New pool owner

[Undertow]

Hello everyone,

My wife and I close on our new home tomorrow and will become first time pool owners. I've been reading through the site in preparation and am glad to have found such a helpful community! The pool has been maintained by a pool company and was crystal clear this afternoon. I want to hit the ground running since we have what appears to be a solid starting point. I'm sure I'll be around quite a bit in the coming days, I look forward to meeting everyone!

Thanks,
Jake

 

[maxepr1]

Welcome Froboz! A good test kit would be my first purchase!

 

[Undertow]

Thanks for the welcome. I purchased a Leslie's total poolcare DPD test kit earlier this week. I do not know how many gallons the pool is, and strangely the previous owners do not know either - so I'll be doing measurements and a water test first thing.

 

[maxepr1]

Plug everything into the pool calculator. The numbers that come out of the pool calculator as gospel! Don't listen to Leslie's, there trying to sell you stuff!

 

[257WbyMag]

Welcome to TFP Jake!

Please consider purchasing a FAS-DPD chlorine test to supplement your Leslie's DPD test kit. The FAS-DPD kit is far superior to the plain DPD kit. You can pick one up at www.tftestkits.net.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

I bought my house about a year and a half ago. My pool was clear, everything worked, and the prior owner left the card for the pool service.

After a few months, I bought some test strips. Things didn't look too good. Then I bought a somewhat better test kit and things looked worse. A steady diet of trichlor pucks had boosted my CYA to somewhere above 220. pH was off the scale, TA was super high, CH was also very high and continued to worsen due to the hard water here.

Pure luck, I suppose, but I never had an algae outbreak. It took a while, but I accumulated a vacuum, pole, brushes, vacuum hose, and finally a TF100 test kit and a speedstir. I fired the pool service over a year ago when I got a bill and it was for the annual "conditioner addition." Like I needed it with CYA 220!! I did have a lot of scale; not harsh, more like a stain. I attribute that to failure to monitor the pH on the year-old replaster. For $75/month I was getting brush one week, vacuum the next, test with strips and add some acid, and a puck or two added to the floater.

As soon as you can gather all your stuff, fire the pool guy. What you spend will be repaid in 2 or 3 months of not paying him. And nobody will pay more attention and care than you to your pool. By the way, Lowes and Home Depot will probably be sending you some discount coupons; they buy your address from the Post Office when you put in a change of address. That's a good place to buy the vacuum hose, DE, brush heads, and so on. They sell acid and chlorine too, but the price isn't outstanding (might be with the 20% off, though) and the cardboard boxes looked a bit beaten up and faded, like they've been there awhile.

 

[Undertow]

Thanks for the welcomes!

257WbyMag, I will certainly look at adding the FAD-DPD to my kit.

Richard, Understood - I would like to do everything myself if possible; we'll see what the tests say tomorrow. I know there is a vacuum in the garage and some other various equipment. I should be able to get a good inventory tomorrow. I had no idea that Lowes and Home Depot had pool supplies, I'll look in to that as well.

 

[maxepr1]

Froboz, Costco has bleach and baking soda other than MA and CYA you shouldn't need much more.

 

[Richard320]

Addendum: Do your best measuring up the pool. If you work in cubic feet, there's 7.48 gallons/cubic foot. 7.5 is close enough. Don't forget to allow a little for radiused corners and steps. When you come up with a number, use it in Pool Calculator when you add stuff. If you overshoot, lower the value 1000 gallons for the next dose. Undershoot, add some. You'll know within 2 weeks how big your pool is. It's inexact, anyway, as water level changes with evaporation and kids splashing.