Hi all, I joined because I have some specific interests/ideas/concerns and this forum kept popping up when I did searches. I've had two inground pools in upstate NY -- had a typical vinyl liner/steel/concrete pool installed in our prior home and went with a drop-in fiberglass in our new home. No heaters in either, don't use a solar blanket (bc I think they're un-pretty and part of the reason I have a pool is for aesthetics), sand filter in the old one, cartridge in the new one. Chlorine for sanitizer in both. I'm a big believer in getting my chemistry right at the start of the season and just monitoring from there. Can I say how much I LOVE the fiberglass?! Thought I wanted a salt system for pool 2 but the fiberglass company said it was not a good idea bc I'd use so little chlorine anyhow. And they are so right!
My biggest "issue" is macro-cleaning of debris from all my pine trees. Had pine trees at the prior home too but the filtration system handled the crud better.
Things I've figured out:
My biggest "issue" is macro-cleaning of debris from all my pine trees. Had pine trees at the prior home too but the filtration system handled the crud better.
Things I've figured out:
- Nice heavy expensive vacuum heads with very tight bristles are essential for cleaning fiberglass bc it's so slippery and doesn't yield to the suction like vinyl does. So much for buying cheapies like I did for the old pool.
- A good clean cartridge and inline chlorine feeder = no need for shock ever.
- When the pool was installed it needed to settle for a while before we did the concrete deck. During this time, I didn't bother to run the filter or clean it or anything. Once everything was all tidied up it literally took me one hour to manually remove junk from the bottom and 24 hours with shock, a couple vacuums and a couple rinses of the cartridge and the water was clear. Checked and adjusted chemistry and was in business within a few days. What this taught me is that there is literally NO reason to go through the hassle of covering the pool. I didn't want all the grommets in the concrete deck so I experimented with only closing the pool but not covering it. Best experiment ever----worked like a charm and I saved myself the cost of the cover and the aggravation of putting on, and then removing, an unwieldy cover. Yes, I did need to periodically scoop leaves out of the pool & skimmer during the fall but I just ran the pump with no cartridge in it and got to look at a very pretty albeit freezing cold pool until I finally closed it and it froze over. In reverse, I had my pool open and looking spiffy long before most people bother to "open" their pools. Yes, I spent money to run a pump when there was absolutely no reasonable chance of actually swimming. But I'm okay with that!
- Cartridges are (were?) a pain in my ear. Pine needles and other parts of pine trees were going straight through the skimmer and inline baskets and clogging up the filter constantly. One day I had the bright idea that I should put *something* in or over the skimmer basket so it wasn't so porous. Do an Internet search only to find out I'm not very original. Bought some filter socks. They arrived and, being female, my first thought was "these are just freaking pantyhose."
Welcome to TFP!