On the Home Front Archives

Endless Pools Fastlane: Excellent until it isn’t

TLDR; Endless Pools’ Fastlane is GREAT, until something goes wrong with it. Then the resources available to troubleshoot and repair it are lacking.

I have spent over $2,600 trying to repair my Fastlane unit this year. Endless Pools support is limited to either people reading diagnostic flowcharts over the phone or “independent service providers” who can install units but, so far, are not up to the task of diagnosing and repairing them. I am completely on my own in trying to repair my unit.

So, my enthusiasm has waned somewhat, if you don’t mind spending around $20,000 on a swim current unit and then facing the prospect of wholesale replacing it after 10+ years then maybe go ahead and get one for yourself. Perhaps you’ll be tired of your pool by then and it won’t matter.

For some background, I am a computer-guy. I’m reasonably competent in doing smaller mechanical tasks (install after-market parts on my car, diagnose and repair issues with my Polaris pool cleaner). But I recognize my limitations and will absolutely hire someone more skilled and experienced than me to do certain jobs.

When we built our swimming pool nearly 12 years ago, it was always with the intention of having the Fastlane as a key feature. So, when my Fastlane began to act up toward the beginning of last year (it was becoming difficult to adjust the current speed smoothly), I reconciled myself to getting it repaired for the new summer season. The Fastlane ultimately failed completely at the end of the swimming season last year so I was forced to move forward.

Part of my original reticence in addressing my Fastlane repairs was the complete lack of familiarity any of the pool shops / repair people that I dealt with had with it. Beginning around year 5 of owning the Fastlane, I started casually asking folks if they maintained, or knew of anybody local who maintained, these units. The most frequent response was always, “What is that?” and, after describing a Fastlane to them they usually knew what I was talking about but did not deal with them in any way. So it was not until the unit started exhibiting issues that I really started getting serious about getting help. I honestly did not want anything to do with fixing the unit myself.

Anyway, in speaking with Fastlane’s support line last November, we agreed that it was probably the impeller motor that had seized and that replacing that, along with the hydraulic fluid, should correct the issues I was describing. I ordered the parts in February with the intent of doing the work as soon as the weather became agreeable enough to do so.

Well, after swapping out the old impeller motor and not only purging out the old hydraulic oil, but also opening up the reservoir and completely cleaning out any traces of debris or the older fluid, I topped up the device with fresh new fluid and installed the new filter and turned it on. The hydraulic pump made all the normal sounds it used to make, but … no movement whatsoever on the impeller motor. Which is where I was when the unit failed last fall. This was in March of 2023.

Since then I have been on the phone with Endless Pool’s tech support for HOURS over multiple sessions. These are hours where I had to take the time off work because, you know, I work for a living and the support folks are only available during business hours.

The main issue that I encountered is that there is absolutely no provision for any kind of video call with them so that they can get a real feel for the context of the issue. I had to resort to taking many pictures and the occasional video and sending these to the techs. Each one in turn (I believe I dealt with 5 different techs in total over those weeks) managed to latch on to some irrelevant aspect of my description and insist on performing whatever flow chart diagnostics they had in front of them.

“It’s your impeller motor it must be seized” – “It’s brand new as I have already said”

“Your hoses must have a leak in them” – “Well, when we disconnected the hoses we could see that there was a lack of pressure coming from the hydraulic unit, so pretty sure the hoses are not the cause.”

“Your Proportional Relief Valve is seized” – “You can see from my purchase history that I have already bought a new one and replaced it.”

“Your Pressure Relief cartridge is seized” – “Same as the relief valve, this has also been replaced”

And on and on. I know that these techs deal with loads of customer repairs each day but none of them seemed to be able to listen to what was being said. I can’t tell if they were really making notes on my file regarding troubleshooting that was done, but if they were, subsequent techs whom I spoke with were certainly not reading these.

I’m a bit gobsmacked, my teenaged nephews and niece all have access to any number of video calling technologies: Zoom, Facetime, Teams, WebEx, Bluejeans, etc.

Likewise, in the course of my job I regularly need to use most of these tools every single day.

Yet Endless Pools somehow feels this technology is either unnecessary or inaccessible for them.

If you’ll recall, shortly after installing the Fastlane, Endless Pools support were completely clueless regarding a rather basic issue I was having with staining of the Stainless Steel handbar on the unit. Frankly, anybody familiar with pools (which I was not at the time) should have been able to point me to the solution within 5 minutes. So I am not at all sure what to say about the folks manning the support line.

