"Orak Listalavostok" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:16:27 -0700, ELGY wrote:

My daughter has a Flowmaster toilet valve mounted in the well for the
skimmer, not in the pool itself and completely out of the way.

That skimmer 1-foot diameter well seems to be the ONLY place where the
water level of the pool can be monitored without intruding into the pool
itself.

But how do you get water INTO the pool from the skimmer?

The skimmer well is connected to the pool by an always open channel. The
water level in the well is always the same as the pool.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 07:55:57 -0700, ELGY wrote:

The skimmer well is connected to the pool by an always open channel. The
water level in the well is always the same as the pool.

I agree. So you can put a valve in the skimmer; and that will turn on when
the skimmer water well drops too low.

But then, how do you get EXTRA water (from a garden hose for example) into
the skimmer?

The skimmer cover (from the top deck) is about a foot from the edge of the
pool. Assume the garden hose connection is twenty feet away.

Is the proposal to snake a garden hose twenty feet across the lawn and
concrete deck and then just dump it into the top of the skimmer with the
top removed?

That's what confuses me. How do you get the water INTO the skimmer when
most skimmers (that I know of) are built into the concrete deck of the
pool.

There's no entrance (other than the top cover); but if you use the top
cover, someone is gonna trip on the garden hose and break their neck.

Did I miss something?

You can't just pull the top cap off the skimmer and dump a garden hose down
it as it will be snaking across the deck ... so how do you get water INTO
the skimmer from an outside source?

I'd love to know ('cuz I'd implement it myself!).

"Orak Listalavostok" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 07:55:57 -0700, ELGY wrote:

The skimmer well is connected to the pool by an always open channel. The
water level in the well is always the same as the pool.

I agree. So you can put a valve in the skimmer; and that will turn on when
the skimmer water well drops too low.

But then, how do you get EXTRA water (from a garden hose for example) into
the skimmer?

The skimmer cover (from the top deck) is about a foot from the edge of the
pool. Assume the garden hose connection is twenty feet away.

Is the proposal to snake a garden hose twenty feet across the lawn and
concrete deck and then just dump it into the top of the skimmer with the
top removed?

That's what confuses me. How do you get the water INTO the skimmer when
most skimmers (that I know of) are built into the concrete deck of the
pool.

There's no entrance (other than the top cover); but if you use the top
cover, someone is gonna trip on the garden hose and break their neck.

Did I miss something?

You can't just pull the top cap off the skimmer and dump a garden hose
down
it as it will be snaking across the deck ... so how do you get water INTO
the skimmer from an outside source?

I'd love to know ('cuz I'd implement it myself!).

The fill valve is plumbed into the skimmer when the pool was built. It is
controlled by the toilet fill valve. If you have no such plumbing it would
be necessary to add it to use this method. When complete, the pool is kept
filled with almost no need for extra effort and is easily adjusted if
necessary within about a 5-6 inch spread.

On 17/07/10 6:59 PM, wrote:

I plumbed the waste water from my RO into the pool and I have not had
to add water since.

Now that's a really good idea! That water is just wasted now. My RO is
in a location where that would be very practical for me to do that. But
when I'm away from home for an extended period of time there is no waste
RO water being generated.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 17/07/10 6:59 PM, wrote:

I plumbed the waste water from my RO into the pool and I have not had
to add water since.

Now that's a really good idea! That water is just wasted now. My RO is
in a location where that would be very practical for me to do that. But
when I'm away from home for an extended period of time there is no waste
RO water being generated.

RO kicks out about 5 gallons of waste per gallon of RO. If you're losing
150 gallons daily from the pool, you'd need to be consuming 30 gallons
of RO per day to keep up.

In article ,
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:50:28 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 17/07/10 6:59 PM, wrote:

I plumbed the waste water from my RO into the pool and I have not had
to add water since.

Now that's a really good idea! That water is just wasted now. My RO is
in a location where that would be very practical for me to do that. But
when I'm away from home for an extended period of time there is no waste
RO water being generated.

RO kicks out about 5 gallons of waste per gallon of RO. If you're losing
150 gallons daily from the pool, you'd need to be consuming 30 gallons
of RO per day to keep up.


