Pool Archives - Marc's Musings

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.

Found a great source for my Sacrificial Anodes

Long story short, if you are looking to find copper-free zinc sacrificial anodes you want “Pool Tool Anti Electrolysis” and, as of today, you want to get them from GetPoolParts.com.

To protect my Endless Pool Fastlane I use Zinc Sacrificial Anodes.

The purest source for these I had for these was from Endless Pools themselves. These used to cost a little over $15 each from them which was pretty pricey for something I would need to replace 2-4 times a year.

Similar anodes are used for maritime part protection (inboard motors, hulls, etc.) for a fraction of this cost. However, the maritime anodes that I have found are typically not so pure as I hoped. There is enough copper in them to cause blackening of stainless steel which quickly becomes unattractive.

This…

Endless Pool Fastlane showing stainless steel handle.

becomes this…

Endless Pool Fastlane showing stained stainless steel handle (yes I see the irony).

So I bought a healthy supply of the anodes that lasted me until this year.

When I went looking I saw that the price has now increased to about $24 for these, which is patently absurd.

What I want specifically is a product called “Pool Tool Anti Electrolysis”.

So I came across a site called “Get Pool Parts” that had them available for less then half of where I was seeing them anywhere else ($12.16 per anode). Ordinarily this would be a red flag as deals that are too good to be true are there to suck you in on the internet.

Their BBB record was just OK (B+ as of this writing) but I couldn’t find anything really bad about them in searching for scams or problems. Another vote of confidence for them was a few postings on Troublefreepool.com which has been a great source of pool information for me in the past.

I ordered these really late Tuesday night (2 am) and they arrived on Saturday morning. Everything was exactly as specified. I couldn’t be more pleased. I just wanted to give them a shout out and also let people know about this option and my good experience should you wish to avoid the extortionist pricing for this basic part.

Salt Water Generator Pool Recommendations

For the below I want to acknowledge the tremendous amount of knowledge I gleaned from various web sites and forums across the Web. But foremost among these I have to say was TroubleFreePool.com. Of course every pool is a bit different, whether it be the equipment you are using or the construction of the pool (cement, plaster, vinyl, etc.) or the environment your pool is in (indoor, outdoor, lots of debris can get into it, lots of sun exposure, etc.) so you need to tailor what you learn to your specific situation.

So the following is what I’ve synthesized to be ideal for myself and is still a bit of a work in progress but I think I’m asymptotically approaching the ideal for my situation.

My pool is relatively small (just under 11,000 Gallons), in ground and outside but protected from debris by being within a Lanai, sanitized using a Salt Water Generator (SWG) with massive filtration capacity due to having a DesJoyaux pump/filter which is efficient and quiet as my main cleaning system and a separate Jandy pump/filter which is primarily for sanitizing and heating the water. It’s also a vinyl pool for simplicity.

I use a blue bubble pool cover in the mid-fall through mid-spring to retain heat and do not close the pool in the winter even though it’s pretty much not usable from late November through early March.

Here is a letter I sent to my Pool folks after they emailed me with some concerns regarding my pool chemistry this year. Hitherto my pool was known to them for being pretty much perfectly chemically balanced all the time. There was a change in leadership and staff at the beginning of this season and I found that the chemistry readings from my weekly samples (yep, I said weekly) were all over the map. This told me that either the equipment being used was aged or faulty or that there was a training issue with the staff on using the sample testing equipment.

So I went ahead and ordered the TAYLOR TECHNOLOGIES INC K-2006 TEST KIT COMP CHLORINE FAS-DPD from Amazon (yes that’s a product link that pays me a tiny amount if you use it), sat down with the included booklet and spent a solid day studying just the kit. This made me realize how little I *really* knew about my pool’s chemistry and so I embarked on another month of research and then a few months of experimenting with my pool to get things to what I felt was the right place.

Anyway, this is what I sent to my pool folks, if you can make use of it or have questions or comments, please let me know.

After the premature failure of my salt cell (fortunately still in Warranty) and the somewhat erratic readings that the bioguard equipment was giving you this past year (not sure what happened as they have been very consistent prior to this), I did a *lot* of research into pool chemistry and determined that the recommendations that are being presented in the bioguard reports, while fine for a traditional chlorinated pool, are not suitable for a SWG pool.

In my opinion, two critical components for a SWG pool are the CYA readings and the Borate readings. These should be assessed with every sample.

If the CYA is too low, not only is the chlorine destroyed by sunlight too quickly, but the SWG itself is not nearly as efficient as at should be and will fail prematurely. This is what I believe happened to me. Higher CYA levels, combined with slightly elevated Salt levels, will keep my SWG functioning efficiently and without undue stress.

The Borate level is critical to stabilizing the PH which, by the nature of the chemistry involved has a tendency to increase significantly with rain fall. This was my biggest challenge in the past. Getting my Borate level up to a proper level now buffers my pool against tremendous PH swings.

Of course you have to be careful since the only way to remove too much CYA, Borate and Salt is to replace pool water so this is where care is required to *slowly* bring these to the proper levels while also balancing the other pool chemistry (since these will alter the PH levels).

Anyway, where I had “perfect” pool chemistry for the past 3 years for a generic pool, this year I believe I now have “proper” pool chemistry for a SWG pool. My Saturation index for the past month has been between -.04 and -.22 which is definitely acceptable.

I’d like to share my conclusions with you in case you are willing to share them with other SWG customers.

Item Range
Free CL 4.0-6.0
PH 7.4-7.6
Total ALK 60-80
Total Calcium Hardness 50-300 (not a typo)
CYA 70-80
Salt (depends on SWG) 3200-3700 (should be at high end of range for your SWG)
Borates 30-50
Saturation Index 0.5 – -0.3
Also, and this applies specifically to people who have a Fastlane (Endless Pools), The copper level needs to be tested every few weeks, monthly at the very least. While it is important to NOT use copper-based algaecides, I am finding that nearly all Zinc sacrificial anodes except those provided (at tremendous cost) by Endless Pools themselves have some level of Copper in them. This results in a black deposit on any stainless steel fittings in the pool. This is a cosmetic issue but it is distressing until you know what is causing it.

Hopefully this can help your other customers. The above is still a work in progress but I feel that these represent a consensus of the information I’ve gleaned from my research along with my own experience so far. With each passing month I have narrowed and refined the various ranges.
The ease with which I am able to balance my pool next year will be the proof in the pudding for me.

How to calibrate the temperature on your iAqualink Unit

This was not obvious to me at all so I thought I would share it.

If you are finding your iAqualink unit is showing a temperature that is within 4 degrees higher or lower than your pool water actually is, you can go to Menu > System Setup > Temp Calibrate and get to a screen that looks like this one below.

I do not have a Spa so only the Pool is showing a valid temperature. The issue here is there is no obvious way to actually adjust the temperature and APPLY the change.

What you want to do is, with the pump running so the temperature is registering:

Click on the “Pool” button
Adjust the temperature using the arrow keys
Click the “Back” button until you reach the home screen again.

In about 15-20 seconds you should see the “Pool Temp” reading on the home screen adjust to the newly calibrated temperature.

This is completely counterintuitive since, to me, the “Back” button is equivalent to a “Cancel” key. “Take me out of here without changing anything”. It took over two months of going back and forth with Zodiac before I finally got a helpful person on their customer service line who could say something other than “You need to contact an authorized service company before we can do anything”.