#pool problems

I hadn’t done anything to it since my experimenting to figure it out the problem, and those had all failed. When there was a nice big gap in the rain I decided to go out and try disconnecting so I bring into the house to take apart. I automatically tried turning it on one last time, like I always do when something doesn’t work and I’m about to start drastic exploration….

And it turned on! It’s running absolutely fine!

Okayyyyy. So if I don’t know why it stopped, I have no idea if it will stop working again. Maybe it will fail five minutes from now, and maybe it won’t fail the rest the summer. I have NO idea.

Ah well, I’ll tell you what I am going to do. With all this rain in the forecast making working on it too hard, I’m going to leave it running until I absolutely have to clean the leaf trap or filter. Or until there is a nice long gap of dry weather in case I do need to do repairs. And I am totally putting the chlorine in tonight as long as the pump is still running.

Last night I had a nightmare that the pool was turning green as I watched and millions of stinging waterbugs were swimming in an expanding spiral like a school of fish. I’d tried to contain them in a nest but they were multiplying so fast they were too heavy to haul out and they were squeezing out all the swimming space around the edges. I was being stung every time I bumped the net and I was in danger of drowning as they crowded out the gap around the sides before I could get to the ladder.

Worse when I research possible solutions and most say “leave it to a professional” or “buy a new one”, which no way in hell are options for someone living in poverty that only had this through inheritance to begin with,

It was running fine, I turned it off to clean the filter, and when I turned it on and it only hummed!

And yes, I have tried all the obvious things. I will need to take it apart, only tomorrow is going to to rain. In fact today it started raining right then.

After feeding Ryoga I went to check something about the plum trees and it started raining. Pouring. Pouring so hard I couldn’t see across the field. Unfortunately I had to walk across the field, and I got drenched. Sloshing in my boots despite the four pair of socks and ankle braces. I sat down in the fiberglass chair we have to take off those boots and by the time I was done the seat was full of water.

Oh, and as a side note, I discovered that where my left ankle brace broke yesterday, my right broke today! I don’t have a spare and can’t order one yet.

I hung my clothes on a drying rack and went off to swim. The pump failure slowed me down. And then I cut my leg on some fiberglass near the pump, because I was running around in my swimsuit. blood everywhere. By the time I’d taken care of it it was a long time since I thought of the clothes. This was unfortunate because the clothes on the drying rack had dripped puddles, and one of those puddles was right into one of my boxes of stuff for making things.

Anyway, the pool pump is a major disaster. Without being able to run the filter it WILL go green. I absolutely cannot afford to replace it. The old one still works, BUT it isn’t compatible with the new pump without buying some sort of adaptors and hoses. And I have a very bad feeling that repairing it will either be too expensive for my poverty or beyond my ability at all.

And then the pool filter broke.

I spent three hours taking it apart and fixing it.

And then it REALLY broke!

See, I fixed the original problem but opening it up meant letting the gasket move and removing a bazillion bolts and screws. Trouble is the gasket has disintegrated and only the corrosion was holding some of the bolts together. I did my damnedest trying to get it all back together so it would hold up…

It didn’t hold up.

WHOOSH! Water fountaining out everywhere. One of the bolts shot up into the sky never to be seen again. The whole way around the filter water was shooting straight out. Basically all the gaskets, washers, and main bolts are toast.

Just buy replacements you say? Ah, well, never mind my poverty, this filter was built in 1980. What do you think are the chances of finding compatible parts??

The good news is Mom had bought a new filter seven years ago. Trouble is, it didn’t come with hoses and the fittings aren’t compatible with the ones on the existing hoses or the pool. Mom had her stroke before we could but things we need, and then I ended up living in poverty (lovely place, poverty, I expect the way the world is going more of you are going to be moving her soon). So I’ve just kept using the old one….

Until today.

And the thing is I realized the filter wasn’t working because the pool was going all brown, less than a week after cleaning it, and before it was full or I could even swim in it. I NEED to get the filter, or rather A filter going.

So I spent two hours trying to figure out a way to use bits of hose and fittings I could find to hook up the “new” filter.

The good news is I have some stuff that might do most the job. The bad news is these things have been hooked up together for so many decades I can’t seem to break them apart. That’s another hour of struggling.

If I get the fittings free I still am a foot of hose or pipe short of being able to run the new filter!

And now there is a strong thunderstorm approaching so I have to pack up!!

A limb fell in the storm, and I guess I should feel lucky. It didn’t smash the pool itself or the pump. What it DID smash was the pipe that comes out of the pump.

On the one hand, I was lucky again that I discovered it before it went below the outflow opening. On the other, because Ryoga hates rain, I’d waited until late to go feed him. As a result I lost four feet of water as the pool got pumped out.

Now I have to figure out how to replace this glued in pipe or I can’t run the filter, and if I can’t run the filter I can’t put in the chlorine. And after rain is positively blooms….

UGH!

Plus it will take a week to refill the pool. If I refill it the water will be cold, and I can’t take cold. It took almost a month after I filled the pool in May for it to warm up enough for swimming, and took the heatwave to make it warm enough I wasn’t shivering the whole damn time.

Basically, at best, I am going to have a wading pool instead of a swimming pool for a while, and when I do get to swim it’s going to be short ten minute swims accompanied by yowling of “COOOOOOLLLDDDD!!!!!!” And it might very well have turned green.

**sigh**

I know. I shouldn’t complain. There is a tornado watch and someone in the state was already killed by the storm. Even Ryoga with his now completely flooded lot has more reason to complain. I don’t NEED to swim.

Except…

I do. It’s one of my few joys in life I have left. I wouldn’t have worked my ass off to clean the pool if I didn’t love it so much. During the worst of the heat, with my inadequately cooled house, I dunno how I would have survived without my half hour of cooling off. Moments of happiness and not sweating matter.

Oh well, maybe I can do something about the pipe. I just hope if I do I can keep it from leaking. My plumbing work always has a problem with leaking.

I need to keep reminding myself I’m still lucky….