Hi, all. We bought a house a couple months ago with a pool. After scouring the net, I found this site. Well, not really scouring - it's pretty high up there on Google, thankfully!
Anyway, the pool is about 12 years old - specifics are in my sig. I'm pretty sure the previous owners were using stabilized pucks exclusively - that's the only thing he left, and the only thing he mentioned when I talked to him about the pool in general.
I've had a heck of a time getting anything to balance. Leslie's recommended test strips over a test kit. I didn't know any better, so that's what I got. They also dismissed that the strips always read high for stabilizer, and their tests only showed it at 100. After doing some reading here, I dug around in the garage and found a test kit - it's a Taylor K-2005, and unfortunately the scale only goes to 100 for CYA. However, I can tell with certainty that it's higher than that. I also tried diluting the water and using a test strip - diluted it was 150, although I'm sure I wasn't very exact. If I had been thinking, I would have done that with the test kit, but now I'm out of chemicals.
So... now what? To get CYA down to 50, I would need to drain 83% ?!?! Are there other options? Can I even do that? I live in Houston where the water table is high to begin with, and we've had a lot of rain lately!
I contacted http://www.poolservicestech.com/ - unfortunately, they're in San Diego. Oops! Seems like reverse osmosis would be a good solution, but I haven't been able to find anyone else that does it???
Help!!!
Oh - here's what I've been able to get for numbers:
FC: .5 (I shocked it after that - only thing that seems to be able to get the level up at all)
TC: .5
pH: 7.5
TA: 110
CYA: 300???
The pool looks OK most of the time - doesn't seem like it should with problems like this! I do have a persistent "dust" that coats the steps, and sometimes the bottom - it's a brownish-greenish color. There is also occasionally algae on the sides - I have to brush it every 2-3 days or so, but I was told that's normal with an older pool.
Thanks!
--Blake
Anyway, the pool is about 12 years old - specifics are in my sig. I'm pretty sure the previous owners were using stabilized pucks exclusively - that's the only thing he left, and the only thing he mentioned when I talked to him about the pool in general.
I've had a heck of a time getting anything to balance. Leslie's recommended test strips over a test kit. I didn't know any better, so that's what I got. They also dismissed that the strips always read high for stabilizer, and their tests only showed it at 100. After doing some reading here, I dug around in the garage and found a test kit - it's a Taylor K-2005, and unfortunately the scale only goes to 100 for CYA. However, I can tell with certainty that it's higher than that. I also tried diluting the water and using a test strip - diluted it was 150, although I'm sure I wasn't very exact. If I had been thinking, I would have done that with the test kit, but now I'm out of chemicals.
So... now what? To get CYA down to 50, I would need to drain 83% ?!?! Are there other options? Can I even do that? I live in Houston where the water table is high to begin with, and we've had a lot of rain lately!
I contacted http://www.poolservicestech.com/ - unfortunately, they're in San Diego. Oops! Seems like reverse osmosis would be a good solution, but I haven't been able to find anyone else that does it???
Help!!!
Oh - here's what I've been able to get for numbers:
FC: .5 (I shocked it after that - only thing that seems to be able to get the level up at all)
TC: .5
pH: 7.5
TA: 110
CYA: 300???
The pool looks OK most of the time - doesn't seem like it should with problems like this! I do have a persistent "dust" that coats the steps, and sometimes the bottom - it's a brownish-greenish color. There is also occasionally algae on the sides - I have to brush it every 2-3 days or so, but I was told that's normal with an older pool.
Thanks!
--Blake