Pool Service Knowledge Every Tech Should Know – Vol 2

The hardest pool problems aren’t always in the manual—they show up on the pad when the water won’t move, the lid won’t budge, and the cleaner sits still like a lawn ornament. We dig into the field fixes that save your day and your lungs, starting with the offline chlorinator that refuses to dissolve tablets. Learn how to open it safely, diagnose the clogged check valve elbow with the “little BB,” and stop hidden leaks by replacing brittle black tubing before it drains a pool dry. If you’ve ever fought a stuck lid, we explain why trichlor swells o-rings and how a fresh gasket turns a two-man wrestle into a one-minute job.

High PSI and poor prime can stall an entire route, so we share the quick backwash that drops pressure in 25 to 30 seconds and brings the system back to life. When your backwash runs oddly clear, we show you the toggle trick that shakes compacted DE loose. Then we tackle the age-old question of how much DE to add back, cutting through wet versus dry confusion with practical recharge amounts that protect grid life and maintain strong flow without overloading the filter.

Finally, we turn service into strategy with a cleaner plan that works. Drop in bulletproof demo cleaners like the Hayward Aquanaut or Polaris Max, set variable-speed pump RPMs correctly, and let spotless water sell itself. For budget holdouts, deploy refurbished spares—Navigators, Aquanauts, MX6s and MX8s—to prove the value over time. You’ll cut manual vacuuming, keep pools cleaner all week, and win more satisfied clients with less effort. Subscribe, share with a fellow tech, and leave a review telling us the one tip you’re trying on your next stop.

• why offline chlorinator tablets stop dissolving
• how to open chlorinators safely and replace the check valve elbow
• spotting brittle black tubing before it drains a pool
• freeing stuck lids by replacing swollen o-rings
• using a quick backwash to drop PSI and restore flow
• what to do when backwash water runs clear
• practical DE recharge amounts after backwashing
• demo strategies that sell cleaners without sel

