New User - Doing first drain - What do I need to know?

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Just to be on the safe side, take pictures and upload (photobucket, google drive, dropbox, onedrive, or attachment here) BEFORE you do anything that begins the danger time. Let these seasoned expert predict what will happen and give you the green light. Maybe you can eliminate any risks they spot, if any, then pull this off, pocketing the hundreds in savings!
 
The problem is that I have only found 2 people on this site that have done the tarp method. (Thanks Swampwoman for finding 1 of them). So, this is new territory for most of the experts. For the 2 people that have posted their results of the tarp method, I have read every word several times.

Never posted a link to DropBox on here. Let's see if this works:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tjczdqke9bb07gn/AADVIdAAN7Bq2gdp5D0MLgqFa?dl=0

See if you can find the picture that was the source of this problem in the first place......
 
When this is all done, I will put together a detailed step-by-step of what I've been doing, and why. But, I will say that the steps I made to protect the liner are working perfectly. This process is going much smoother than I thought it would, and is much easier than I thought.

I never thought that my first ever drain and fill would turn out to be a full replacement, and with a method that many on here call a "myth".
 
Smartjack said:
My wife feels this is totally unessesary, and I just don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on the right chemicals to fix this. But, she is letting me do what I want. However, if I damage the pool, or the liner, I'm a dead man. So, if you don't hear an update from me in a few days, please call the Naperville police.
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The funny thing is, your ARE now doing the right thing and spending money the right way. Spending those hundreds of dollars the 'old' way is what got you into the predicament in the first place. Hopefully your wife will be like mine and admit that in the end this was a better way to go. Or if not admit, at least acquiesce. :)
 
So far, she has accepted changing out the water to lower the CYA. She also seems receptive to no longer using the DiChlor, and said I could look for a new Chloinator.

However, she has not agreed to let me modify our existing chlorinator to take liquid chlorine, and she has definitely NOT agreed to bleach. I got the old "no way are your pouring bleach into this pool" speech.

Baby steps......
 
You can probably find better deals on 10% and 12.5% liquid chlorine anyway, and it specifically says "Pool Sanitizer" on it so she shouldn't argue that. Get things cleared and working well for a while and then explain the (lack of) difference.

BTW, if you decide against using lithium-hypo in your current system you can get a stenner pump that pumps liquid chlorine from a tank to the pool. Probably would work better than modifying your current system. Or there is always saltwater. Plenty of options for you.

From my HTC One via Tapatalk
 

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Donldson said:
BTW, if you decide against using lithium-hypo in your current system you can get a stenner pump that pumps liquid chlorine from a tank to the pool. Probably would work better than modifying your current system. Or there is always saltwater. Plenty of options for you.
From my HTC One via Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I don't think I need a stenner pump. I think I can do a better system without one. My current Polaris system has a nice ORP monitoring system. It does a real good job keeping the FC level maintained. When it lowers, it fires a switch that dumps the DiChlor into a tank to dissolve. Then, the system delivers that dissolved Chlorine to the pool. All I will need to do is replace the DiChlor with a liquid chlorine tank. Then, wire the system to switch on a pump, instead of dumping DiChlor. I am a Electronics Engineer, so I can do that wiring in my sleep. Now, when Chlorine is low, the pump will just pump liquid chlorine into the tank, and deliver that the same way it delivered the DiChlor.

This will give me a liquid delivery system that is more accurate than the stenner, or the liquidator. Those system just deliver a constant amount, that is manually varied. Mine would be a on demand based on level.
 
MarianParoo said:
Okay. Try your Menard's. The bottle will say "Pool Shock" instead of bleach. After your pool is sparkly, you can show her the ingredients on the labels...
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This is exactly how I convert people. Then I pull out their bag of cal-hypo and ask them if they'd rather swim in a murky, milky cloud of calcium or have an undetectable level of salt in the crystal clear water. I didn't have to twist any arms to get people off stabilized sanitizer, their CYA results already said high from their own pool stores.
 
Smartjack - great work on the dropbox gallery of photos! Really, Really exciting - except for that little Sam's "caught you red handed" mug shot.

Nice pool, nice back yard, and exceptional work in a very small amount of time.

If it isn't too much of an imposition, it would be pretty great if you could prop the phone against a chair or something and have it shoot a video of the tarp removal/water combining. Please don't jeopardize the final moments with any one handing!
 
This is SO neat to follow! I LOVE the pics!

