The Pool Tech Knowledge Guide – Volume 1

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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Chapters

• 1:51 Common Route Mistakes To Avoid
• 2:55 Equipment Below Waterline Risks
• 4:34 Emergency Flow Control Tricks
• 7:59 Managing Dual Skimmers
• 10:31 Picking The Right Suction Cleaner
• 13:04 Pressure Cleaners And Booster Pumps
• 14:56 Heat Pumps Vs Gas Heaters Explained
• 18:08 Resources And Coaching Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to go over some things that you should know, you may not know, and these are things that are common mistakes you make with pools out on your route, and these are things that can be avoided with just a little bit of knowledge, which I'm going to share with you here to help you out. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. You kind of get where I'm going with this first example. So this first one is something that of course you should know this, and someone should have told you this, and this is something you should learn in training. But if you're someone who just started doing pool service on your own and never worked for anyone, you may not have been told about pool equipment below sea level. And what this means is that the pool equipment is situated somewhere in the backyard or somewhere near the pool where the equipment itself is below the pool water line. And this is where the term below sea level comes from. It may be very obvious, you may have a pool that's up, you know, in an area, and then you have to walk down some stairs to get to the equipment. Right there is a dead giveaway that that equipment is below the pool's water level. Now, why is this critical? Well, there's something called gravity, and there's something about how water works that you should know, and water will go to the area of least resistance. So, what happens when you have a pool with equipment below the pool water level? I'm gonna just say below sea level here to make it simple. Well, if you go to let's say clean the pump basket out, you turn the equipment off, you'll take the pump basket lid off, and then all of a sudden you're gonna see water just flowing out of the pump like crazy. You'll try to get that lid back on, and you're you're you try in vain, especially if it's like a whisper flow and you're trying to like put that lid on, the water is just pushing up over it, and the pool is draining down, water is just flooding everywhere. How do I know this? Well, this has happened to a lot of people out there, in some respect to me, and on a minor scale, but on a major scale, this happened to a lot of people where they do this without realizing what's gonna happen, and sometimes you can save yourself very quickly if there's valves by the equipment. Now, these valves are usually jandy valves or ball valves, and you have to turn off both the suction and the return lines for it to be effective. You can't just turn off the suction side and think that the water is going to stop flowing because the water is actually coming into the return side as well, out the pump. So turn off both the suction and return line together. Now, if you're unfortunate and there's no valves by the equipment, there are some older builds like this. I don't know why they do this, but I I've had a few of these where there are no valves that will control the flow of water, or you maybe there were ball valves at one time, but they're all broken off, and all you have is like the little stub sticking out, the red handle's gone, that there's no way to turn that valve. You can do this by getting a tennis ball and putting it in the skimmer line, and that slows down the flow sometimes just enough to get that pump lid back on. The same thing will happen if you're cleaning the filter, you take the lid off, and then the water starts flooding out everywhere, and you can't get the water to stop because again, it's below the water level. The water is just gonna flow out like there was a leak, like a submarine has a hole in it or something, and it's just one of those situations where if you just had a little bit of knowledge, you would have avoided that. One example of this is I had someone in my group servicing an above-ground pool or doing a bid on 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 was in 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 the above-ground pool. Because of course, above ground pool is three feet above the pump, and he he texted me or he called me actually. He's like, Hey, this is happening right now, you know, what do I do? There's no valves or anything. I said, Well, do you have a t-shirt or a rag? He's like, Yeah, I have a t-shirt in my truck. I said, stick that in the skimmer line really quick. And he did that, he was able to get the lid back on. But these things happen if you don't know about it, and it could be just a very slight grade in the backyard, making that equipment below sea level. So don't assume that if it's at the same level that you think of the pool, that it's not below sea level, it could just be a slight grade of two inches, and that's enough to cause the water to start flooding out of the equipment when you open it. So it's a pretty harrowing situation when that happens, of course. So there are ways you can do to stop the water. And what I carry also are these, I don't know if you've seen them, but if you have like a car, uh if you probably have a car or truck, of course, and if you wash it, there are these rags that you kind of wring out and they're made of this like almost like cowhide material. I suggest carrying a few of these in your truck as well, because there's been situations where I've done some repairs, and this happened