My Pool Filter O-Ring is Missing - Now What Do I Do?
 
If you accidentally lose the top 5.5" seal o-ring for your filter pump (shown left) , you will not be able to run your pool filtering system, nor will you be able to use your salt-chlorine generator. And it can take a while to get a replacement part and virtually no hardware store will have such a part, so what can you do? We were in this predicament, with a pool full of water! After just about giving up on all options, I spied a piece of 3/8" Comfort Seal Poly Foam Caulk Backer Rod. So I cut it a bit longer than my filter cover o-ring channel so the ends would form a seal against each other, and I stuffed it in. It worked! What you may find is that the ends will pull back a little, but all you do then is cut another piece a little longer to fill in the gap. And guess what? The replacement O-ring I ordered from Intex did NOT work (it was stiff plastic and not quite the right size)! So I ended up putting back my homemade version.
 
The Pool Plugs Provided Do Not Work - What Can I Do?
When changing filters on your filtering system, you will have to plug up the inlet and outlet to prevent large amounts of water from draining out of your pool. If your plugs do not work (the ones they provided us are too big!) or they are missing, you can do one of two things:
- Use a dishrag rolled into a ball stuffed in inlet and outlet locations. These will leak a little, but not too much.
- Use a plug from purchased from a hardware store that fits properly, if you can find one.
- Make your own plug from a chunk of 2" insulating foam - anybody that does any kind of remodeling will have a bunch of this laying around. You only need a 2" x 2" x 3" long piece. Then use some coarse sandpaper to round off the corners and finish with some finer sand paper until you get something like shown below. They work well!
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