A couple of months into this process, I submitted my name and location to Endless Pools to get an “independent service contractor” to help me. The fellow whose name popped out was really nice and tried to be helpful, but it seems that his expertise is exclusively in installing nice new units and maybe changing out the hydraulic fluid for customers. But he was utterly out of his depth in trying to troubleshoot my unit’s issue.

I tried again in late June but the “independent service contractor” I reached was going on vacation for the month and wouldn’t be able to help until late July or August.

In my latest call to Endless Pools, the tech agreed that the symptoms being exhibited were not being addressed by their diagnostic flow charts and promised to have one of their engineers contact me as he was certain the engineer should be able to identify and help address the issue. Shockingly, the engineer never contacted contacted me.

I have since been out of the country and had several other pressing personal issues that prevented me from actively pursuing this repair. But it’s looking like the only solution will be to pay Endless Pools $20,000 for a brand new unit. Which seems to be the only thing they are capable of helping with?

It is now September as I write this. Pretty much the entire summer has now passed without being able to use this very expensive paper weight. And I am disappointed.

Tankless Water Heater 16 years on

About 16 years ago we elected to install a Rinnai tankless water heater which I talk about in this blog post.

No Problems Whatsoever. We have never had to have the water heater repaired and we use it, as any family does, ALL the time.

Cold Water Sandwich Effect is a Myth. At least it is for us. I have to say that I have never encountered this issue. All of my hot water pipes run through the cement slab that forms the foundation of my house. Those pipes must be piteously insulated because the water between the heater and the faucet cools at an extraordinary rate. Some people have tried to claim that this is the cold water sandwich effect, but it obviously is not. We had this issue of needing to run the hot water for a while for the 10 years we had old-fashioned tank water heater so it’s not a new thing. I do not find that, when restarting, ANY cold water sneaks through the tankless heater as I cycle it on and off.

Use the hot water normally. A concern I had when I first started using this technology, was that there were a lot of moving parts: Solenoids controlling water flow, valves controlling gas flow, and a blower fan. Even the parts shared with tank water heaters such as gas valves, are used much more often and frequently when the tankless unit is in use. I decided to just use the heater normally without consideration for this difference. I figured that, if this caused a problem, I’d just have to get it repaired and then change how I approach using the heater. After 16 years, I am amazed at how robust it has been and I have absolutely no qualms about continuing to use it normally and not worry about the mechanics of my heater.

The middle dial sets the temperature. Once set the water temperature will not deviate.

Get a Thermo-Balanced faucet. For temperature-sensitive applications such as a shower where a swing in temperature might be unpleasant. This applies regardless of whether you have a tankless or tank water heater. When there is strong demand for either hot or cold water – such as a clothes washing machine, a toilet flushing or someone else taking a shower in your house – it can can change the pressure of one of the hot or cold supplies and leave you with a brief temperature swing. We are fortunate in that our water pressure is ample so that toilet flushing does not affect anything, but someone else starting another shower *can* have an effect. Basically the Thermo-balanced faucet will instantly (and I do mean instantly) alter the pressure for the other water supply to maintain the temperature. The net effect is that the overall pressure coming out of the shower will shift a bit but the temperature stays spot-on and comfortable.

Plan ahead if you want to recirculate. A number of years ago I heard about using a recirculating pump that I could add to my hot water system which, in conjunction with temperature-activated valves at the faucets of my choice, would ensure that the water at those faucets would be hot and ready to go instantly. The problem I faced was that I needed to find a recirculating pump that operated with enough force to trigger the Rinnai heater. This did not work out for me at the time. There are now tankless heaters with this kind of pump built-in. So if you want this kind of luxury, make sure your tankless heater supports it.

5-Gallon Bucket, Submersible Pump, and some hoses

Do the Annual Maintenance yourself. There is only one maintenance task that is needed for my water heater, that’s to annually cycle 4 gallons of white vinegar through it to clear out scale from the coils and valves. The initial outlay is for a 5-gallon bucket from Home Depot, a pair of hoses (the kind you use to connect a clothes washing machine), and a small submersible pump (I purchased mine from Amazon for about $62 – Simer 2305 Geyser II 1/6 HP Submersible Utility Pump). I’ve performed this task faithfully starting about 3 years after the heater was installed. It takes about 90 minutes on a rainy weekend day and is VERY satisfying to clear tout the gunk that accumulates over a year.

