Hello!!

I'm really glad I found this forum, no one can seem to help and I've been reading a few threads and there is some awesome feedback on here so I figured I would put my question out there.

Last year, we bought our Intex 16x48 pool and used chlorine for the first few weeks and it was great, then we bought a salt water system and of course the salt and it went downhill from there. We did have a cover over it but it kept getting sucked into the water or blown off and so then we tried to clamp it down and it tore so no cover. We kept running the salt water system and our pool started turning greenish. Attached is a picture:


Well running the SWS never worked even though we added more salt and so we decided to drain it. I was supposed to get in there and clean it, but had a house full of 9 guests coming to stay two weeks with us so we took the pool down with dried algae and put it away. Yes, I know bad pool owners but we needed to get it out of the elements while it was empty. Now we have a pool in our garage that I want to take out but am scared to and have NO idea how to clean this huge, empty pool with dried algae. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Cleaning it now won't be much worse than cleaning it then would have been (though storing dirty is a little more stress on the vinyl). Get a mop that you don't mind ruining, spread out the liner (or setup the pool) and mop with a mixture of soap and bleach (perhaps 1/2 cup of bleach in a five gallon bucket). Then rinse everything throughly and setup and fill the pool.

The salt system depends on you getting various chemical levels in balance before it will work correctly. Do you have a good test kit?

Thank you for your help! I didn't know getting it in balance was required. Of course when we were looking to buy the SWS everyone said that it would clear everything up for us so we didn't need to do anything which obviously they were wrong. No we don't have a good test kit...we probably should get one! Would you recommend after cleaning, we fill the pool up and set up the SWS then go get the water tested and buy what is needed?

I recommend getting a top quality test kit. The TF-100, from TFTestKits.net is my favorite, the Taylor K-2006 is also good. If you order now it will come in a few days. A really good test kit will more than pay for it's self over one pool season.

If you have everything setup before the new test kit arrives, have your fill water tested at a pool store and post your test results so we can comment. The trick is to not let the pool store sell you things you don't need while you are there. The one thing you are sure to need at the pool store is cyanuric acid/CYA/stabilizer/conditioner. Different places give it different names. You should buy enough to raise CYA to at least 80, but only add about half to start with.

You should also pick up two or three bottles of 6% bleach at the grocery store or WalMart/Target. Check the label to make sure it is 6%, the cheap store brands are sometimes 3%. You will want to use bleach for the first couple of days while you get everything in balance for the SWG.

The other definite shopping item is salt. There are a couple of other things you might need, baking soda, muriatic acid, etc, but that depends on your fill water numbers.

Meanwhile, do some reading at Pool School, there is a link near the top right of every page. Most of what you need to know is explained there.