Vacation procedures

[LauleaHere&There]

We're headed to the mainland soon for a couple of weeks. The pool will be untended during that time, except for the possibility of a neighbor adding a little bleach once in a while.

1. Solar cover on or off? I'd like to keep debris out if I can, the trades are brisk this time of year and the bees are swarming. But I also know that warm stagnant water breeds junk...

2. Should I spike up the chlorine a little before I go?

3. Any other suggestions?

Thank you!

 

[JasonLion]

It is impossible to leave a pool unattended for more than about a week without there being a significant risk of problems. The more you can get your neighbor to do the better.

Using the solar cover is a good idea and raising the chlorine level extra high is a good idea.

After a week it is going to need more chlorine. It would also help tremendously if someone was there to check that the skimmer(s) doesn't get clogged with leaves, that the water level isn't going down, that the pump hasn't lost prime, etc.

 

[LauleaHere&There]

At the risk of sounding like a complete dope, do you mean that I should also arrange for the pump to run while we're gone? We do everything manually because the pool is small and nobody swims in it but us. And, as you know, our pump is huge--we just don't have to run it more than a few hours a day.

If I do set up a timer for SWG and pump, I'll have to leave the cover off or it blocks the skimmer.

Or...if I leave the cover on (I do lose quite a bit of water to evaporation if not covered) can I set my SWG on a timer and not pump?

Sorry to be dense. I'm trying to avoid the green scene we had recently, without having to put my neighbor through pool school.

 

[JasonLion]

There is no ideal choice. I leave the pump running on a timer while I am away. That has advantages and disadvantages. With the pump running you can use a trichlor tablet floater or a SWG to add chlorine constantly, which helps a great deal and doesn't work without the pump running. But the pump might have problems while you are away and could in the worst case run dry and destroy it's self (unless you have prime protection).

Another issue is that if you do have someone come over to add chlorine, the pump needs to be running for about an hour after they add chlorine.

A solar cover that blocks the skimmer is obviously a problem. Generally you want to cut the cover down so it doesn't block the skimmer. The odds of the pool doing well without the cover are much lower. Leaving the cover on and the pump off is very problematic for longer than five or six days. If it was a week, it might be worth risking it, but more than a week seems very unlikely to work.

 

[LauleaHere&There]

OK, thanks for your advice, Jason. I will work something out.

 

[LauleaHere&There]

Well, we dodged the bullet. I boosted the chlorine to 10 before we left and tweaked the rest of the levels (mostly added CYA to 60). Put on the solar cover and set the Chlor-ease on a timer to run 3 hours at night. Unplugged the pump.

Returned after 10 days to test results almost exactly where I left them. The water is slightly hazy, but we get a lot of dust here.

Not saying this'll work for everybody, but it did work for me this time.