Had to have a new liner installed yesterday. (Why, why, why couldn't we have had the catastrophic failure of the liner in May...lol?) The pool was filled with approx 7,000 gallons of water delivered by truck & we are adding approx 16,000 gallons from our hose. The water temp is in the 50s. We usually close by now, which involves shocking, and draining 25% of the water out once all lines are blown out, etc. At this moment, the hose is still running because the pool isn't even full enough to run our pump yet. We haven't even bothered to test the water yet.
Do we need to completely add all chlorine, stablizer, ph/alkalinity...etc until the water is completely balanced before we close the pool by shocking & draining? On the one hand, that seems like an enormous waste of time & money, given that we're going to be instantly shutting down & draining the pool. In fact, the pool store guy said we shouldn't bother to completely fill the pool...since we need to close. He said to just mix 1 gallon of chlorine with 4 gallons of water & dump into the pool gradually, mixing up the water as we go...repeating that process 4 more times.
On the other hand, since we've been using the BBB method for years, it intuitively seems very wrong to close the pool for 8 months without having all of our chemicals in balance. We think that we should spend the time, effort, & money to balance the pool first. However, if we're completely off base with our thinking, please set us straight!
Do we need to completely add all chlorine, stablizer, ph/alkalinity...etc until the water is completely balanced before we close the pool by shocking & draining? On the one hand, that seems like an enormous waste of time & money, given that we're going to be instantly shutting down & draining the pool. In fact, the pool store guy said we shouldn't bother to completely fill the pool...since we need to close. He said to just mix 1 gallon of chlorine with 4 gallons of water & dump into the pool gradually, mixing up the water as we go...repeating that process 4 more times.
On the other hand, since we've been using the BBB method for years, it intuitively seems very wrong to close the pool for 8 months without having all of our chemicals in balance. We think that we should spend the time, effort, & money to balance the pool first. However, if we're completely off base with our thinking, please set us straight!