Hi All,
I've been lurking around this forum for a while and it seems a really helpful source of information.
I thought I would start out by introducing myself.
Firstly, I live Brisbane Australia (which means I use metric measurements).
Brisbane has a sub-tropical climate with typical winter temperature range 10 to 20 degrees Celsius, and typical summer range 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. In winter we very occasionally get a frost and in summer an occasional top temperature over 40 degrees Celsius. These extremes are very unusual and the temperature is really very stable. We normally use our pool from September through April.
We bought this house, with pool, about 9 years ago so have been managing the pool successfully over that time. Our local pool shop changed hands a couple years ago. The previous pool shop owner was very experienced and very practical. A great source of good advice. Recently the advice seems to come from superficially trained but inexperienced sales staff, so I am looking for an alternative source of information that isn't focused on selling product. Hopefully this forum will be it.
The pool is in-ground and very free-form so not easy to calculate precise volume. I reckon it is 48,000 litres. It has a self-cleaning salt water chlorinator, sand filter, and a plaster/pebble surface. We use an old Aquanaut Pool-Vac cleaner which I have been able to satisfactorily maintain myself so far and it works well.
A lot of advice on this forum relates to measurements from test kits that seem to be unavailable in Australia. I use the standard one supplied by most pool shops which uses DPD1 tablets to test chlorine, and recommends a Free Chlorine level of 1.0 to 1.5ppm. It also tests pH, recommending a level of 7.4 to 7.6; and Total Alkalinity with a recommended level of 80 to 120ppm. This obviously falls far short of the information requested on this forum, and on Jason's pool calculator.
I am hoping that there might be some other Aussies on the forum who can suggest where to find a more complete test kit that will allow me to accurately measure CH, CYA, Salt, Borate and CSI.
Cheers,
I've been lurking around this forum for a while and it seems a really helpful source of information.
I thought I would start out by introducing myself.
Firstly, I live Brisbane Australia (which means I use metric measurements).
Brisbane has a sub-tropical climate with typical winter temperature range 10 to 20 degrees Celsius, and typical summer range 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. In winter we very occasionally get a frost and in summer an occasional top temperature over 40 degrees Celsius. These extremes are very unusual and the temperature is really very stable. We normally use our pool from September through April.
We bought this house, with pool, about 9 years ago so have been managing the pool successfully over that time. Our local pool shop changed hands a couple years ago. The previous pool shop owner was very experienced and very practical. A great source of good advice. Recently the advice seems to come from superficially trained but inexperienced sales staff, so I am looking for an alternative source of information that isn't focused on selling product. Hopefully this forum will be it.
The pool is in-ground and very free-form so not easy to calculate precise volume. I reckon it is 48,000 litres. It has a self-cleaning salt water chlorinator, sand filter, and a plaster/pebble surface. We use an old Aquanaut Pool-Vac cleaner which I have been able to satisfactorily maintain myself so far and it works well.
A lot of advice on this forum relates to measurements from test kits that seem to be unavailable in Australia. I use the standard one supplied by most pool shops which uses DPD1 tablets to test chlorine, and recommends a Free Chlorine level of 1.0 to 1.5ppm. It also tests pH, recommending a level of 7.4 to 7.6; and Total Alkalinity with a recommended level of 80 to 120ppm. This obviously falls far short of the information requested on this forum, and on Jason's pool calculator.
I am hoping that there might be some other Aussies on the forum who can suggest where to find a more complete test kit that will allow me to accurately measure CH, CYA, Salt, Borate and CSI.
Cheers,