new pool owner, lots of questions;

[SirSwimAlot]

We bought a house in November which had a pool with known liner issues. The pool looked clear and great during our initial showing, but when it came time to inspect the pool was already closed.
We got a letter from the pool maintenance company that the liner could use replacing and the motor needs bearings as it is loud.

Come spring, we arranged with old pool company to replace liner and do whatever is needed to open the pool. They came about a week ago and we have some concerns.

The liner is drooping



I noticed as I felt around the liner edge, there is some bumps that look like down the road it may come out there too but this is the only place it is opened so far.

I noticed two spots on the floor that are holes in the concrete, one is about 1" deep and about 4-5" around. The other is a bit deeper 2-3" deep and 4-6" around. These concern me a lot, and worried this is going to lead to problems and obviously can't be fixed without draining the pool. (We had to truck in 3 trucks to fill it and then still had to use our well for a bit).

We were planning on getting a SWG (they got a T-15 Hayward) which they were going to install in two days. I am really nervous about this now, my wife has heard a lot of good things about them, and wants to go salt water. I've read a lot of good things about SWG but the more I look, the more I am seeing negative things that concern me. Corrosion in one of the top ones, another is it really isn't much cheaper or easier in the long run. I understand you can only expect 3-4 years out of a salt cell in New England area and then you are looking at $500-800+ replacement cost. The pool store told me you have to clean the salt a few times a year which I am not sure is really true but would make things even worse. I really don't know about the SWG at this point and told the pool guy to not do it when he comes on Friday and I just want the pool in working order and everything fixed are discussed. I highly doubt he is going to fix the holes, but I am not sure how much of a concern they are, but in the contract it said they would spend 1 hr fixing the floor before installing the new liner. If there were additional problems he should have brought it up, but I don't know if much if any work was done on the ground.

Finally, I have no idea what he used for chemicals to get the pool up and running. It has been almost a week, and the pool is lacking a lot of chemicals and will need a lot of stuff. I had the water tested a store today, and the results are:

Saturation: -1.7
CYA: 0
Total Chlorine: 0.4
Free Chlorine: 0.4
pH: 7.1
Total Alkalinity: 42
Total Hardness: 19
Borates: 4
Copper: 0
Iron: 0.1

The pool guy has 3 cylinders of chlorine in the skimmer, but it feels like the pool has nothing in it and the tests are really low. The tests says I have lots of metals and recommends 3.5 quarts of pool magnet, but all I see is 0.1 iron, is that a lot? I suspect that came from the hose water with the well but the sheets say there is a lot of metal but the numbers look like they are almost zero.

It says we need a ton of balance pak 100 to bring up the alkaline (50lbs) and 25lbs of balance pack 300. Another 62lbs of optimizer plus and 31lbs of lo and slo for the hardness. Then some burn out, algae inhibitor and stabilizer.

I asked the pool guy (who did the install of the liner) what we need for chemicals and he keeps telling me I will be all right until he comes back. Due to father in law "dying" he won't be around until Friday. I'm not sure how much I should be worried about, I feel we were kind of taken by this guy. I mean he changed the liner and it looks good (outside of the drooping and the craters) but every time I talk to him it feels like I am inconveniencing him and it is difficult to make any progress on what I need. He promised to get us up and running and show us what we need but it keeps getting pushed out. We were suppose to do the liner early May and we paid a deposit a while ago to be 2nd on the list, but it wasn't until two days before Memorial Weekend (when they were swamped) that they got to it, and it feels like they were rushed and are too busy to give us any attention or schedule.

Finally, we are seriously considering a robot, I've looked around a bit and it seems the Dolphin M400 is the best fit. I wasn't planning on spending $1,200 on a pool robot but it seems like it is our best bet. From what I hear the service life of these are only 5-7 years.

 

[cowboycasey]

Welcome to TFP

1. The pool store and pool company are very busy right now and everyone in life wants there pool done "now" so that is normal what you are seeing, they are trying to do many many pools..

2. You need to figure out how you want to take care of your pool, the pool store or TFP... that is a major difference, we use test kits and test our own water and add chem's that we buy from walmart and lowes and save massive amounts of money if you do decide to take care of your own pool you will need a great test kit, the best one now is the TF100 followed by the Taylor K-2006C

3. All those chem's from the pool store is going to cost you hundreds of dollars, look in my sig below to see everything we recommend on taking care of your pool, we also rarely believe or trust pool store number, they are almost always way off.. (we use regular household bleach at 8.5% or liquid bleach/chlorine at 10% or 12.5%)

4. SWG: All pools are salt water pools, salt is the main ingredient in all chlorine, that is why we tell everyone to test their water for salt content before adding, most pools will be between 1000ppm to 2500ppm salt content, a SWG requires about 3500ppm.. compare that to the ocean at 32,000ppm and you will see a salt water pool is really low on salt.. All chlorine costs the same in the end, over a 5 year period you will spend the same on chlorine whether it is in pucks, bleach, or SWG, the SWG is all up front and the other 2 are spent each month.

The T15 Hayward is a good cell and SWG but it is not big enough for your size pool, we recommend 2 to 3 times the size for SWG as they will last longer, so for your pool your looking at the Pentair 60k or the curcupool SJ60 or the RJ60 plus, here is a comparison chart for all SWG's.. Full Market Comparison of Salt Water Chlorine Generators for Swimming Pools

5. metals are a pain but 0.1 iron "should" not be a problem but you really wont know until you bring your free chlorine level up.

6. robots are the new thing and so far most everyone loves them but you are right they are expensive.

Please let us know how you want to proceed

 

[SirSwimAlot]

Thanks for the reply.

Are the holes in the bottom foundation a big concern? I went down with goggles yesterday and one looks like a giant bear footprint, the other one looks like a smaller of the same. They about 4-5" wide, and one is as deep as 2-4". They said they would do work on the foundation if needed.

They said they coming tomorrow to fix the liner I suspect they can do it without having to drain the pool but worried we going to have problems down the road with it keep coming out if they didn't do it right and didn't use liner lock.