Green pool clean up in Tempe Arizona

I was contacted by a customer in Tempe Arizona because her pool was green. A local pool store had replaced her equipment a couple years ago and she had problems keeping the pool from turning green ever since. It had finally gotten away from her and turned very green this year. She was very frustrated and had spent a lot of money on chemicals and pool equipment.

She believed the problem was the new cartridge filter the pool store installed, since she never had a problem with the old sand filter the store removed. This pool is over 30 years old and has an old, 'whip' cleaning system that used rubber hoses that came out of the walls and floor to clean the pool. The original cleaning system hasn't worked in decades.

The Tucson based company that made that cleaning system had gone out of business decades ago and is no longer supported. The skimmer make and model was unidentifiable. The old skimmer was missing all the parts required for proper function, so there was no way to make the drain work and no water was being pulled from the bottom of the pool through the filter.

This wasn't a problem before, because the owner always used a suction pool cleaner plugged into the skimmer that pulled water from the bottom of the pool that and got filtered. When the pool store replaced her old pump and filter, they put a float valve in the skimmer for a modern, U-3 style skimmer thinking it would make the drain work. They sold her an electric robotic cleaner and removed the suction cleaner.

This is the right way of thinking. Pulling water from the pool using both the skimmer and the drain is great. Adding a robotic cleaner would have kept the pool clean and the skimmer/drain would have pulled water through the filter.

However, a float valve for a modern skimmer will not make the drain work on the old, unidentifiable skimmer. The two skimmers operate totally differently. The installers had the right idea, but they didn't seem to understand how different skimmers work beyond the one they were familiar with. There are a lot of U-3 skimmers out there since they were popular the last 20 years, but in the valley, especially in pools of older homes, you will see old Bermuda skimmers, old Baker Hydro skimmers, Quick Skim skimmers, etc. They are all different in how they work and require different float valves, or control plates to make the operate properly. Quick skim skimmers actually use return side water flow to create a Venturi which causes the skimmer to pull water from the pool. Sometimes the parts are still available, sometimes there isn't.

I did a green pool clean up and put in a suction cleaner again. The pool has stayed blue ever since

Location: Tempe, AZ