No Wonder They Want to Get Away From It

The saga of the sprinkler pump continues, much like the decade-long siege of Troy.

It’s interesting to examine the gargantuan sprinkler/irrigation apparatus in the shed, and to note its many revolting flaws.

The whole thing is situated about two and a half feet below the water level of the pool. That means water is always trying to get into the shed, even when everything is turned off. Whenever a valve or a joint has a problem, water starts dribbling out.

The sprinkler pump is connnected to the pool system so the pool can be filled from a well instead of the tap, and so the irrigation pump can be used to drain the pool. The sad result of this is that if the valve going from the sprinkler pump to the pool-fill outlet leaks (it does), water leaks from the pool into the sprinkler pump. You never see it. The water level in the pool keeps dropping, for no apparent reason.

I doubt there is such a thing as a completely reliable valve. Maybe old-style metal gate valves are good enough to shut down the drips, but the valve that goes to the pool-fill outlet is in a section of the system that’s all PVC, so the valve is a crappy plastic ball valve.

The pool pump is also under constant pressure from the pool water, so water escapes from the plumbing and goes on the floor. The pool service people are absolutely inept. They can’t do anything about it. They can’t figure out how to fill the pool; they just leave notes for me. They can’t seat the skimmer basket lid correctly so it doesn’t leak. When the return pipe developed leaks, they couldn’t fix it.

I don’t know if they realize people pay them to do this stuff. People don’t want to be their own pool guys. If I wanted to be a pool guy, I’d get a crappy Japanese pickup and fill the back with hoses and go to work.

They’re fired, as of next week.

Today I went out and replaced several feet of PVC above the pool pump. Water was coming out through two joints. Instead of replacing those joints and the pipe between them, they put in two crummy repair joints (one of which leaked), and in the process, it looks like they loosened another joint. I spent 45 minutes working on it, and now it’s fine. And I’m just winging it. I’m not trained. Shouldn’t they be able to do this?

The sprinkler pump was connected to a wall box using flex conduit. The ground wire from the motor went into the box, where it led to…a cap. There was a second green ground wire in the box, screwed to the back of the box, leading to…another cap. Some genius disconnected the ground AND took the time to cap the disconnected ends. Explain that. In a sane world, that would be considered attempted murder.

I got some 12-gauge extension cord, a 30-amp plug, and a 30-amp receptacle, and I made a cord for the new pump. The cord goes into the motor housing through a strain relief fitting. The other end goes the new plug, which I wired. I replaced the ridiculous flex conduit with another length of cord and the 30-amp receptacle. Now if I ever have to move the pump again, I can just unplug it. And it’s grounded! What a novel concept.

I still have to fasten the pump to the floor and finish the pipe on the suction end. The floor under the pump is always wet, and that makes it hard to mark the floor and put holes in it. The floor is wet because the pool-fill valve leaks through the sprinkler pump.

The wet floor makes it hard to finish fixing the pump, and the fact that the pump isn’t fixed keeps the floor wet. It’s some catch, that catch 22.

I know this is boring. I don’t care. I have to release some pressure. If you don’t like it, go look at Gawker. Before Hulk Hogan eats it.

I’m about one hour away from finishing up the sprinkler mess. After that, I have to find a company that can come out and fix the pipes under the yard and the sprinkler heads. That, I refuse to do. Everyone has a limits. Nothing is worse than working on sprinklers.

Eventually I will have to confront the problem with the grade. The driveway is too high, so water runs into the pool and sprinkler areas. I’m going to have to chalk this up to the total incompetence of South Florida tradesmen, just like my other problems. It should be obvious that you can’t raise a driveway an inch every time you resurface it. Whoever fixed the driveway last time didn’t get the memo.

I need to put some kind of barrier on the doorway thresholds, to keep the water from running into the pump areas. The thresholds are concrete, and I don’t know of anything that sticks to concrete well. I’m thinking I may go get some aluminum channel and attach it with screws, filling the underside with gunk to seal it. Wood will rot, even if it’s pressure-treated. Steel will rust. Masonry won’t seal against the concrete under it. At least I think it won’t.

Tomorrow I expect to be done with this crap. Then I guess I’ll have to fix something else another person failed to do correctly.