Make Recenendations

Aug 22, 2015
36
Columbia, SC
Friend of mine is running an apartment pool, which is a sparkling oasis... That said he knows he needs to drain some water because the CYA is high (slightly over 100). It is 70000 gallons and chlorinated with Trichlor pucks on two feeders. Two sand filters run 24/7. It gets Backwashed once a week swapping around 600 gallons.


He keeps chlorine around 7.5 ppm on the Taylor 2005c comparitir using the standard DPD test.

There is no combined Chlorine that we can tell as it does not get darker when adding R-0003.


His numbers:
FC 7.5
CC 0
PH 7.8
Alk 90
CH 250
CYA 110 hard to tell

He has a $400 a month budget for chemicals and management refused to allow a liquid chlorine pump because it goes over budget. He cannot add any chemicals at all during the day or when people are in the pool.

Looked into cal hypo feeders, but it is like $2000 for proprietary cal hypo feeders and cal pucks that cannot be fed in a Trichlor feeder. Again not an option.

He did buy a bucket of cal hypo 48% grainuals... Unopened.

Last night he put in about half gallon of 31% acid and nearly half a gallon of Polyquat 60 as a preventative.

State is GA and the Heath Dept. requires between 5 and 10 ppm FC, but he is not certain this will sanitize the pool at this CYA.


What can be done in the next couple weeks to keep it open and sparkling clear. He cannot drain any water for the next two weeks.
 
I think you are right where you need to be on chemistry. By far, liquid chlorine is your best source of chlorination. Just keep your FC up high (around 6-9 ppm) until you are able to drain and get cYA reduced.
 
First, the management has tied his hands in this situation.

I would suggest completing a diluted CYA test to get a closer idea of the true level. Mix one part pool water with one part tap water, then use this as the "pool water" for testing. Multiply the result by 2.

The minimum FC should be maintained at 7.5% of the CYA level, so even with CYA 120 the minimum is just below 9.

You say a few weeks; are they shutting down the pool for the season then?
 
They are open year around but realistically people stop swimming mid November. He requested 3 days but management gave him a 48 hour maintenance window. They sent notices to 315 apartment units notifying of the upcoming pool maintenance.

I told him to buy the FAS-DPD test reagents and the Taylor 2006 comparator to upgrade his test kit... And to get a simple OTO Taylor kit too.


He cannot order until Tuesday... He told me his last order also had some DE filter aid. He will add this next back flush.


He vacuums weekly at 11:00 pm and brush every other day early morning.
 
He is kind of old school... Their first certified pool operator, but he doesn't go on the Internet really. He told me the last maintenance guy got fired over the pool turning green and s couple other things... But that management expects the pool to open, be clear, and it to pass any health dept. test. Anything less and it is potentially his job.

He is just scared an algae bloom might start that won't be controllable while keeping the chlorine at or below 10 ppm. He does not like Poly 60 or much or anything else... Says they add to the solids.


He inherited the pool from someone else.
 
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.