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Transcript

Coaching Program Invitation

Learning By Doing In The Field

Offline Chlorinator: Tablets Not Dissolving

Fixing The Clogged Check Valve Elbow

Preventing Leaks From Brittle Black Tubing

Stuck Lids And Swollen O-Rings

Quick Backwash To Lower High PSI

When Backwash Water Runs Clear

How Much DE To Add Back

Selling Automatic Cleaners The Smart Way

Reliable Demo Cleaner Setups

Using Spare Cleaners To Win Converts

Why Every Pool Should Have A Cleaner

Where To Find More Resources

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. This episode is called The Pool Tech Knowledge Guy Volume 2. And this is where I go over certain aspects of pool service that you may not really know about and learn when you're being trained, or if you're buying a pool route, or if you're taking care of your backyard pool. These are things that you kind of get by being out there, and these little bits of knowledge I'm going to share with you today in this podcast. 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. Again, these are things that you kind of learn while you're out there, the troubleshoot, and sometimes you really can't find the answer without experiencing things. I remember when I first started service, there were no cell phones, of course, and there was no Google really. And so I had to take off my first motor and replace it. And without any instructions, I kind of had to just use my logic skills to figure out how this thing worked. And it's not super difficult actually, but if you've never done it before, it can be challenging. It took me a lot longer than it does now, but I was able to work my way through it. So this is just to impart certain knowledge to you so that you don't have to kind of struggle through things. The first one I'll start with is if you have a rainbow offline chlorinator, that's the chlorinator with the black tubings. It's the rainbow 300, they have different variations of that one as well. But you'll see this white chlorinator and it's it's for three-inch tablets and these black tubes. Now, there's a couple things about this I'll cover here. The main thing I wanted to cover is if the tablets are not melting in there, and I recently did a podcast on toxic chemicals and fumes. And so if the tablet's not melting in here and it's sitting in there in the chamber, and it's basically there's no water really in there, it's you open when you open it up, you're going to get a really toxic, you know, plume of gas, and it may knock you out, may knock you down for sure, and make you gag and cough. So be careful whenever you get to a new account or an account where the chlorine level is struggling, that has a chlorinator. The first thought I always have when I'm at a pool with the and with the offline chlorinator and the chlorine level is near zero, and I know there's tablets in there, is that the tablets aren't dissolving, and that's why it's at zero, and so I open that carefully and make sure that I don't stand over it when I open it. And so, sure enough, in most cases, if the tablets aren't dissolving, there is a little check valve on the bottom. And if you turn over the chlorinator, you're gonna see a little elbow, and inside that elbow, there's like a little BB, basically, and unscrew it, take the turn the pool off, unscrew the black tubing, take that elbow off and shake it by your ear, and you should hear the little BB going back and forth. If you don't hear it, that means that it's clogged up with gunk, basically, from the trichlor tablet. You just simply replace them. That's what I do. And El Penta says you can clean them. I've never been able to successfully do this. I just replace them. I carry a bunch of them in my truck, they're like six or seven bucks, and just replace it, and that will get the tablets to dissolve in the chlorinator. Guaranteed that that's the problem why the tablets aren't dissolving. It's that little check valve elbow that's clogged up. Changing that, the tablets will start dissolving. But use caution again with the undissolved tablets in there. Couple more things with the chlorinator. I was gonna say just one more thing, but I'll just say two things. A black tubing is exposed to the sunlight and it can't get brittle and crack. So you want to test it every so often, maybe every few months, kind of bend it a little bit with your hand to see if it's cracking. Because if that tubing cracks, and this has happened to me on more than one occasion, it'll drain the pool down significantly, especially if the skimmer has a float diverter valve, it'll just drain it down past the skimmer and continue to drain it down until the pool is virtually empty, until it gets to the main drain, basically, at that point. So be careful with the black tubing, check it often to make sure it's not cracked or brittle, because if that cracks, it's going to of course cause the pool to leak water. I would order some black tubing carrying your truck. This they sell in six-foot sections, they're coiled up, so they're easy to store, and having a couple of these on your truck is really helpful with these chlorinators. The last thing is if you can't get the lid off these things, and this is problematic out there when the lids get stuck on there. Now, some guys use a 2x4. I like using my large channel locks. I carry these large blue channel locks, you should have them. They're let me get you actually the product so you can kind of get visualize what it is. You can look this up on Home Depot. It's the 16.5 inch tongue and groove slip joint plier. I call them channel locks, and it's my channel lock, so that's why I call them channel locks, but I guess they're actually called tongue and groove slip joint pliers. These are pretty gigantic channel locks. I'll just take the blue part of the handle and set it inside the top of the chlorinator, and then I'll put my weight on it and turn it off. And the reason why those lids get stiff and get stuck on there, there's an o-ring in there that after exposure to the trichlor and the gases in there expands and gets really fat, and it expands to like you know 10 times its normal size, believe it or not. You you'll see when you take it off, look at the o-ring, it'll be like gigantic in there, and just replace it with an o-ring. So carry some of those o-rings for the Pentar uh chlorinators on your truck, and you can put them in there and change them often. So that's the only reason why the lid is stuck on there. That o-ring expands out and it kind of causes like a seal basically. And change an o-ring, the lid is gonna be so easy to get off going forward at that point, but it's something to note that there can be a lot of problems with these chlorinators, and unless you've worked on them for the first time, you're going to be kind of clueless of why it's not kind of dissolving in there, you know, why the lid's not coming off. And I hope this helps solve the mystery there for you. This one here is for those of you who serve as pools with a D filter with a backwash. Sometimes you get to the pool and the filter pressure is at 30 psi, but it may be on a day where you really can't clean that filter, and it's something that you want to just kind of bring the psi down a little bit without doing much, and you may not even have D on your DE on your truck. And I've had the situation before where I forget to bring DE with me, and the pool psi is at 30. You could do something called a quick backwash, and I've done this successfully, it's not in the manual anywhere, and it's probably not recommended by the manufacturer. They would want you to do a two or two-minute backwash and then recharge it with DE. But I found the quick backwash really works in more than one situation. Of course, the primary situation I work in is if you're at 30 psi and you want to just get the pool down a little bit until the next week, and then you can, of course, clean the filter or fully backwash it. It's also a great way to check if there's something wrong with the pool. I think the quick backwash also offsets some problems with priming and things like that. So if you see that you know the water's not filling up the pump pot or wet end, you know, you look in the lid and it's like half full of water and it's kind of churning and struggling. That's because it just needs one of these quick backwashes. Maybe the automatic cleaner is not moving or the spa spillway is just trickling over when it should be flowing well. So turn the pool off, and then you want to