I just ran across this one yesterday. Filter was at 40PSI (now it is at 5 PSI). Believe it or not, the cartridges cleaned up and they look almost brand new...

How did the water look? Those don't look like they were doing much anymore

Holy cow!

what is all that gray stuff?

Those are some ultra ugly filters there. did you take an "after" shot?

Looks like someone was using DE in that Clean & Clear.

I think a lot of it was decomposing dog hair mixed in with ages of dirt and small small leaves. Guys house was a renter for quite some time and he's just moving back into it. This home, by the way, had a service when he moved back in - selected by the property management company. It's really sad at how poorly the pool had been kept. CYA was in-range, but pH hadn't been taken care of. There's scaling and abrasions and "stalagmites" (calcium migration from water getting under the plaster). Pool's only eight years old and the plaster is basically ruined. Additionally, and likely due to the organic load of the filter, it was having a really hard time holding chlorine - and now mustard algae is embedded in the plaster. Plaster is very rough and brown in several places (steps, jacuuzi). I've got FC at ~40ppm and while the water looks great - it doesn't do much for the plaster.

Customer asked me if an acid wash would help. My fear is that it would just "finish off" what little time is left on the plaster.

The SWCG had never been serviced, and the cell was almost a solid block of calcium. We decided to try to clean it - just 'cause its way cheaper than a new cell... so I mixed the acid solution, set the cell in the bucket, and well...

You know those "volcano experiments" we used to do as kids for a school science project. You put some backing soda in the clay volcano and then pour vinegar into it and it furiously foams and stuff foams and shoots out of the volcano? Well, that was this cell (yes, I had my glasses on - always do when acid or chlorine is around).

I couldn't get the camera out fast enough, and the picture's cr*p because it's a cell phone, but here's about 30 seconds after the initial "explosion" (foam initially was shooting almost a foot up out of it):



And in the end, the cell was shot - zero salt reading and my meter (best investment this summer) gives me 3300ppm on the nose. I told the customer before we did anything that there was a very high chance it was gone - but again a cleaning/servicing of the cell and getting lucky is a whole lot cheaper. At least initially if you are lucky.

Anyway, I got two new customers this weekend - both had prior pool service, and both pools were in such sad shape. The other had CYA over 200 and really bad filters again. And mustard algae they couldn't get rid of - although the FC was 14ppm when I measured it before the partial D&F. The Jandy energy filter was collapsed because it was that dirty. I mean come'on - it takes less than 5 seconds to look at it during a pad check - and 1-2 minutes to clean it...

I'm not sure if I should be ecstatic that I got two new customers (And fairly sizable clean-up jobs to boot) this week and one last week that were being "serviced" by someone else, or if I am more upset at the previous pool companies for giving Pool Care companies such a bad rap...

While I'm ranting, the one last weekend, the pool was just friggen GREEN - and the guy was still servicing it.



It's clear now, but a fiberglass shell pool - and the fiberglass is now giving way. Seems like the last pool guy "fixed" the light by draining about 4' out of the pool... and the sidewalls started to push in.

I love what I'm doing, but sick at/of what others are doing that cost people so much money and grief.

- Jeff

Wow . . totally amazing.

That kind of competetion let's you look really good, really easily.