to me a couple years ago. I was doing a repair, I cut out the filter, and the water started coming out of the line, and I realized afterwards that there was a slight grade, and so these rags are handy because I stuck them in the return lines, they were stub pipes, and that stopped the flow of water from the return. Then I stuck a tennis ball in the skimmer line, and that stopped the flow entirely. So these rags are a little bit better than just having regular cloth rags because they kind of expand with the water, and they'll really turn off the water for you in a situation where you have to actually turn off the suction and return lines together. Here's another one kind of related to this, where you have two skimmers on the deck and you want to manually vacuum the pool. How do you turn off one skimmer? Or if you want to connect an automatic cleaner to the pool, there's no side port and you want to connect it at one of the skimmers, how do you adjust the flow on the other one? Well, there are certain things you can do, and a lot of times the builders will put these dual skimmers in a pool with no valves that control one skimmer over another. If you're fortunate, there may be a jandy valve where you can actually adjust one of the skimmers at the equipment, or sometimes there's a ball valve on the line and you can kind of close that one slightly. But in a lot of cases, I've noticed that when they have two skimmers, there's really nothing regulating 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 one skimmer, and then you can manually vacuum with the other skimmer really easily. And if you do lift the the uh vacuum head out into the spa, just note that the tennis ball is gonna pop out of that skimmer. You have to put it back in. Tennis ball is perfect because it's the perfect size to cover that hole, doesn't get sucked in, and it's pretty good at staying in place in the skimmer when you have dual skimmers and you want to use one to vacuum and you want to turn the flow off to the other. Because unfortunately, a lot of times, again, the builder does not put in valves to control one skimmer or to turn off one skimmer to give full power to the other skimmer. Interesting enough, the ultimate pool tools they make carbon fiber poles, but they also have what's called the ultimate pool tools hyper valve, and this is a threaded one and a half inch threaded piece that you could put into a skimmer, and on top are these kind of like this gate where you can close it. So you can actually regulate one of the dual skimmers very easily with this. You can actually close off the skimmer itself when you're vacuuming, but I find a tennis ball is quicker. You can just put a tennis ball in, but you can thread this in, and you can actually regulate one of the two skimmers on the deck. So let's say that you want to connect an automatic cleaner to one of the skimmers. I'll just say the Hayward pool cleaner, just for default. You can actually use this device in one skimmer to pretty much close it off completely, and then have the other skimmer with the cleaner with the regulator valve. Or you can plumb the other cleaner, you can plumb the cleaner directly into the skimmer without the regulator valve and use this to adjust the other skimmer. There's options, and this is really good if you want more power to one skimmer and less to the other. Again, just go to their website. I think it's ultimatepooltools.com and look for the hyper valve. And this is one easy way to adjust a dual skimmer pool. Since I'm talking about automatic cleaners, I might as well cover this one, and it's really one of those things where it's not a no-brainer to what cleaner to put into a pool. There's some thought involved and some skill, and you'll learn this as you're doing pool service. What cleaner is best for that pool. Now, there are some pretty solid default cleaners that you could put in and have really no problem with, but there are certain things you have to be aware of with certain pool types, surface types, and cleaners. So I'm just gonna give you a quick rundown that may help you. In most pools, pebble tech and plaster pools, you can easily put in a gear type cleaner like the Haywood pool cleaner or the um Polaris Atlas or Max Cleaner. Now, the anti-vortex main drains, those gigantic drains that look like a you know giant hat or strainer that's on the bottom that's like eight inches tall at the top. A lot of cleaners have trouble on these. The Haywood pool cleaner will have trouble on these. But the good thing is that the Polaris Atlas and the Polaris Max has such a wide body that they won't have any problems with the anti-vortex main drains. So, as a default, if you have a plaster pebble tech pool with a gigantic main drain, go with the Polaris Atlas or Max. If you have regular drains in the pool, the Polaris, the Polaris, the Haywood pool cleaner would be a great fit for that pool. Those are my two go-to cleaners, the gear type cleaners for those pools. Now, if you have a fiberglass or vinyl pool, I wouldn't recommend a geared cleaner at all. I would get a bouncing cleaner like the Zodiac Ranger or the Zodiac G2. I would say creepy crawly, but they don't make those anymore, or they're gonna discontinue them. So go with the Zodiac Diaphragm cleaner for those. The bouncing cleaners do a lot better on fiberglass and vinyl pools than the geared cleaners do. They can't really sometimes get up that slope from the deep to shallow end, and they certainly can't climb the walls as effectively. Now, the MX6 is a pretty good cleaner for a vinyl or fiberglass pool. It does do fairly well climbing the walls, and you may get away with it with the Polaris Atlas if you have enough suction, but I do