I remember when I used to love rainy days in Phoenix because they're so rare. Now I have a pool. As everyone who's been in phoenix in the rain knows, before the rain comes the dust. Now, the dust in and of itself isn't so bad, but there's this invisible force that stirs up the dust and brings it over the city, the w-word which is a 4 letter word when dealing with a pool, especially when the neighbor has tall trees with many leaves. I came home to a pool full of leaves. Floating leaves, and sunken leaves. Yes, leaves do in fact sink. Combine that with my frustrations with my pool pump (and all the other stuff that goes with it) - which I'll describe in the next paragraph.

Welcome to the next paragraph. So I've had all sorts of problems with my pool, but I've learned a lot (or at least compared to my relative knowledge on pool car prior to these incidents). My pool guy installed a vac-mate, which is a deal that sits in the skimmer box and hooks to the pool vac (the little thing that roams around the bottom of the pool cleaning it) and also has a skimmer opening, with an adjustment for pressure from the vac vs. skim - pretty simple device right? Well, it works well so long as you have enough water in the pool. Somehow my water level had dropped, and my automatic leveler (which is kinda like the deal in the average home toilet that stops it from filling when the tank is full), wasn't working. As it turns out, the tube that runs from the pool to the "box" with the floating device was clogged, so the "box" was filled higher than the pool. After pulling the leaves out of the line, and watching all the other dirt and stuff which had built up flow into my pool, the leveler kicked in and started refilling the pool. It doesn't add all that much water, so I stuck the hose in it to help get things back in order.

So now the pool is actually overfilled, becaues I let the hose run for too long, but its doing ok. I wake up the next morning, and the water level is once again lower than the pump will operate, about 1-1.5 inches lower than the night before. Fed up with the thing, I shut it off and went to work. I come home to find the leaves (as described above). After taking care of as many of those with the net as I could, and noting that the water level in the pool was back up (thanks to the leveler), I turn my attention back to the pump - which must be the culprit in losing the water. After fiddling with it a while, I notice that when the pump is running normally, there's water draining out the backwash tube. This is not normal. Looking around, I couldn't figure out why that would be, so I decide maybe if I backwash it it'll stop. Well, it was a thought, instead after backwashing and then going back to normal operation water is pooring out the backwash tube. Not good. Thinking "maybe it'll just quit if I let it run for a bit". That was the dumbest thought I had all night. So, I shut it off, and figure there must be something in the valve to switch to the backwash tube, and there's three screws that hold that in so I go for it. Well, the valve won't come all the way out, but I can see down in the pipe that it looks to have a good seal. So, after getting it halfway out I put it back together not knowing what else to do with it at this point. I figure I should try it again, and low and behold everything runs fine with no water coming out the backwash tube.

Of course, the true test is going to be tomorrow morning when I wake up, will the water level be right? Will the pump still be running? Will dave be cursing at the pump? Only time will tell.