Swimming Pool Wall Fittings

Here are some images of different types of wall fittings for a swimming pool.

Basic Swimming Pool Pump And Filter Diagram

This is a simple diagram of a swimming pool plumbing system. When you turn on the pump, is sucks water from the pool and forces it through the filter (heater, if you have one) and then through the auto chlorinator and finally back to the pool. You have a bunch of valves that allow you to direct flow coming from the pool or returning to the pool. If your needed to increase the amount of suction from the skimmers, you can shut off the drain or vice versa. You can increase the amount of force coming from individual return lines by shutting off the other return lines. On my moms pool we don't have valves for each of the return lines, so we use expansion plugs. They look like a rubber cork with a wing nut, you poke these into the return line wall hole and turn the wing nut until it sticks.

Polaris Automatic Pool Cleaner Wall Fittings

Sometimes the terminology is what gets in the way of finding the right piece to the puzzle. If you have a pool with water pipes that flow back to the pool, these are called "Return Lines". On older pools without a booster pump you attach a hose to the hole in the wall where you have water pumping back into the pool. Your automatic cleaner is using the water pressure from your filters pump to drive itself around the pool and to push debris into a filter bag. In my moms pool, we are having a hard time getting the cleaner hose attached the "Wall Fittings" or "Return Line Wall Fittings" or "Pool Return Jet" . Her pool basically has some holes in the wall that water shoots out of. No threads or special fittings to attach a hose to are "built in" and the holes have some old pipe material that is crumbling away.
For the polaris model automatic cleaners, a "Stub Pipe Connection Kit" is used to a create a fitting that the automatic cleaner can attach to. It has an expansion connector that is basically a plastic tube that is split on one end, you push this into the return line hole then you push a smaller diameter copper tube into the expansion tube which forces the expansion tube to (you guessed it" expand. The expansion of the diameter of the tube should lock it firmly in place and let you connect about half dozen other little parts that finally allow you to attach your pool cleaner. We are at the point now that the stub pipe fitting will no longer stay in place. Here is a diagram a couple of return line wall fittings used to attach a polaris quick connect that is found on the end of the hose running to the cleaner.

Another good description of the return line fittings can be found here >>>

This Old Swimming Pool

I will begin to document the work I do to keep my moms old 1960's Metal wall and concrete swimming pool running. Unfortunately, pool companies are not that helpful with information about older pools and are mostly interested in selling new parts to replace old ones and not addressing real updating issues related to wall fittings and out of date technology. I will include some basic maintenance information and create a go to website for my mom to use when she is trouble shooting her pool problems.