LOVE the back yard area! SO pretty!

Yeah on the "no bleach in that pool" that is the same thing some people have said BUT when you call it chlorine or shock they do not even blink! Pick your words with care and she will come around "Look what I found honey! Pool Shock! This will keep our pool clear and I will never have to drain again!"

I want learn more about your FC delivery system AFTER this is done. Sounds neat!

Kim:cat:
 
Day 2.............(Well, I guess it is really day 3, since I put the tarp on at 7PM Friday)

Well, I am on day 2-3 of the water replacement. Sorry this is taking so long, but I am draining the pool with a single garden hose. I have added a picture of that hose coming out of the filter. I could speed this whole process up by getting a bigger hose, but I am running that garden hose 150 feet to the street drain. Didn't want to spend the extra money for 150 feet of 1 inch hose, that would only be used for pool draining. I broke the pictures up into a Day 1 and Day 2 photo file, if you already looked at the day 1 pictures. Filling is going faster than draining, as I have 2 hoses filling. So, I shut the filling off about 7 PM last night, and did not turn it back on until morning.

Here is a new link, if you don't want to search for the link provided yesterday:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tjczdqke9bb07gn/AADVIdAAN7Bq2gdp5D0MLgqFa?dl=0

Things are going very well. If the tarp was not in, I would be below the shallow end now. But, with the tarp, there is still water in the shallow end. The tarp is extremely buoyant, and is letting water stay behind it as it floats on the surface of the old water. It is amazing how much water weight it is supporting. But, I guess that is like all the weight large steel ships support with their hulls. It is also very easy to move the tarp around in the pool to adjust this. Just like it is easy to push a heavy boat that is sitting in the water.

You can see in the pictures that their are still several air pockets and water under the tarp. I have plenty of slack in the tarp at the deep end, so that can be pulled in. You can also see where the tarp is almost on the surface in one section on the deep end. This is because I opened up one of my inlets, so the pump can keep water behind the tarp, to allow easy manouvering for as long as possible. I'm thinking this might be done by evening. I know a few people wanted me to video the tarp removal. But, if this finishes at night, I won't be able to get good video, and I don't want to wait until Monday to do it, just for a video.

I did include a 1 minute video of my existing DiChlor chlorinator, with an small explaination of how I think I can turn it into a liquid chlorine delivery system.
 
So, I'm guessing I am about 70% full. My wife wants me to stop, so I can be finished today. According to my math, I need a 80% replacement to get my CYA to 40. After doing the tarp I would like to make sure I get there, and would prefer to go beyond 80%. I would rather have to raise my CYA a little after this, instead of being slightly on the high side. So, I will probably stop at 6PM tonight, even if the tarp is not bottomed out yet. That should be early enough to take a video of the tarp coming out.

But, at what I'm thinking is about 70% full, I took another video that shows how easily the tarp moves even with all that water in it. I'm easily moving it around with the aluminum skimmer pole handle (very cheap, and easy to bend).

Here is a direct link to that video:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g9cn8zskqup2jvh/AACwXrWSKy02MDk3psDSewnga?dl=0

BTW....If I take out too much water, and my CYA drops to the 20's, does anyone know I how can bring that up???? Just Kidding. :stirpot::stirpot:
 
It's done!!

I probably stopped too soon, but I wanted to be done today, while it was light out. So, it was not a "full drain". When the tarp comes off, you can still be quite a bit of algae from the old water in the deep end. I didn't want a full drain, where I needed to add CYA to get back to 30, but I wanted to take out enough to get me into that 30 to 50 range. The right time would have probably been a few more hours, but I didn't wait.

Tarp came off super easy. The hardest part was when most of it was out of the water, because it weighs 50 pounds by itself. So when most of the tarp was out, and I was dragging it the yard, that was the hardest part. But, even that was pretty easy. I am posting a link to the video of the tarp removal. The first part (where I remove the bricks holding the tarp down) is sped up. But, the rest is real-time. The whole thing only took a few minutes.

So, now I am around the third person hear to do this. This is definitely a GREAT way to replace water, and should actually be recommended more often.

Link to all the pictures and videos from today:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tjczdqke9bb07gn/AADVIdAAN7Bq2gdp5D0MLgqFa?dl=0

This should be the direct link to tarp removal:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tti2tux4tt2ht1d/Video May 08, 7 20 37 PM.mov?dl=0
 

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