, yourassault system, because it'll
(14:44):
overload that line and it won'twork properly.
Now, the cost of running a220-230 volt line is not cheap,
so you're going to have to havean electrician do this and they
have to trench it sometimes, andit's it may not even be
possible.
So just be aware that you can'tgo from a gas heater to a heat
(15:04):
pump very cleanly, meaning youhave to have a dedicated you
know line available with theright voltage and running it 50
feet is like$1,800 to$2,000 herein California.
So it adds an added expense togoing from a gas heater to a
heat pump.
So if you have a gas heater andyou wanted to switch to a heat
pump, it would be moredifficult.
(15:26):
If you have a pool that you'regetting built and you want to go
with a heat pump, the builder atthat time can run the dedicated
line to the heat pump, noproblem at all.
It's just after the fact that itmakes it difficult.
The same thing if you have aheat pump and you want to switch
to a gas heater.
The electrical part is not aproblem at all.
Gas heaters don't use too muchof that.
(15:47):
You can usually connect the gasheater directly to the same line
that's where the pump and thesalt system is with no problem.
But the problem is the gas line.
You have to run the gas line tothe gas heater if you don't have
a gas line already by your poolequipment, and that's probably
just as expensive or even moreexpensive to run than it is to
run an electrical line for aheat pump.
(16:09):
And for gas heaters, one thingthat I've noticed is that in a
new build, when they put it in,sometimes the builder doesn't
tell the homeowner this, but youshould know this since you do
pool service and you deal withgas heaters, that if they have a
small gas meter on their house,which is very typical of most
houses, they may need to callthe gas company here in my area,
(16:31):
it's Southern California Gas, toget a larger gas meter installed
to allow the heater to haveenough gas getting to it.
The air gas mixture is a bigissue.
They'll do it for free in mostcases, but the gas meter, if
it's undersized, will not beenough to power a typical gas
(16:52):
heater.
So keep that in mind as wellthat when you're having a gas
heater installed, even if youdidn't have one and you're
running one, check the gas meteras well to make sure it's the
right size for that gas heaterto work.
But the heat pump and gas heaterare not interchangeable
components on your equipmentpad.
In fact, they're actually polaropposites, even though they both
(17:14):
heat the water, they heat itdifferently, and the
requirements to connect one aretotally different from each
other.
Again, the heat pump needs adedicated electrical line run,
the gas heater needs a dedicatedgas line run to it, and they're
really not interchangeable inthe sense that you can swap out
one with the other.
And if you like this podcastsubject, let me know and I can
(17:36):
do some more of these.
Kind of, I don't know what Iwould call them, pool pro should
know or expand your knowledgebase or whatever.
I'll figure out some kind ofclever way of distinguishing
these from other podcasts.
But if you like these, I can domore of these, of course, and
get more in depth with thingsthat kind of stump you out there
and talk about different aspectsof equipment that you may not
know about.
(17:57):
So let me know if you like it,and I can, of course, do more of
these.
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those on
my website.
If you go to swimmingpoollearning.com on the banner,
click on the podcast icon.
There'll be a drop down menuwith over 1800 podcasts for you
there.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
(18:17):
Have the rest of your week.
God bless.
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going to goover some things that you should
know, you may not know, andthese are things that are common
mistakes you make with pools outon your route, and these are
things that can be avoided withjust a little bit of knowledge,
which I'm going to share withyou here to help you out.
(01:25):
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
the next level?
Join the pool guy coachingprogram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support.
From me, I'm a 35-year veteranin the industry.
Whether you're starting out orscaling up, I've got the tools
to help you succeed.
Learn more atswimmingpoollearning.com.
You kind of get where I'm goingwith this first example.
(01:48):
So this first one is somethingthat of course you should know
this, and someone should havetold you this, and this is
something you should learn intraining.
But if you're someone who juststarted doing pool service on
your own and never worked foranyone, you may not have been
told about pool equipment belowsea level.
And what this means is that thepool equipment is situated
(02:10):
somewhere in the backyard orsomewhere near the pool where
the equipment itself is belowthe pool water line.
And this is where the term belowsea level comes from.
It may be very obvious, you mayhave a pool that's up, you know,
in an area, and then you have towalk down some stairs to get to
the equipment.
Right there is a dead giveawaythat that equipment is below the
(02:34):
pool's water level.
Now, why is this critical?
Well, there's something calledgravity, and there's something
about how water works that youshould know, and water will go
to the area of least resistance.
So, what happens when you have apool with equipment below the
(02:56):
pool water level?
I'm gonna just say below sealevel here to make it simple.