backwash it for about 25 seconds, 30 seconds, and then put it back in the pool mode, and you'll see the PSI drop down maybe to 20 or 22, and that's enough to get you through the week in most cases. It's also enough to get water flowing in the pump basket, and it doesn't really expel a lot of diatomaceous earth, and that's something that is effective with D filters. Now, let me cover a couple backwash points since I'm talking about this. If you open up the backwash valve and and turn it, put it in backwash mode, I should say, and nothing but clear water comes out. Don't worry about that. It's because probably the diatomaceous earth is really clay-like and covering the grid. So, what you want to do when that happens is turn the pool off, put it back in filter mode, turn the pool on for 30 seconds, turn the pool off, put it back in backwash, turn the pool on. And I can guarantee you that putting it in backwash, clear water comes out, turning it off, putting it back in filter mode for 20 seconds or so, and then putting it back in backwash mode, you normally would get a lot of the DE to come off at that point because you're kind of like shocking the system by quickly going to backwash, back the filter, and then backwash again, and that kind of loosens up the DE and gets it to come out. So that's how you solve that problem. If you aren't getting any dirty water coming out when you first initially backwash the filter, and last, if you do backwash the filter for one and a half minutes or two minutes for a full backwash, the question always is well, how much diatomaceous earth do I put back in? Do I put and it depends on the scooper? If you're using the true one-pound scoop, which is the large orange scooper, or if you're using the half-pound scoop, which is like the blue or light blue scooper. Actually, there's like a large light blue scooper now. So basically, diatomaceous earth when it's dry, the dry weight is different than the wet weight. It's kind of confusing, but a true one pound scoop of DE is one pound, it's a larger scoop, and the regular scoop is actually half a pound of dry DE, so you have to put two scoops. But let's just say you're using the large, true one pound scooper, how much DED you put back in. This is very debatable, and it's one of those things where there's no concrete answer. The manufacturer, I think, says put half the DE back in that you normally would put into a filter cleaning. So if you have a 48 square foot DE filter, you're gonna put like three pounds back in. 60 square foot, you're gonna put four pounds. But I really think it's one of those things where you don't really need a ton of DE back in there. I would say I always put about two pounds of diatomaceous earth back into a 48 square foot filter, and maybe three pounds of a 60 square foot filter. You'll kind of judge this out on your route how much DE to add back in. There's no true scientific amount because you don't know how much diatomaceous earth came off the grids in the backwash to begin with, and you don't want to over-recharge it. I think putting half the DE back in is too much, in my opinion. So I always err on putting a little bit less DE back in, and it seems to work out perfectly for me, not overloading the filter or diatomaceous earth, and I never put half the amount back in to a filter after backwashing it. Let me change gears a little bit and talk about automatic cleaners and pools. And I think as a pool professional, all your accounts should have an automatic cleaner in the pool. It really helps speed up your day. It also helps keep the pools clean all week long, and it's a necessary tool to have in a lot of areas, especially my area of Los Angeles County where it's really dusty when the wind blows and it keeps the dirt out of the pool. Now the question is, what's the most effective way to sell these cleaners to customers that are reluctant to buy them? Because a lot of customers like them, have them already in the pool, and you take over the account, not a problem. But there are a segment out there that just don't want them in the pool. Don't think about it. Some of them may say, Well, I hired you to clean the pool, and that's why I don't want one. I want you to clean the pool and vacuum it every week. That's fine. But there is a pretty easy way to sell these to the customer, and I find that there's two effective ways. One, of course, is to put a demo cleaner in the pool. Now, pick this carefully because you don't want the demo cleaner to fail, and the customer is going to be like, Yeah, I told you they don't work. So pick your demo cleaner carefully. I think there are a couple default demo cleaners that you can drop in the pool and not worry about. I would say the Hayward Aquanaut pool cleaner is probably one of the best demo cleaners. Works in just about every pool. Now, of course, fiberglass and vinyl pools. You would want to demo something like the Zodiac Ranger, but for the plaster pools and pebble tech, I like the Hayward Aquanaut. You can also demo the Polaris Max or Atlas Cleaner. These are also pretty bulletproof in those pools. So make sure you set it up for the pool. If it's a VS pump, get the RPM set. You should know how to set these up pretty good at this point. So setting it up is critical so that it's actually working in the pool. And these two are pretty effective in keeping the pool clean during those weeks. I'll leave it in for two or three weeks. Then I'll tell the customer if you want to buy it, I'll sell sell you one at cost for my supplier. And sometimes they can order one on and get a rebate as well, or you can get the rebate for them. And it's a great idea to demo them first, and the pool is gonna look so good during the week that they're gonna just love having the cleaner in there. So I usually sell about sell these to about 80% of the ones I demo in with no problem. But there's a small segment, let's say 20%, that are like, well, I I don't really have the money in my budget right now for one, so I'll think about it. So with those customers, I'll just put one of my spare cleaners in the pool and just let it ride it out until they feel comfortable with buying a cleaner. So I have a lot of Hayward navigators. There was one point where I had like 20 of them in my garage, I had way too many of them, so I had one of my delivery drivers take him and he resold them himself. But I these are the ones that I pull out of pools all the time. Any cleaner that you can pull out of a pool, if you have a used Hayward Aquanaut, you can use that, or even an MX8. I like using these in some most of the pools. If you can get an MX8, rebuild it. One of the guys here in my area uses MX6s all the time and just puts them in customers' pools and doesn't even worry about charging them. I mean you can do that as well, but I just like using a spare cleaner, an older one. Then I'll tell the customer, I understand you are not ready to buy a cleaner. I do have a spare cleaner that I can put in the pool and I'll put it in next week for you and just leave it in there until you're ready, and that way you'll get the same benefit of having the cleaner. And eventually I know you're going to purchase one, but for now I'll leave the spare cleaner in it. Sometimes you'll leave it in there for a year, and it's one of those things where eventually they will actually buy one, hopefully. If not, you can leave the spare cleaner and definitely. It doesn't really cost you anything to have the spare cleaner in there and does save you time. And this is one way to actually have a cleaner in the pool where the customer is reluctant to buy one. I just like having cleaners in all the pools because it makes again your job easier. You can do more pools, and you're not spending so much time manually vacuuming the pools with getting the dirt out. It just frees you up to do other things. And if you have spare cleaners, utilize them, don't leave them in your garage. If you put a new cleaner in the customer's pool, pull their old cleaner out and refurbish it and use it as a spare cleaner. But definitely demo those cleaners in the pool. When you demo a suction cleaner, the customer more than likely will eventually purchase the cleaner. So I hope you found these tips helpful. And if you're looking for other podcasts, you can find them on my website, swimming for learning.com. Click on the podcast banner. There'll be a drop down menu of over 1800 podcasts for you there as well. 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 you rest of your week and God bless.