Would I do it again? Absolutely, when the time comes, or if I move to a new place, a tankless water heater will certainly be part of my setup.

It looks like this is the year of the Box Elderbug

I’ve lived in Indian hills for over 20 years now and it seems each year seems to “feature” a different insect as the king for that year. In past years it has been millipedes, potato bugs, Stink Bugs, etc. It’s usually something harmless but still noticeable when you’re doing chores outside. A couple of months ago we found one or two of these guys in our house and lately we find one or two a day. Today I found a large number (hundreds) sunning themselves out back on my shed. Is it safe to say that I’m not the only one seeing Box Elderbugs as “King” this year?

Building out the Backyard 02

The bobcat came in and regraded the backyard. That plus clearing out a bunch of the debris sets the stage for finessing the terraces.

It was too wet and sloppy today for me to want to trek up to the end of the yard for an overview shot but you’ll see in the next batch the difference.

The irrigation system piping is now buried except where final connections need to be made.

Looking closely you can see that the yard immediately behind the lenai is now level and there are two terraces taking shape beyond that to the left

The side yard is prepped. There will eventually be a fence and some nice space for the bird bath and a new bird feeder.

As viewed from the side of the above shed. It’s a bit hard to get a sense of the angles from this perspective.

Building out the Backyard 01

On the heels of last years epic renovations – Pool, Lenai, Driveway, Retaining Walls and Front Lawn and Irrigation system, we’ve embarked upon a less ambitious project to address the area behind the Lenai which comprises the bulk of our back yard.

This time we’re working with Brian Plett of Blaydes Landscaping. He is local here to my subdivision. No web page I’m afraid so I can’t link you to him.

I took a few before pictures to get a sense of how things look as viewed from the house:

Work began in a relatively small way, the bobcat will be here tomorrow and that’s when the work can begin in earnest. Today was mostly some cleanup and roughing in the irrigation system.

Lights installed on far side of Lanai

Building out the Backyard 02

Fastlane Stained Stainless Steel handle – a small miracle

After a few months of going around with Endless Pools and the folks at DesJoyaux, the DesJoyaux folks hit upon a workaround if not a solution for my issue with the handle on my Fastlane turning a black color.

As you can see from this “Before” picture the handle (and portions of the stainless steel cage below that protects the impeller) was a murky black color. I was unable to wipe it off to any meaningful degree yet enough would come off if you touched it to get on your hands or your bathing suit.

Several weeks ago, Billy Fowler from DesJoyaux said he thought he had hit upon something that might be of use and suggested two cleaning agents to try. He very generously offered to take back any chemical left if I found them to be ineffective which tells me that he is standing behind his research.

Basically I dumped some of this “StainFree” product from “Natural Chemistry” into a bucket with about a quart of water, donned some rubber gloves and used a rag to wipe the handle. After two or three swipes I saw the stainless steel shining through! It’s much more of a chemical reaction than an elbow grease effort. If I soaked the rag and basically squeezed it around a discolored portion of the handle the improvement was immediate. A bit of rubbing helped a bit but as soon as the chemical was spent there was no amount of rubbing that would improve it any more.

Here is the after picture. I cleaned the handle, pulled the top off the unit and replaced the sacrificial anode (which was designed for outboard engines) with a much smaller one but which was purchased from Endless Pools.

Now the question remains: Is this a permanent fix that resolves a one-off issue or will I need to periodically revisit my stainless steel pieces?

Installed “The Nest” today…

I’ve named it “HAL”.

Nest Learning Thermostat – 2nd Generation T200577

It can definitely beat out regular thermostats and I’m pretty sure it can outdo your programmable thermostat if you’re relatively active (in and out, temperature up and down a lot) or even if your schedule varies day by day.

Between the “airwave” technology that should maximize cooling dollars and its built in intelligence to figure out how long it takes to heat/cool your place, I’m expecting HAL will be able to cut our costs a little bit (I had my previous thermostat fully programmed) and maximize comfort by tracking our real use patterns and setting itself accordingly rather than the broad patterns that I set on the previous thermostat.

Oh, and did I mention, there’s an app for that? You can check out and control your house HVAC from your smartphone or anywhere with web access.

If you’re looking for an otherwise excellent thermostat, I’ve got an American Standard Gold XM Control 803 thermostat that I’m willing to let go cheap…

2012 Home Renovations – Part 33 – Landscaping

It took a while to decide what we wanted to do with our lawn after the pool / patio project. The original lawn had heave issues, scarring from a water main replacement and was generally a mish-mash of unhappy fescue, crab crass, creeping Charlie and dead spots. Having a mini mountain of earth piled on it for a few weeks did nothing to improve the situation.