Well, if you go to let's sayclean the pump basket out, you
turn the equipment off, you'lltake the pump basket lid off,
and then all of a sudden you'regonna see water just flowing out
of the pump like crazy.
You'll try to get that lid backon, and you're you're you try in
(03:17):
vain, especially if it's like awhisper flow and you're trying
to like put that lid on, thewater is just pushing up over
it, and the pool is drainingdown, water is just flooding
everywhere.
How do I know this?
Well, this has happened to a lotof people out there, in some
respect to me, and on a minorscale, but on a major scale,
this happened to a lot of peoplewhere they do this without
(03:38):
realizing what's gonna happen,and sometimes you can save
yourself very quickly if there'svalves by the equipment.
Now, these valves are usuallyjandy valves or ball valves, and
you have to turn off both thesuction and the return lines for
it to be effective.
You can't just turn off thesuction side and think that the
(04:00):
water is going to stop flowingbecause the water is actually
coming into the return side aswell, out the pump.
So turn off both the suction andreturn line together.
Now, if you're unfortunate andthere's no valves by the
equipment, there are some olderbuilds like this.
I don't know why they do this,but I I've had a few of these
where there are no valves thatwill control the flow of water,
(04:21):
or you maybe there were ballvalves at one time, but they're
all broken off, and all you haveis like the little stub sticking
out, the red handle's gone, thatthere's no way to turn that
valve.
You can do this by getting atennis ball and putting it in
the skimmer line, and that slowsdown the flow sometimes just
enough to get that pump lid backon.
The same thing will happen ifyou're cleaning the filter, you
(04:43):
take the lid off, and then thewater starts flooding out
everywhere, and you can't getthe water to stop because again,
it's below the water level.
The water is just gonna flow outlike there was a leak, like a
submarine has a hole in it orsomething, and it's just one of
those situations where if youjust had a little bit of
knowledge, you would haveavoided that.
One example of this is I hadsomeone in my group servicing an
(05:06):
above-ground pool or doing a bidon it, and he's totally brand
new, and he's like over there,and he sees that the pump basket
is full of leaves and debris,and he's like, Oh, here's the
problem.
I mean, the person whoever wasin your pool prior wasn't didn't
ever clean this thing out.
So he takes that pump lid off,and water just starts draining
out like crazy from theabove-ground pool.
Because of course, above groundpool is three feet above the
(05:29):
pump, and he he texted me or hecalled me actually.
He's like, Hey, this ishappening right now, you know,
what do I do?
There's no valves or anything.
I said, Well, do you have at-shirt or a rag?
He's like, Yeah, I have at-shirt in my truck.
I said, stick that in theskimmer line really quick.
And he did that, he was able toget the lid back on.
But these things happen if youdon't know about it, and it
(05:49):
could be just a very slightgrade in the backyard, making
that equipment below sea level.
So don't assume that if it's atthe same level that you think of
the pool, that it's not belowsea level, it could just be a
slight grade of two inches, andthat's enough to cause the water
to start flooding out of theequipment when you open it.
So it's a pretty harrowingsituation when that happens, of
(06:11):
course.
So there are ways you can do tostop the water.
And what I carry also are these,I don't know if you've seen
them, but if you have like acar, uh if you probably have a
car or truck, of course, and ifyou wash it, there are these
rags that you kind of wring outand they're made of this like
almost like cowhide material.
I suggest carrying a few ofthese in your truck as well,
(06:32):
because there's been situationswhere I've done some repairs,
and this happened to me a coupleyears ago.
I was doing a repair, I cut outthe filter, and the water
started coming out of the line,and I realized afterwards that
there was a slight grade, and sothese rags are handy because I
stuck them in the return lines,they were stub pipes, and that
stopped the flow of water fromthe return.
Then I stuck a tennis ball inthe skimmer line, and that
(06:54):
stopped the flow entirely.
So these rags are a little bitbetter than just having regular
cloth rags because they kind ofexpand with the water, and
they'll really turn off thewater for you in a situation
where you have to actually turnoff the suction and return lines
together.
Here's another one kind ofrelated to this, where you have
two skimmers on the deck and youwant to manually vacuum the
(07:18):
pool.
How do you turn off one skimmer?
Or if you want to connect anautomatic cleaner to the pool,
there's no side port and youwant to connect it at one of the
skimmers, how do you adjust theflow on the other one?
Well, there are certain thingsyou can do, and a lot of times
the builders will put these dualskimmers in a pool with no
valves that control one skimmerover another.
If you're fortunate, there maybe a jandy valve where you can
(07:41):
actually adjust one of theskimmers at the equipment, or
sometimes there's a ball valveon the line and you can kind of
close that one slightly.
