Maintaining pool while away for a few days - TFP method?

[ziggygal]

This weekend I will be away for approximately three days. I am leaving Friday morning coming back late Sunday night. I am not sure what to do in terms of keeping the pool up and running while I am gone. I don't want to shut off the pump for three days as the pool will get filthy so I plan to run it, but in terms of chemicals, I plan on cleaning the pool and adding my chlorine on Friday morning but should I maybe bring the chlorine up to shock level before I go? It will be a warm and sunny weekend and I am sure that the chlorine will burn up over the three days I am gone. I do have an automatic chlorinator on my system but I don't use it. I could, but the pucks would mess with my CYA and I have it where I want it now (its at 40). Any thoughts?

 

[sbcpool]

It shouldn't cause too much problems for your CYA to use pucks while you're gone. If you lose 2 ppm FC per day, pucks will only add about 3.6 ppm of CYA over the weekend.

With a vinyl pool calcium levels are less of a concern than with plaster. You could also look into CalHypo pucks. They're more difficult to find, but I've seen them. It would only raise your calcium levels by 4 ppm.

 

[layla2052]

I know that my pool consumes 1-2 ppm FC per day, depending on full sunlight and amount of tree debris dropped in the pool. When we go out of town for a long weekend, I usually factor 2 ppm per day I'm gone plus 1 for good measure and the pool tests just under the top of my scale when I return. I make sure it's brushed & vacuumed well before leaving & do it again as soon as I return. Almost like I wasn't gone....