We got several estimates to:
1) Put in new grass
2) install an irrigation system (was an afterthought but became important when we realized how much it would protect our investment)
3) re-countour our front lawn tree/garden area
4) come up with something attractive for the strip on the right side of our driveway
5) re-invent our front walkway garden area
6) come up with transitions for our back patio and the lawn and our house and the lawn in pretty shaded area
7) address the stepping stones that we had installed but with which we were not really happy

Mardi Grass landscaping has been doing our lawn for a little over a year now and they came in with what seems like a reasonable quote when blended with all the facets I wanted covered.

Having them performing ongoing maintenance also gives me a comfort level that they will be available to stand by their work should anything go awry.

The first step was to scrape off the remnants of the old lawn, plus remove any new growth that had accumulated after the major construction of this summer ended.

Then the lawn needed to be leveled and *some* topsoil applied. I have heard wildly varying versions of how much topsoil the Emerald Zoysia grass needs when it is installed on dirt such as mine. Mardi Grass’ take on it was somewhere in the middle. Some, but not a lot.

Above is the remains of our front entry garden area after the driveway and walkway work. Note the brownish bolder in the foreground. This was the only really big boulder that was dug up while excavating for the pool. This is to be moved into the other garden area on the front lawn. Also note “The Yucca Plant that will not die”. We have removed that plant twice. Each time it comes back.. a little closer to the walkway… presumably with malevolent intent. You can’t get anywhere near that thing without it piercing you regardless of clothing or other precautions. Maybe third time’s a charm?This strip along the side of the driveway has always been an issue for us. There is a lot of shade from the neighbor’s tree and it’s in an awkward spot to water manually. Note the truck with our grass on pallets on the street.

The front garden area is being recontoured with a border of monkey grass (liriope) separating it from the lawn and visually separating it from the driveway.

Most of the workers are preparing the garden area while one person begins laying the grass.

Unfortunately I had to get to work so I was not able to capture the whole process. I saw the start of the use of the ditch witch as they laid the irrigation plumbing. Here they are relocating one of the sprinkler heads at the entry way garden to better cover the area near the garage. Notice that the boulder that was in the foreground in the picture above has been removed.

The grass has been laid. The little pink flags represent locations of sprinkler heads. The strip to the right of the driveway is still outstanding at this point

Here is the back yard. One of the new catch basins shows up clearly now in contrast to the grass. Still outstanding back here is the replacement flagstones by the door and gravel in the “splash area” next to the enclosure (rain dripping off of the lexan roof hits the dirt and splashes mud against the lower portion of the screen) and a kind of no mans land next to the house where we decided we don’t really want grass growing.

The total for all this? About $11,200. Of that about $2,600 was for the irrigation system.

I keep trying to capture how beautiful rain looks when it’s on the screening. This is my best attempt to date. It looks like so many sparkling facets. Especially when the sun comes out after a shower…

2012 Home Renovations – Part 32 – Usable, final punch lists outstanding

Lights installed on far side of Lanai

Endless Pool Fastlane in a Salt Water Pool – Issue

So I had a pool installed this year. The pool opened on Memorial day and all was good.

Included in the pool was something I’ve been working toward for about 10 years, an Endless Pool system.

This particular system is called a “Fastlane” and it’s intended to be installed in a normal pool. i.e. the original endless pool was a self contained unit that has water return conduits and is focused on being essentially a “water treadmill”.

My system has brackets that fasten to the pool wall and the Fastlane is attached to those brackets with hydraulic hoses leading out to a pump that powers the unit from a safe distance away (keeping the electrics and the pool apart).

Note the Stainless Steel handle showing just above the water level.

Overall I’m really happy with the unit. I’m a reasonably aggressive swimmer and this unit is easily able to meet and exceed my capabilities.

I’m finding out now that Endless Pools is not really happy having their units in a salt water environment. The unit comes with a sacrificial anode (basically a hunk of zinc that you attach to the unit to attract electrons that would otherwise corrode the unit). Anybody who maintains a boat in a salt water environment will know what this is. When I tried to sign up for their “Sacrificial Anode Club” a few months ago I found that they’d already given up on that idea as they were encountering problems due to the vastly different rates at which the anodes are consumed for different pools. Temperature and pool chemistry varies a lot between pools and it was just too much of a hassle trying to work it out.

