Pool's done! Now what? LOL

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moze229

moze229

0
Jul 3, 2011
113
Central NC
Well, we finally had the pool installed yesterday. I ordered all of my pool related items online, and I'm still waiting on my filter/pump, ladder, and test kit. So, what I have right now is a pool almost full of water that's just a stagnant cesspool. LOL Here it is as of today. 24' Sharkline Matrix.

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As you can see, it's on quite a grade, and we haven't even landscaped the yard yet. Our house was completed just a month or so ago and I wanted to leave the dirt yard until the pool was installed. We still have a deck to add as well. And yes, there are a lot of trees that I'm going to end up killing myself cleaning the pool over. We are likely going to take more out soon. I suppose that's what you get for moving out into the middle of the woods. :-D

I have a few questions that are likely dumb, but I have to ask anyway.

1.) Do I wait until the pump/filter arrives before I add anything to the water? As much as I hate having the water sitting there with nothing in it, I really have no practical way of moving the water to circulate what I might add to the pool. I'm an aquarium enthusiast and have been for years. I don't let any body of water sit there motionless - ever. It's just not a good idea.

2.) I bought one of the "hang over the wall" pool lights and I forgot to give it to the installers yesterday. In order to install it, you have to remove one of the top rails to hang it on the wall. Is it ok to do this when the pool is full of water?

I'll probably have some additional questions about plumbing and such, even though (back to the aquariums) I have years of experience plumbing rather large show tanks. Same thing - different scale. I need to know where you all put your gate valves and such. I just don't have ANY experience will pools so I want to make sure everything is right. Either tomorrow or after hurricane Irene, I'm going to start trenching for the plumbing.

Thanks all for your continued support!
 
You can add some bleach and stir it well with a brush or skimmer net... or an oar... or maybe the large wooden spoon that's hanging on your grandma's kitchen wall :~}

Since you have no CYA in the water, the chlorine will be gone fast. Normally we recommend adding CYA (cyanuric acid/stabilizer) manually so that you know exactly how much is in there but I'm not sure if the lack of pump will allow it to dissolve properly. The bleach should mix up fine with some manual stirring but I'm hesitant to say CYA would. Some chlorine is necessary or the water will bloom algae very soon.

When does the pump arrive?

In the meantime, your most valuable tool will be to get a FAS-DPD test kit, and to read read read pool school (top right of this page, white button).

What is the volume of water in the pool? Measure the water height and look at http://poolcalculator.com at the bottom, it'll help you determine volume in gallons. Then you can put that at the top of the pool calculator to determine how much of anything needed you should add.

I'm thinking if the pool is 8000 gallons, a bottle of bleach right now would not raise it over 10ppm which is shock level. To raise an 8K pool to 3ppm it would take about a quart of bleach so if I'm close in volume at all, at LEAST put in a quart of bleach right now.
 
You will be adding stabilizer and chlorine and you may need to adjust TA and pH. Do you know TA and pH of this water yet?

Which test kit did you order? Wondering about delivery.
 
Thanks all.

Pump arrives in a few days. I haven't got an actual tracking number yet but I'm working on that now. The pool, according to my calculations, is ~15,200 gallons (24' round, 54" wall). I'm going to be off to Wally World here in just a few minutes to pick up some bleach. Although, if I have nothing to hold it in there (CYA) it may just be a waste of money.

Test kit should be here tomorrow, but will be useless without adding things to the water :)

We have a hurricane arriving tomorrow which right now is forecasted to dump almost 2" of rain here. Since I haven't worked on any of the ground around the pool I hope nothing gets washed out.
 
I would think this would be a good case for some chlorine pucks and a floater. You can afford the CYA level increase, just keep track of how many you add. This way you also don't have to worry about stirring up the bleach either. It may not look amazing, but you'll keep the green away and will be ready when everything shows up.
 
Leebo said:
I would think this would be a good case for some chlorine pucks and a floater. You can afford the CYA level increase, just keep track of how many you add. This way you also don't have to worry about stirring up the bleach either. It may not look amazing, but you'll keep the green away and will be ready when everything shows up.
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Thanks! This is exactly what I did for now. Got some pucks, floater, and a net. Man, this stuff's expensive. I can now officially say that I've been pool stored. :) LOL
 
Also wanted to add that Dave and Meg at TFTestkits are great! Did you know that Dave spent almost 20 minutes on the phone with me advising what to do in my particular situation. It's really cool when you find businesses and people that are willing to take extra time out of their day to help when it's not even asked.
 

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You can always add CYA manually. Did you see it when you were at walmart? They sell the HTH brand, it dissolves fast and works very well.

30-40ppm to start. If you're going to use the pucks maybe just add 10-15ppm of the CYA and then run the tablets in the floater for the next few weeks. Check the chlorine a couple times a day at first, regulating chlorine with a floater is not easy. Every time I use it my FC levels fluctuate. Most the time it's just a bit too much, then the puck gets small and it is not enough for my comfort. If the puck is only giving me 4ppm that's an end of day reading for me and I feel like I need to dose it up to 5 or 6 if the kids will swim that day.
 
Hey, Matt,

Thank you for those nice words. It is VERY easy to help nice people.

I've been re-thinking about adding that extra Clorox and forgot that I didn't take into consideration that your pool may not be full tonight.

If it's full, go ahead with the 1 large jug, that'll give you 6ppm FC. If it's around 1/2 way full, use the small jug (96oz) of Clorox.....that'll still give you about 6ppm.
 
duraleigh said:
Hey, Matt,

Thank you for those nice words. It is VERY easy to help nice people.

