Commercial Pool Plumbing -the equipment room
to 4/21/2010

Inside this limited space I had to engineer how to fit in two fat DE filters with multi-port flow valves, connect a 3 horse power (HP) 3-phase 480 volt pump to fixed immovable un-aligned plumbing coming up out of the ground, configure solar plumbing and ad the solar booster pump all in the same space. There were several objectives to this project that had to be implemented; one priority was to make the system fit into the limited space, but also make everything about this install easy to maintain in terms of equipment and plumbing accessibility -valves, pumps, and the filters have to be conveniently accessible in order for ease and expedient servicing and routine maintenance by the staff crew. So the physical layout had to be well thought thru. Additionally, a saline system is yet to be installed, so I preplanned for that to be installed soon after this stage -note the loop above. This may look like a tangled mess of plumbing, but the format is very methodical and intentional. The filters are plumbed in parallel with even length of pipe at water intakes and exits, the valves are placed in the best possible accessible places, and the same with the pumps. There was an issue of learning more about 3-phase electrical supply and load. That part was fun, since part of my expertise is in electrical and I never mind expanding my knowledge. So now, I have some first-hand experience with three phase electrical systems. I'm rather proud of this installation. Especially since the outcome was so positive; better circulation and ultimate energy efficiency.

This is one of two equipment rooms for the 90,000 gallon pool at a large sports camp close to Lake Hughes. In each equipment room were two old out-dated brass 2 HP (horse power) 3-phase 480 volt pumps, two large DE filters, an additional 220V 1.5 HP booster pump for one of two water solar systems, an unusable separation tank, and old brass valves were difficult to turn, if at all. What a nightmare and a mess! Our job is to re-plumb the entire pool and revamp the whole filtration and recirculation systems.

The demolition begins by removing the pieces of equipment and all the tangled mess of PVC plumbing right down to the ground. Our guy Julio at left and me at right.

Both DE filter tanks are removed and we remove the rest of the old equipment.

Lots and lots of old "tangled" PVC plumbing is removed above ground which ties into old copper plumbing below ground. All of the old copper plumbing will be negated and all new PVC plumbing will be installed all around the pool and to each of the two equipment rooms. At left is a large transformer which steps down the incoming 480 volt supply to the more regular 220 and 110 volt supply. Three-phase volt supplies are interesting and more economical for the higher HP (horsepower) rated motor/pumps. I had to learn a bit of this stuff on the fly. That's our companies strong suite, is learning new things. Not only do grow in experience but we also keep up with new and current technologies. We are interested in "Green Power" and seek our expertise in this area.

Me and a piece of old PVC. Note the old PVC (lower left) connected to copper pipes disappearing in the cement. Two pumps were connected in tandem (side by side) "sucking" from the same suction lines simultaneously. This just didn't make any sense to us, we know already that such a situation makes two pumps in such a situation "fight" against each other. Is it no wonder that they routinely had to change the motors on the pumps all too often. We had to wonder how such a situation could have evolved and continued un-noticed?? Our solution was to employ a single very strong 3-phase pump using the existing more economical 3-phase electrical supply and completely improving the plumbing by simply installing a single suction line using larger ID (inside diameter) suction supply and also for the return plumbing.

The new plumbing begins in the "left" equipment room of the pool -remember, there are two complete systems for this single pool. I got to do the Left one. First, note the six stubbed up pipes at the left, this is our new improved PVC plumbing to and from the pool. Pipe function from bottom up; a 4" suction pipe from 4 of 8 skimmers in the pool, one of two "Main Drain suctions from bottom of pool, a 4" return line, a dedicated "vac" line for vacuuming the pool, the solar return line for hot water to the pool, and finally the solar cool water supply line going out to the panels. We're just beginning to make our connections here and designing on-the-fly to engineer how the physical components will go together in such a way that makes service and maintenance easy for the technicians who will fallow. It's too easy just to "slap" this stuff in, and that's what we DON'T want to do. We know what it's like to come in after another installer who doesn't care about what happens afterward. We want this installation to be VERY maintenance-friendly; easy access to service the electric motors, the pumps, and the plumbing. We use "serviceable" valves too.

Just a close-up of the 3-phase pump connection to the suction lines with adjustable valves which allow flow regulation between the main-drain, the four skimmers and the vacuum line as desired.

The main pump installation complete (left pump).
At right is the solar booster pump to help circulate water to and from the solar panels -though as it turns out, our new plumbing design is so efficient, the booster pump isn't even needed anymore and actually just the one main circulation 3-phase pump with just enough resistance to make it run even more efficient -when a pump motor runs too "free" due to lack of resistance, it actually spins too fast maximizing amperage usage -more energy (electricity)! So pumps actually need just the right amount of resistance to slow it down, there-by using less AMPS compared to when it is spinning too fast -a testimony to our awesome plumbing engineering on this project. Our client is VERY happy.

A "cleaner" installation. I try arranging the new non-metallic filters to see how they occupy space before they are actually plumbed in -I did not settle on this plan after all. We do not use metallic filters as before intentionally as we are later to install a "saline" (salt) automatic purification system which produces less and more consistent chlorine right in the water as the system normally re-circulates. This will immensely improve the maintenance burden for the staff... another thing that makes our client happy. Now they don't have wheel in profuse cartons of liquid toxic chlorine to the complex which is already far from "civilization." Now, all they have to do is drop some easy to handle non-toxic salt into the pool about every other week -easy.

The finished plumbing; note the new positions of the filters for easy maintenance/cleaning -the multi-port valves of the filters right in front for easy operation. The elevated loop is where the saline system cells will be installed.

All the connections have been made to the pipes leading to and from the pool and solar panels.

The solar tie-in -the two lower left horizontal pipes which carry water to and from the solar panels -the lowest sends cool water from the pool to the panels, the next one up returns warmed water from the panels to the pool, and the upper most pipe is the main return to the pool.

This is the old thermal protector for the old 3-phase 2HP pump motor -it's like a special circuit breaker for 3-phase 480 volt electrical load. There was one for each of the four old pumps, but we only need two for our two powerful 3HP motors. We tried using our pump on this old thermal protector, but it kept tripping. This darn thing is thirty years old! So I installed a new modern up-rated thermal protector... see next picture.

I took out the old thermal protector and installed this new modern one which can be adjusted to handle from between 7 to 10 amps. Also this device had two manually operated external "ON"/"OFF" buttons in order to power up the load that would be put on it. In this particular circuit for the pool pump, we want the pump to go on automatically timed by a time-clock. So I modified the control wiring of the device to be operated via a time-clock rather than the stock manual buttons. The device consist of two components; the upper larger unit is a "contactor" and the lower smaller one is "circuit breaker" which will disengage the contactor if it senses amperage use beyond the amp setting.

This is the big fucking pool. To re-plumb this entire pool, we removed all of the old coping. This is the new cement coping we poured all around the pool. We also replaced all of the tile around the pool... a nice "face lift."

Pouring and finishing the new coping.

To make a cantilever "bull-nose" edge on the coping, forms were attached to the underside. When the cement begins to set after a fresh pour, the forms are removed and the coping is finished by hand.

We were going to trench behind the pool by hand, but life got easier when Bobby, the younger brother of our excavators, let us hire him and a Bobcat backhoe. I was able to tow the trailer with the Bobcat with my F-350 easy. Just one reason why I need that stupid truck.

end of story
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