I’ve been lurking here since last fall, picking up great advice and have finally registered.
This is our first pool; we started renting this house last October. The owner is supposed to pay for all pool maintenance but I was told recently by the pool cleaner that the owner was pushing back on any 'extra' chemicals. That puts me in the middle of this and I’d just like to make sure that the pool’s kept in good shape. For that reason, I’m adding extra bleach and muriatic acid just to make sure that everything’s in good shape - the pool uses quite a bit of chlorine; 3 tabs (from pool cleaner), 2 cups of muriatic acid (me) and ~1.5 gallons of bleach (me) every week. We live in Tucson so the local water is extremely hard and I doubt that the pool water’s been changed in many years. The pool/connected spa is ~18,000 gallons.
Here are the latest numbers:
FC 2
pH 7.2
TA 130
CYA 140
CH 980
Temp 83
With the extremely high CYA and CH, I assume my only choice is to drain the pool. The pool looks very clear right now but I'd like to reduce the chemical consumption (especially chlorine). If I need to drain it, I'd like to hold off until fall to drain most of the water. The only other solution sounds like reverse osmosis which would likely be more expensive than just doing a drain/refill.
My plan is to keep the pH at 7.2 and try to knock the TA below 100 (it was around 300 when I moved in and started reading this website; 3 gallons of acid later, it's 130). I don't know what else to do that makes sense.
I am currently adding soft water from the house (I run a hose from the washer hookups to the pool) to keep the hardness from increasing further - or should I just turn the autofill back on?
In a nutshell, three questions:
1) Should I drain the pool this fall or do you have an alternative idea to reduce my CYA and CH?
2) Should I keep topping off the pool with soft water or go back to autofill with hard water?
3) The pool looks very clear right now; should I just leave things alone and be happy with the additional chemical consumption?
Thanks in advance
This is our first pool; we started renting this house last October. The owner is supposed to pay for all pool maintenance but I was told recently by the pool cleaner that the owner was pushing back on any 'extra' chemicals. That puts me in the middle of this and I’d just like to make sure that the pool’s kept in good shape. For that reason, I’m adding extra bleach and muriatic acid just to make sure that everything’s in good shape - the pool uses quite a bit of chlorine; 3 tabs (from pool cleaner), 2 cups of muriatic acid (me) and ~1.5 gallons of bleach (me) every week. We live in Tucson so the local water is extremely hard and I doubt that the pool water’s been changed in many years. The pool/connected spa is ~18,000 gallons.
Here are the latest numbers:
FC 2
pH 7.2
TA 130
CYA 140
CH 980
Temp 83
With the extremely high CYA and CH, I assume my only choice is to drain the pool. The pool looks very clear right now but I'd like to reduce the chemical consumption (especially chlorine). If I need to drain it, I'd like to hold off until fall to drain most of the water. The only other solution sounds like reverse osmosis which would likely be more expensive than just doing a drain/refill.
My plan is to keep the pH at 7.2 and try to knock the TA below 100 (it was around 300 when I moved in and started reading this website; 3 gallons of acid later, it's 130). I don't know what else to do that makes sense.
I am currently adding soft water from the house (I run a hose from the washer hookups to the pool) to keep the hardness from increasing further - or should I just turn the autofill back on?
In a nutshell, three questions:
1) Should I drain the pool this fall or do you have an alternative idea to reduce my CYA and CH?
2) Should I keep topping off the pool with soft water or go back to autofill with hard water?
3) The pool looks very clear right now; should I just leave things alone and be happy with the additional chemical consumption?
Thanks in advance