Opening our new to us pool for the first time! Unveil the swamp!

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If you are not done now you are only a day or two away for sure! I say you need to "look" at your pool from up close as in being IN the water today for your pool watch! LOL

I want you to go back to your first pic and see how far you have come!

Kim:cat:
 
11:10 am

FC 10

CYA still looks to be under 30, and that's with adding more yesterday morning (via the quick dissolve/squish the sock method).

Untitled by Carrie, on Flickr

Untitled by Carrie, on Flickr

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We emptied the spa - no water in it, not circulating it. We don't have the proper safety covers for the suction side of things, and with 3 little kids who think the spa is neat and something they should play in, I'm not ready to have it turned on.
 

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Amazing results! This has been a very cool thread for me because our pools are very similar. It was most likely built by Barrington Pools (that blue sea horse on the stairs is their logo...I recognized it immediately as mine is the same). They probably have records about the original install dates, equipment, etc. if you are interested. I can also provide anything about any of the covers or spa jets or anything as mine are the same. Our two spas are 100% identical except mine is attached to the long side of a rectangular pool instead of your L shape.

You've done great work...and we're having a much more pool-friendly summer this year in Chicagoland than the past few years!
 
MarianParoo - There is water in the lines. There was water in the spa, so we opened the pipes to make sure things worked - jets all run, drains work, but then we've left it drained because we need to get drain covers, clean the light up before install, and clean out the visible algae on the inlets. I guess I'm not anticipating putting water back in it for a while, simply because we're focusing on other things. I figure that we'll need to do a SLAM again once we get the spa back online.

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Vyrolan - It was built by Barrington! :) I called the county to see if they had any info about the permits or plans, and all they could tell me was that it was built by Barrington in 2007. Barrington was helpful in getting me some basic information, but they don't want to give me too much info without coming out for a visit, which has a charge (understandably). While I don't mind paying for information and experience, Barrington is not inexpensive for their services!

Info about spa jets and drain covers would be helpful. and the air blowers? Ours has smaller air blower inlets at the bottom of the spa, and I'm not sure what kind of insert goes in those. I have no idea what direction to go with that.

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And further - since it's A) beautiful out and B) I haven't added any chlorine since 11:30, I'm going to get on some old clothes and hop in the water to scrub on the lights and niches. Any tips for cleaning those up? I'm planning to take a toothbrush and a nylvon bristle brush, and just scrub at them until it looks clean. They're all underwater at this point.
 
The toothbrush is your best friend. I also use a sponge with the gentle pot scrubby-thing on one side. If the light itself is gross, place it on the deck and you can clean it in a bucket of bleach water. I also like to have a washcloth on hand for wiping down the rubber electrical wire thing -conduit maybe? If the light housing is gross, you can soak it in that bucket for a day or two.

Oh wait. Your light housings have been soaking in your water all this time, right?
 
yes, light housing has been out and soaking in pool water.

I noticed on the spa light housing and cable some crystalizing of ... something. Can I just soak that off? That whole like looks pretty gross really. black stuff on the shiny rim and housing. and some rusty areas, and then the rocky stuff.
 
So we cheated, and had the kids in the pool with us when we were cleaning up the lights and some other areas that were visible once we were in the water.

Tested the water at 4:00 pm, FC was 7, which is still well below our target shock level of 12. We definitely got gunk out of the niches and from around the lights. cleaned in the skimmers, the edge just under the decking, the wall (had a slime line near the water edge. Also decided that growing algae and mosquito larve in the spa was not favorable, so we got in there, scrubbed out the returns and drains, and then filled it. We're letting it do the spill over thing, just running the main filter pump.

When we got out at 6:15, FC was 5.5. Sunny, 5 bodies in the water, 85+ air temp. I guess I'm thinking that's not too awful of a loss. But, since we've cleaned what we can, We've put the kids on notice that we won't be back in the water until we are done with our SLAM, and that could be several more days since we decided to play today.

All in all, I can say that I think I'm going to like pool life....

After we get cleaned up and do the supper thing, I'll recheck my levels in about an hour, and continue on our path to crystal clear sparkles!
 
Glad you had fun!!!!!!

I am really glad you got that spa going. That was worrying me. Why slam twice if you don't need to. Just keep the kids away from it with no drain covers!

The "spillover thing" will cause your pH to rise, (aeration), so make sure you adjust pH back to 7.2 if necessary before you get your FC back up.

Keep a close eye on FC as the gunk you added to the water today will use it up.
 
8:15 pm

FC 13
CC .5

Apparently I overshot on the chlorine. I have to get the kids to quite talking to me when I'm counting!

Suggestions on if we need to keep the spillover going 24/7? Right now we have the returns split between spa and pool, and we are not operating the spa drains at this time - replying totally on returns and spillover to circulate the spa water.
 

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