If I was losing 150 gallons a day I would be looking for a wet spot in
the yard. That is a pool leak.

That was the figure the OP gave in the OP.

On 19/07/10 8:24 AM, wrote:

snip

If I was losing 150 gallons a day I would be looking for a wet spot in
the yard. That is a pool leak.

No, no leak, in cool weather there are no losses at all. In very hot
weather (July, August, September) I can lose 1/8" to 3/16" per day. The
pool area is about 75000 square inches in area. A gallon of water is
about 231 cubic inches.

75000 sq in * 0.250" /231 cu in/gallon = 81 gallons
75000 sq in * 0.375" /231 cu in/gallon = 122 gallons

Okay, closer to 100 gallons than 150 gallons.

At my late mom's house in Florida the pool never needed water added
because in the summer there was enough rain to offset evaporation. In my
area of California there is no rain in the summer, and little humidity
so evaporation is much greater. I can reduce it a lot by putting on the
pool cover but that gets the pool uncomfortably warm.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:13:29 -0400, wrote:
Don't they plumb in an overflow on pools up there?

I really want to try this ... but ...

I have an overflow that is a one-inch plastic pipe embedded in the pool
tiles about an inch or two above the high water level.

I guess you're saying if the float sensor determines a low water level, you
can run water (backward) into this pipe to refill the pool.

The main problem, I would think, is that the slope of this drainage pipe is
sloping away from the pool.

It's an interesting idea to fill the pool from the drainage pipes. But how
would you defeat the fact that this drainage pipe is sloping away from the
pool?

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:57:40 -0700, Orak Listalavostok
wrote:

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:13:29 -0400, wrote:
Don't they plumb in an overflow on pools up there?

I really want to try this ... but ...

I have an overflow that is a one-inch plastic pipe embedded in the pool
tiles about an inch or two above the high water level.

I guess you're saying if the float sensor determines a low water level, you
can run water (backward) into this pipe to refill the pool.

The main problem, I would think, is that the slope of this drainage pipe is
sloping away from the pool.

It's an interesting idea to fill the pool from the drainage pipes. But how
would you defeat the fact that this drainage pipe is sloping away from the
pool?

Water pressure. Appropriate valves are an exercise for the student.

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:13:29 -0400, wrote:

That is a pipe below the water line that goes out into the yard
somewhere and you adjust the water level by the height of the pipe
emerging above grade.

I just looked. In addition to the 1-inch diameter emergency overflow
plastic pipe that is in the side of the pool about an inch or two above the
water line, there IS a three-inch wide plastic pipe sticking up out of the
grass ten or fifteen feet to the side of the pool.

This pipe drains out to the street but I don't see any water in it unless I
water the grass too much.

It's intriguing what you intimate (that this pipe can be used as the well)
but that still begs the question of how to get the water INTO the pool once
the float valve senses the low pool level.

You can't have a hose (safely anyway) snaking across the pool deck; so how
do you get water INTO the pool? Any ideas?

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:13:29 -0400, wrote:

BTW there will be another pipe out in the yard that will have water in
it at the pool water level if you have a pool light but I won't go
there ;-)

Interesting. For my pool, I looked for that pipe. I found one that is about
an inch in diameter, and it has a GFCI on it, and about three pipes
sticking up out of the ground together.

I tested that GFCI with the pool lights on, and it tripped them off.

Is the suggestion to rig a float valve to that pipe sticking out of the
ground? What are the other two pipes right next to it going into the GCFI?

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:11:35 -0700, Orak Listalavostok
wrote:

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:13:29 -0400, wrote:

BTW there will be another pipe out in the yard that will have water in
it at the pool water level if you have a pool light but I won't go
there ;-)

Interesting. For my pool, I looked for that pipe. I found one that is about
an inch in diameter, and it has a GFCI on it, and about three pipes
sticking up out of the ground together.

A GFCI on a plastic pipe? There is something you're not telling us here.

I tested that GFCI with the pool lights on, and it tripped them off.

It's a drain pipe from the pool lights?

Is the suggestion to rig a float valve to that pipe sticking out of the
ground? What are the other two pipes right next to it going into the GCFI?

Dunno. You tell us. ;-)