Just want to say thank you already to everyone who shares their knowledge and experience here! We just moved into a house with a pool and I've been reading all over this forum for weeks to educate myself on how to manage the pool. I've always wanted a pool but I've never taken care of one so this has been an amazing resource, I already feel ahead of the game with the knowledge I've gotten from you fine folks.
When we moved in I found the prior homeowner had been using trichlor pucks and he left me about half a bucket of those, a bunch of cal-hypo, some muriatic acid, some phosfree, and an extra set of filter cartridges that look to be in decent shape. He also had a simple OTO test kit. I did find some Taylor DPD reagents around but not a test kit and I can't tell how old any of this stuff is. It's only been a couple of days and its so cold here right now (water is 54 degrees fahrenheit) that I'm not real worried about an algae bloom so I just left the trichlor floater in there for now until I can get around to purchasing some fresh bleach and acid later this week.
It has a Legend II pressure side cleaner but it doesn't seem to pick up leaves or anything else very well . So I'll have to check into getting it working better. It looks pretty old. I have so many trees (post oak and pine) around the pool that I'm thinking I need to just go ahead and invest in a leaf vaccum and a good manual vacuum and leaf canister because I can see a potential for lots of leaves, acorns, pine needles, and twigs getting in.
I estimate the pool at maybe 18K gallons but its a freeform with a deep end so that's just a guess and I'm hoping I'll be able to get a better feel for its volume once I start in with bleach and getting real test numbers. I purchased a proper test kit, a Taylor K2006, but I haven't gotten it in the mail yet. On a whim I got some test strips and between those and the OTO tester I could see that there was at least 5-10 ppm chlorine but pH was around 8 when I moved in, so I added some acid yesterday and got that back down in range and will test again when I get home. The test strips also showed that CYA was high at least 150 and since I found all that trichlor around I'm expecting it will test high once I get the Taylor kit and am able to do a proper test of the water. Even though CYA is high and according to poolmath I need at least 11ppm chlorine at that level, since it's so cold right now I'm not too concerned and will take corrective action once I get my Taylor testing kit.
There's a lot of other upgrading I need to to. The heater doesn't work so I've got to budget for a new one before next winter hits. The equipment pad is a mess too. The equipment just sits on the bare dirt and besides being bad for the equipment it just looks bad and isn't convenient to service. So at some point I'll be constructing a new pad and organizing it better, probably at the same time I install the new heater.
Anyway, thanks again...I'd feel lost without this site and the knowledge on here, but with it I'm confident I can keep this pool clean and clear very easily.
When we moved in I found the prior homeowner had been using trichlor pucks and he left me about half a bucket of those, a bunch of cal-hypo, some muriatic acid, some phosfree, and an extra set of filter cartridges that look to be in decent shape. He also had a simple OTO test kit. I did find some Taylor DPD reagents around but not a test kit and I can't tell how old any of this stuff is. It's only been a couple of days and its so cold here right now (water is 54 degrees fahrenheit) that I'm not real worried about an algae bloom so I just left the trichlor floater in there for now until I can get around to purchasing some fresh bleach and acid later this week.
It has a Legend II pressure side cleaner but it doesn't seem to pick up leaves or anything else very well . So I'll have to check into getting it working better. It looks pretty old. I have so many trees (post oak and pine) around the pool that I'm thinking I need to just go ahead and invest in a leaf vaccum and a good manual vacuum and leaf canister because I can see a potential for lots of leaves, acorns, pine needles, and twigs getting in.
I estimate the pool at maybe 18K gallons but its a freeform with a deep end so that's just a guess and I'm hoping I'll be able to get a better feel for its volume once I start in with bleach and getting real test numbers. I purchased a proper test kit, a Taylor K2006, but I haven't gotten it in the mail yet. On a whim I got some test strips and between those and the OTO tester I could see that there was at least 5-10 ppm chlorine but pH was around 8 when I moved in, so I added some acid yesterday and got that back down in range and will test again when I get home. The test strips also showed that CYA was high at least 150 and since I found all that trichlor around I'm expecting it will test high once I get the Taylor kit and am able to do a proper test of the water. Even though CYA is high and according to poolmath I need at least 11ppm chlorine at that level, since it's so cold right now I'm not too concerned and will take corrective action once I get my Taylor testing kit.
There's a lot of other upgrading I need to to. The heater doesn't work so I've got to budget for a new one before next winter hits. The equipment pad is a mess too. The equipment just sits on the bare dirt and besides being bad for the equipment it just looks bad and isn't convenient to service. So at some point I'll be constructing a new pad and organizing it better, probably at the same time I install the new heater.
Anyway, thanks again...I'd feel lost without this site and the knowledge on here, but with it I'm confident I can keep this pool clean and clear very easily.