prefer the bouncing cleaners in vinyl and fiberglass pools because they seem to navigate the shallow and deep end better and also clean the walls better than the gear type cleaners. And a lot of confusion is around the pressure cleaners, like the Polaris 280. That's just a go-to pressure cleaner out there. They have a Polaris, you know, 3900 Sport, the Quattro cleaner. All of these operate off of what's called a booster pump. So the builder had to put in a dedicated separate booster pump with a dedicated separate line for these pressure cleaners to work off of. Now the only exception, and here's where a lot of confusion comes in, is the players 360, which is a return side cleaner, which works off of a return line without a booster pump. Now you have to close off some return lines sometimes, and you have to have the right kind of return lines, one and a half inch threaded return lines, for this to work. But the players 360 will work in a pool without a booster pump. I know it's confusing, but just remember that the only pressure side quote cleaner that works off of a return line without a booster pump is the Polaris 360, and you don't have to worry about anything else after that. All the rest of them, the limited amount of ones that Penta's making now. I believe Hayward discontinued the Trivac already, so it's only the Polaris 280, 380, 3900, and Quadra that need a booster pump to operate in the pool, and that should have been put in when the pool was built by the builder. Let me touch real quick on heat pumps and gas heaters because there's some confusion, and I just got a message about this from someone about connecting it to an intermatic timer, a heat pump that is one thing about the heat pump that you need to know is that they need their own dedicated 220-230 volt line run directly to the heat pump from your electric panel because they use like 30 to 40 amps, and you need to have a dedicated line to handle that amperage. You can't just connect the heat pump to an existing 240 line that's running your pump, you know, that's running you know anything else, you know, your assault system, because it'll overload that line and it won't work properly. Now, the cost of running a 220-230 volt line is not cheap, so you're going to have to have an electrician do this and they have to trench it sometimes, and it's it may not even be possible. So just be aware that you can't go from a gas heater to a heat pump very cleanly, meaning you have to have a dedicated you know line available with the right voltage and running it 50 feet is like$1,800 to$2,000 here in California. So it adds an added expense to going from a gas heater to a heat pump. So if you have a gas heater and you wanted to switch to a heat pump, it would be more difficult. If you have a pool that you're getting built and you want to go with a heat pump, the builder at that time can run the dedicated line to the heat pump, no problem at all. It's just after the fact that it makes it difficult. The same thing if you have a heat pump and you want to switch to a gas heater. The electrical part is not a problem at all. Gas heaters don't use too much of that. You can usually connect the gas heater directly to the same line that's where the pump and the salt system is with no problem. But the problem is the gas line. You have to run the gas line to the gas heater if you don't have a gas line already by your pool equipment, and that's probably just as expensive or even more expensive to run than it is to run an electrical line for a heat pump. And for gas heaters, one thing that I've noticed is that in a new build, when they put it in, sometimes the builder doesn't tell the homeowner this, but you should know this since you do pool service and you deal with gas heaters, that if they have a small gas meter on their house, which is very typical of most houses, they may need to call the gas company here in my area, it's Southern California Gas, to get a larger gas meter installed to allow the heater to have enough gas getting to it. The air gas mixture is a big issue. They'll do it for free in most cases, but the gas meter, if it's undersized, will not be enough to power a typical gas heater. So keep that in mind as well that when you're having a gas heater installed, even if you didn't have one and you're running one, check the gas meter as well to make sure it's the right size for that gas heater to work. But the heat pump and gas heater are not interchangeable components on your equipment pad. In fact, they're actually polar opposites, even though they both heat the water, they heat it differently, and the requirements to connect one are totally different from each other. Again, the heat pump needs a dedicated electrical line run, the gas heater needs a dedicated gas line run to it, and they're really not interchangeable in the sense that you can swap out one with the other. And if you like this podcast subject, let me know and I can do some more of these. Kind of, I don't know what I would call them, pool pro should know or expand your knowledge base or whatever. I'll figure out some kind of clever way of distinguishing these from other podcasts. But if you like these, I can do more of these, of course, and get more in depth with things that kind of stump you out there and talk about different aspects of equipment that you may not know about. So let me know if you like it, and I can, of course, do more of these. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website. If you go to swimming poollearning.com on the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be a drop down menu with over 1800 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have the rest of your week. God bless.