My brother in law/sister in law have just started renting a home that has a pool. Collectively we have no personal experience operating/maintaining a pool. I am a mechanic, so I am pretty technical. We figured out how the pool functions pretty quickly. I am sort of spear heading the 'get rid of the pool guy, it can't be that hard to maintain this pool' idea. I seem to be getting them on board the more we research. In the first couple of weeks I convinced them to get The Pool Cleaner and a venturi surface skimmer that operates using the return water jets. Adding these two items has made the pool pretty much spotless, and they have trees all the way around the pool dumping leaves continuously.
Here is a bit about the pool: the pool/spa seems to be fairly old, but everything works and equipment is fairly new. The pool has a Hayward 60DE filter, a Pentair variable speed pump, a Hayward heater (not sure on size). The plumbing... Bits of it have been updated around the equipment but the stuff coming up out of the ground looks original. It seems that there once was a dedicated vacuum connection on one side of the pool, but I am pretty sure has been plugged at the equipment pad. I am not really sure why. The skimmer has a single hole in it. When we hooked up the rover to it, we did not have any issue with water being pulled from the single floor drain. I am not sure of it, but maybe there is already a diverter installed on the skimmer (any idea how to determine if there is one)? The equipment pad has two return lines and two suction lines. One return is to the spa's four jets, the other is the pool, which also has a T on it that returns some water to the spa (there is a small waterfall). There are three jets on the wall in the shallow end, farthest from the skimmer. The suction options are from the skimmer/floor drain of the pool (but floor doesn't seem to work) and then the spa has two floor drains. We think the pool is 18,000 gallons... it's an odd shape and hard to calculate.
Typical operation is to have the plumbing set to: suck from pool (with rover plugged in to the skimmer) and return to the pool with our newly installed skimmer on the return jet in the far corner of the pool. We plugged two of the jets to get more flow at the return jet with the skimmer attached. The pool is mostly used on the weekends. Since it's gotten cooler, my brother in law fires up the heater and brings the pool to 90* on Fridays.
So now that we've figured out the cleaning aspect of the pool care, we broke out the test kit they purchased (Taylor K-2006). Here is what we got:
FC 2.4
CC .6
PH 7.4
TA 150
CH 800
CYA >100 (it was 'off the chart' since the test vial doesn't give a range above 100)
I pumped these numbers into the calculator on this site and it said I'd need to drain 63% of the pool water to get my CYA down to 50 (guessing that the reading was 130).
So far our experience with the pool has been that we itch like CRAZY after we get out. This itching continues for a couple of days and lotion is needed to calm the skin. I am assuming this has something to do with the CH and CYA?
We intend to drain the pool down maybe 50%, does this seem like a good starting point? or should we start fresh? I did some research on the cost of refilling. According to the city rate, it'd only be about $35 to fully drain and refill 18,000g.
I wanted to get some veteran feedback before we do this. I am assuming we will need to treat the pool as a 'new pool'? I need to further research that process.
Thanks in advance!
Kevin
Here is a bit about the pool: the pool/spa seems to be fairly old, but everything works and equipment is fairly new. The pool has a Hayward 60DE filter, a Pentair variable speed pump, a Hayward heater (not sure on size). The plumbing... Bits of it have been updated around the equipment but the stuff coming up out of the ground looks original. It seems that there once was a dedicated vacuum connection on one side of the pool, but I am pretty sure has been plugged at the equipment pad. I am not really sure why. The skimmer has a single hole in it. When we hooked up the rover to it, we did not have any issue with water being pulled from the single floor drain. I am not sure of it, but maybe there is already a diverter installed on the skimmer (any idea how to determine if there is one)? The equipment pad has two return lines and two suction lines. One return is to the spa's four jets, the other is the pool, which also has a T on it that returns some water to the spa (there is a small waterfall). There are three jets on the wall in the shallow end, farthest from the skimmer. The suction options are from the skimmer/floor drain of the pool (but floor doesn't seem to work) and then the spa has two floor drains. We think the pool is 18,000 gallons... it's an odd shape and hard to calculate.
Typical operation is to have the plumbing set to: suck from pool (with rover plugged in to the skimmer) and return to the pool with our newly installed skimmer on the return jet in the far corner of the pool. We plugged two of the jets to get more flow at the return jet with the skimmer attached. The pool is mostly used on the weekends. Since it's gotten cooler, my brother in law fires up the heater and brings the pool to 90* on Fridays.
So now that we've figured out the cleaning aspect of the pool care, we broke out the test kit they purchased (Taylor K-2006). Here is what we got:
FC 2.4
CC .6
PH 7.4
TA 150
CH 800
CYA >100 (it was 'off the chart' since the test vial doesn't give a range above 100)
I pumped these numbers into the calculator on this site and it said I'd need to drain 63% of the pool water to get my CYA down to 50 (guessing that the reading was 130).
So far our experience with the pool has been that we itch like CRAZY after we get out. This itching continues for a couple of days and lotion is needed to calm the skin. I am assuming this has something to do with the CH and CYA?
We intend to drain the pool down maybe 50%, does this seem like a good starting point? or should we start fresh? I did some research on the cost of refilling. According to the city rate, it'd only be about $35 to fully drain and refill 18,000g.
I wanted to get some veteran feedback before we do this. I am assuming we will need to treat the pool as a 'new pool'? I need to further research that process.
Thanks in advance!
Kevin