Recent content by NathanT

Where I live in the Pacific northwest, we get about 5 swimming months per year. For the winter though, it rarely goes much below freezing, so we don't close our pool, we just leave it open and stop heating it. Thus far all I've been doing is boosting up the chlorine before the temperatures...

Ah, yes, you're right. The hot tub is ~ 1600L. The CH increaser says 130g per 10ppm per 10,000L. So about 20g in my tub for each 10ppm, not total.

Water is around 100F, so that may well be it. I'll give it a try. Sanitizer level is quite high right now from initial shock, but I had this same issue measuring CH both before and after adding sanitizer. I'll try Taylor's recommendation and post in more detail if that doesn't help.

I've just drained and refilled my hot tub for the first time. Our tap water has calcium hardness of only about 10ppm. I measured it with the taylor kit, and as it should, the solution turned from red to blue on the second drop. So, I added some 'calcium hardness plus', intending to bring the...

Everything I'd read said that too low calcium hardness can cause corrosion, but I see from some more tfp reading that that's outdated info. So I'll probably use up this spa sentry on the next fill, then see how the pH acts without it next time. As I recall, the Ta was very low initially, and I...

Thanks for the replies. My thinking with the MPS was that since it reacts slower, it might be easier to keep the level stable through the day. Also it might not freak out the uninitiated as much as watching me dump bleach in the tub! :) I haven't really had a problem maintaining the levels...

Just got a new spa a couple weeks ago, and Spa Sentry came in the starter pack. We have very soft water here already (test strip showed CH of tap water as indistinguishable from 0), and the spa store guy suggested using this instead of bringing the CH up. Apparently it's supposed to protect...

Just got a new spa a few days ago. I've done a bunch of reading and think I have a good handle on how everything interacts, as well as what's actually in all the magic products we got in the startup package. (Rather annoying that the vendors try to enforce lock-in by leaving ingredients off...

OK, we were finally able to do a pressure test, and confirmed a slow leak from the main drain suction line. PB says he tested it with water at 30psi,and it lost about 1 litre per hour. Unfortunately he says a leak that slow is going to be impossible to track down, so the only real option would...

Thanks for the detailed suggestion. It's funny, I was just doing some research and came back to ask whether it would make sense to do a pressure test at this point... and then found your response! And that makes sense testing the skimmer and drain lines together like that to start with, since...

The whole pump basket was just replaced - it was leaking air before - and that significant increased how long it took for all the water to drain out when the pump was turned off, but didn't solve the problem entirely. I'm thinking the leak (or at least A leak) must be before the pump, because I...

The pool certainly doesn't seem to be losing any water, so presumably the leak is above the water line. (Which makes sense because, as mentioned, the pump and everything is several feet above the pool, so most of the plumbing is as well.) I just tried shaving cream around the joints in the...

Thanks! Just to make sure I understand, when you say it could be caused by a blockage, is the idea that if one of the suction lines was (partially) blocked, it would create increased suction between the blockage and the pump, which could be enough to suck air in somewhere that it wouldn't come...

Hello, I'm a new pool owner, as of about May 2015. I'm fairly confident we have a suction side leak, but I don't really have a basis for how much air getting into the system is "OK" (if any), and would love some guidance on what to try from here. I've made a couple videos to demonstrate...