But in a lot of cases, I'venoticed that when they have two
skimmers, there's really nothingregulating the flow from one
skimmer to the other.
And one quick trick, of course,if you're going to do this, is
to put a tennis ball on oneskimmer, and then you can
(08:04):
manually vacuum with the otherskimmer really easily.
And if you do lift the the uhvacuum head out into the spa,
just note that the tennis ballis gonna pop out of that
skimmer.
You have to put it back in.
Tennis ball is perfect becauseit's the perfect size to cover
that hole, doesn't get suckedin, and it's pretty good at
staying in place in the skimmerwhen you have dual skimmers and
(08:28):
you want to use one to vacuumand you want to turn the flow
off to the other.
Because unfortunately, a lot oftimes, again, the builder does
not put in valves to control oneskimmer or to turn off one
skimmer to give full power tothe other skimmer.
Interesting enough, the ultimatepool tools they make carbon
fiber poles, but they also havewhat's called the ultimate pool
tools hyper valve, and this is athreaded one and a half inch
(08:51):
threaded piece that you couldput into a skimmer, and on top
are these kind of like this gatewhere you can close it.
So you can actually regulate oneof the dual skimmers very easily
with this.
You can actually close off theskimmer itself when you're
vacuuming, but I find a tennisball is quicker.
You can just put a tennis ballin, but you can thread this in,
and you can actually regulateone of the two skimmers on the
(09:12):
deck.
So let's say that you want toconnect an automatic cleaner to
one of the skimmers.
I'll just say the Hayward poolcleaner, just for default.
You can actually use this devicein one skimmer to pretty much
close it off completely, andthen have the other skimmer with
the cleaner with the regulatorvalve.
Or you can plumb the othercleaner, you can plumb the
cleaner directly into theskimmer without the regulator
(09:35):
valve and use this to adjust theother skimmer.
There's options, and this isreally good if you want more
power to one skimmer and less tothe other.
Again, just go to their website.
I think it'sultimatepooltools.com and look
for the hyper valve.
And this is one easy way toadjust a dual skimmer pool.
Since I'm talking aboutautomatic cleaners, I might as
(09:56):
well cover this one, and it'sreally one of those things where
it's not a no-brainer to whatcleaner to put into a pool.
There's some thought involvedand some skill, and you'll learn
this as you're doing poolservice.
What cleaner is best for thatpool.
Now, there are some pretty soliddefault cleaners that you could
put in and have really noproblem with, but there are
(10:18):
certain things you have to beaware of with certain pool
types, surface types, andcleaners.
So I'm just gonna give you aquick rundown that may help you.
In most pools, pebble tech andplaster pools, you can easily
put in a gear type cleaner likethe Haywood pool cleaner or the
um Polaris Atlas or Max Cleaner.
(10:40):
Now, the anti-vortex maindrains, those gigantic drains
that look like a you know gianthat or strainer that's on the
bottom that's like eight inchestall at the top.
A lot of cleaners have troubleon these.
The Haywood pool cleaner willhave trouble on these.
But the good thing is that thePolaris Atlas and the Polaris
Max has such a wide body thatthey won't have any problems
(11:01):
with the anti-vortex maindrains.
So, as a default, if you have aplaster pebble tech pool with a
gigantic main drain, go with thePolaris Atlas or Max.
If you have regular drains inthe pool, the Polaris, the
Polaris, the Haywood poolcleaner would be a great fit for
that pool.
Those are my two go-to cleaners,the gear type cleaners for those
(11:22):
pools.
Now, if you have a fiberglass orvinyl pool, I wouldn't recommend
a geared cleaner at all.
I would get a bouncing cleanerlike the Zodiac Ranger or the
Zodiac G2.
I would say creepy crawly, butthey don't make those anymore,
or they're gonna discontinuethem.
So go with the Zodiac Diaphragmcleaner for those.
The bouncing cleaners do a lotbetter on fiberglass and vinyl
(11:44):
pools than the geared cleanersdo.
They can't really sometimes getup that slope from the deep to
shallow end, and they certainlycan't climb the walls as
effectively.
Now, the MX6 is a pretty goodcleaner for a vinyl or
fiberglass pool.
It does do fairly well climbingthe walls, and you may get away
with it with the Polaris Atlasif you have enough suction, but
(12:05):
I do prefer the bouncingcleaners in vinyl and fiberglass
pools because they seem tonavigate the shallow and deep
end better and also clean thewalls better than the gear type
cleaners.
And a lot of confusion is aroundthe pressure cleaners, like the
Polaris 280.
That's just a go-to pressurecleaner out there.
They have a Polaris, you know,3900 Sport, the Quattro cleaner.
(12:28):
All of these operate off ofwhat's called a booster pump.