My first anode actually looked fine for about 3 months and then I began noticing some rust around some of the screws on the bottom cage (water input for the unit), on touching the anode it just crumbled immediately. Which meant it had been spent for probably at least a week or so. I immediately picked up a honking big anode from a motorboat supply house and ordered 3 more “official” units from Endless Pools to have on hand.

New here’s where my mystery comes in.

The stainless steel handle of the unit has pretty rapidly turned black. It’s some kind of corrosion but I have not been able to figure out what it is. If you touch it with your hand some will rub off on you and it’s a bit messy that way. So it’s not just a cosmetic thing, I don’t really want guests touching it and possibly messing up their swim suits.

In retrospect we are VERY lucky that we ordered the blue colored unit rather than the entirely stainless steel one, I shudder to think how awful it would look with the entire unit turning a coal black color like the handle.

I contacted Endless Pools and the first thing the rep offered to me was to change to a chlorine based pool system.

I told him to take that off the table since it was not really an option. He explained that they’ve been encountering issues with Salt water systems lately and he didn’t really know what to say. Apparently the adoption of salt water by individual consumers such as myself has caught them off guard.

Of course I had checked this before I ever determined my pool chemistry solution, their own website FAQ says use of a Fastlane with a salt system is A-OK so I was not expecting any issues:

Although as I search today I see this somewhat light warning out there, I would not have noticed this in my initial research in any case.

So I asked him to get my request for assistance in front of one of their techs and to please contact me by next Wednesday. If I don’t hear back I’ll be following up with them anyway.

I am posting this as a warning to other Fastlane owners that have or are considering a salt water system so that they can be informed. I will post any solution I find here as an update to this blog entry.

**Update** Even though I posted something as a reply below, I realize that it just gets lost in the comments. I found a solution and you can see this subsequent blog entry to check it out. Basically a simple and inexpensive cleaner plus being careful about what I introduce to the pool does the trick.

Lights installed on far side of Lanai

It took us a long time to find something we were going to be satisfied with for the far side of the pool enclosure. We wanted something that would accent the rock wall face without glaring back at the house where we would be sitting most of the time.

Some challenges included the fact that each light *had* to be at least 7.5 feet above the deck due to electric code restrictions and, since the enclosure posts were mounted on the far side of the retaining wall (about 10 inches from the near edge), the light needed to extend far enough over the deck so that it cast its light back on the wall rather than casting a shadow.

We ended up choosing a gooseneck design that was also “Dark Sky” certified. This would minimize stray light that would only reflect back on the screening which would take away from our desired effect.

We ended up choosing the World Imports 9004-89 Dark Sky Essen Collection Wall Light from Amazon. There are three sizes and we gambled on the largest one (with a 28 inch length) as being the most suitable for our purposes. We needed 3 of them. Two of which now sport 40 watt equivalent CF bulbs and the rightmost fixture sports a 60 watt equivalent to balance out the light.

Here we see them along the back of the enclosure right after I installed them.

They look exactly as we had hoped.

This slightly blurry picture shows the reach and how the larger shade does an excellent job of hiding the bare bulb

It was VERY difficult to get a shot that properly represents the lights at night. My camera and my software both want to make proper sense of the light and try to make every shot like it’s daylight. I did a bit of fussing with the images in post production and this was as close as I can get to how it really looks. The pool water *is* violet in this shot and looks great on its own. The new lights are there only for accent.

Here, with the lights off, the pool light is more obvious. Again the camera tried to make sense of things so both the sky in the background and the pool lights are showing MUCH brighter than reality.

One of the other things we need to deal with is how to gracefully handle the wet swim suits and towels that accumulate during the day. We wanted them to be handily available throughout the day and for re-use as needed.

Instead of having a hamper or leaving them hanging over chair backs on the deck we opted to pick up this “CORDAY ACCORDIAN DRYING RACK” from Ballard Designs and install it over the utility sink in our laundry room (which is just off the pool deck). That way really wet items can drip while the other items can take advantage of the ceiling fan breeze and air conditioning to quickly dry out of reach of Georgia’s humidity-filled days.

We just popped out the existing shelves to install this so we still have a bit of work to remove the remaining shelf supports and finish painting the already patched support holes.

That’s Phoebe (one of our cats) casually observing the scene on the dryer.

The rack can extend out as far as is needed and is much more attractive than a clothes line or one of those portable drying racks.