So the builder had to put in adedicated separate booster pump
with a dedicated separate linefor these pressure cleaners to
work off of.
Now the only exception, andhere's where a lot of confusion
comes in, is the players 360,which is a return side cleaner,
(12:48):
which works off of a return linewithout a booster pump.
Now you have to close off somereturn lines sometimes, and you
(13:15):
have to have the right kind ofreturn lines, one and a half
inch threaded return lines, forthis to work.
But the players 360 will work ina pool without a booster pump.
I know it's confusing, but justremember that the only pressure
side quote cleaner that worksoff of a return line without a
(13:35):
booster pump is the Polaris 360,and you don't have to worry
about anything else after that.
All the rest of them, thelimited amount of ones that
Penta's making now.
I believe Hayward discontinuedthe Trivac already, so it's only
the Polaris 280, 380, 3900, andQuadra that need a booster pump
to operate in the pool, and thatshould have been put in when the
(13:58):
pool was built by the builder.
Let me touch real quick on heatpumps and gas heaters because
there's some confusion, and Ijust got a message about this
from someone about connecting itto an intermatic timer, a heat
pump that is one thing about theheat pump that you need to know
is that they need their owndedicated 220-230 volt line run
(14:22):
directly to the heat pump fromyour electric panel because they
use like 30 to 40 amps, and youneed to have a dedicated line to
handle that amperage.
You can't just connect the heatpump to an existing 240 line
that's running your pump, youknow, that's running you know
anything else, you know, yourassault system, because it'll
(14:44):
overload that line and it won'twork properly.
Now, the cost of running a220-230 volt line is not cheap,
so you're going to have to havean electrician do this and they
have to trench it sometimes, andit's it may not even be
possible.
So just be aware that you can'tgo from a gas heater to a heat
(15:04):
pump very cleanly, meaning youhave to have a dedicated you
know line available with theright voltage and running it 50
feet is like$1,800 to$2,000 herein California.
So it adds an added expense togoing from a gas heater to a
heat pump.
So if you have a gas heater andyou wanted to switch to a heat
pump, it would be moredifficult.
(15:26):
If you have a pool that you'regetting built and you want to go
with a heat pump, the builder atthat time can run the dedicated
line to the heat pump, noproblem at all.
It's just after the fact that itmakes it difficult.
The same thing if you have aheat pump and you want to switch
to a gas heater.
The electrical part is not aproblem at all.
Gas heaters don't use too muchof that.
(15:47):
You can usually connect the gasheater directly to the same line
that's where the pump and thesalt system is with no problem.
But the problem is the gas line.
You have to run the gas line tothe gas heater if you don't have
a gas line already by your poolequipment, and that's probably
just as expensive or even moreexpensive to run than it is to
run an electrical line for aheat pump.
(16:09):
And for gas heaters, one thingthat I've noticed is that in a
new build, when they put it in,sometimes the builder doesn't
tell the homeowner this, but youshould know this since you do
pool service and you deal withgas heaters, that if they have a
small gas meter on their house,which is very typical of most
houses, they may need to callthe gas company here in my area,
(16:31):
it's Southern California Gas, toget a larger gas meter installed
to allow the heater to haveenough gas getting to it.
The air gas mixture is a bigissue.
They'll do it for free in mostcases, but the gas meter, if
it's undersized, will not beenough to power a typical gas
(16:52):
heater.
So keep that in mind as wellthat when you're having a gas
heater installed, even if youdidn't have one and you're
running one, check the gas meteras well to make sure it's the
right size for that gas heaterto work.
But the heat pump and gas heaterare not interchangeable
components on your equipmentpad.
In fact, they're actually polaropposites, even though they both
(17:14):
heat the water, they heat itdifferently, and the
requirements to connect one aretotally different from each
other.
Again, the heat pump needs adedicated electrical line run,
the gas heater needs a dedicatedgas line run to it, and they're
really not interchangeable inthe sense that you can swap out
one with the other.
And if you like this podcastsubject, let me know and I can
(17:36):
do some more of these.
Kind of, I don't know what Iwould call them, pool pro should
know or expand your knowledgebase or whatever.
I'll figure out some kind ofclever way of distinguishing
these from other podcasts.
But if you like these, I can domore of these, of course, and
get more in depth with thingsthat kind of stump you out there
and talk about different aspectsof equipment that you may not
know about.
(17:57):
So let me know if you like it,and I can, of course, do more of
these.
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find those on
my website.
If you go to swimmingpoollearning.com on the banner,
click on the podcast icon.
There'll be a drop down menuwith over 1800 podcasts for you
there.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
(18:17):
Have the rest of your week.
God bless.
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