I've been re-thinking about adding that extra Clorox and forgot that I didn't take into consideration that your pool may not be full tonight.

If it's full, go ahead with the 1 large jug, that'll give you 6ppm FC. If it's around 1/2 way full, use the small jug (96oz) of Clorox.....that'll still give you about 6ppm.
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Thanks Dave. The pool is very close to being full. I filled to the skimmer bottom and Irene should take care of the rest. :wink: Since my Walmart didn't have what I was looking for, my wife is going to make a run by the one by her work on the way home and pick some up.

frogabog said:
You can always add CYA manually. Did you see it when you were at walmart? They sell the HTH brand, it dissolves fast and works very well.

30-40ppm to start. If you're going to use the pucks maybe just add 10-15ppm of the CYA and then run the tablets in the floater for the next few weeks. Check the chlorine a couple times a day at first, regulating chlorine with a floater is not easy. Every time I use it my FC levels fluctuate. Most the time it's just a bit too much, then the puck gets small and it is not enough for my comfort. If the puck is only giving me 4ppm that's an end of day reading for me and I feel like I need to dose it up to 5 or 6 if the kids will swim that day.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm not going to mess with adding stabilizer until I get the filter and pump going I don't think. I really need a way to mix it in good. Duraleigh suggested actually getting in the pool and mixing things up, but with the hurricane coming that's not really an option for me. :-D Also, my Walmart had like 1/8 of 1 shelf of pool stuff and it was all on clearance. Most of it was some Intex pools and covers. Looks like they are done with the pool stuff for the season over here.
 
Exactly, they don't sell pool stuff at walmart once they sell everything they have on the shelf. Pick up the CYA if you can find it there especially if on clearance, for the future. Most of us really like the HTH brand, it dissolves fast. Most pool store brands aren't reported to be as soluble. Also pick up anything else you think you might need over the winter. Brush, an extra pole, skimmer, vacuum head or pool vac, etc. I don't know how many times we've passed on something walmart has on clearance only to have to buy it next season at full price.

I totally forgot when I posted that you didn't have the pump yet. Even though I knew it yesterday when I first posted, lol. Ixnay on CYA till it is installed, yes.
 
I use my Wall Whale brush to mix things in the pool, just a few pushes gets a lot of water moving.

I think that it would still be useful with an AGP, but maybe someone who has one can tell you if that is an option for you.
 
Well, I still don't have the pump and filter yet. While I'm waiting patiently, I decided to take on some of the trench work that's involved with this whole process. If you look at the picture above you can see that I was standing on a deck - way up in the sky. :) I have two downspouts on the deck that were shooting straight towards the pool. I've since relocated the water flow to guttering drain and off to the side. I'm also prepping for the buried plumbing for the pump/filter. Now I have another issue to deal with.

Rain in the last few days has allowed me to see exactly what the water situation is around the pool. If you look at the picture from the first post, water likes to collect around the excavated end of the pool. Now, this seems like an easy fix and it likely will be. The problem that I'm having is deciding the BEST way to get that water out of there. I also want to spend as little money as possible. There will eventually be a deck (hopefully within the next couple of weeks) over this area.

1.) French drain/retaining wall - this was my initial thought. The problem is the work and money involved. It's going to take a lot of gravel to get the drain system set up properly. Also getting the retaining wall in there is not going to be easy in that small of a space. Keep in mind also that this is heavy, hard, North Carolina clay.
2.) Backfill - I've gone back and forth on this idea as well. In fact, I was one of those people whom at first, was willing to bury the whole pool. I've since backed off that idea a little bit because of the danger of cave-in should I ever drain. (Well, I shouldn't say "ever" - it's just a matter of time before I'll need to for some reason). I've seen many-a-pool installed "buried" when they weren't supposed to be. Heck, even one of the local pool places has one side of their display AG pools almost completely in the ground! This would be the cheapest route. Is it "safer" to bury only one side than it is to bury the whole thing? I shouldn't say "bury", because I would still have 1.75 - 2 feet above ground. It seems that on one hand it would be a little better because you'd only be worrying about one side. On the other hand, burying the whole thing might be stronger because of there being no pressure deviation.
3.) Leave as is - This is the least favorable, but I had to mention it. As I said, the "moat" around the pool will be covered by deck. However, I have to worry about the excavated walls eroding. This option is not the most likely solution.

Anyone have any other ideas? I know that there has to be some of you out there that has a pool installed on a grade like this.
 
Ok. Maybe this will help. :)

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As you can see, there is quite a grade but perhaps not as bad as some that I've seen. I measured the wall height to the grade - we are talking fill up to 26 inches - just over 2 ft. This leaves over 2 ft. of wall exposed. I'll also be doing a retaining wall behind the pool where the back fill is.

I had a guy that I usually work with on this kind of stuff come over this morning and we mulled over some solutions for quite some time, but kept coming back to the idea of just filling it in. With the deck going around it and everything else, it just makes things complicated to do it any other way.

Any thoughts?
 
If it is a matrix (looks like the pool I just installed) you may want to review the warranty - I was in a similar situation, my installer told me any dirt markings 16in above the wall cold void the warranty. When I had my deck built I had a few extra 4x4's put in on the grade side of the pool to ease the erosion. My installer has been doing these resin matrix pools for a while - he has never had issues with warranty, but he strongly recommends not adding more than 16" - 12" if you can of back fill around the pool. You can see my pool progress here and-so-it-begins-end-so-it-ends-first-stage-t37782.html --- In the picture where you can see the start of the deck frame (under the pump picture), almost every 4 foot where I could put a 4x4 to intersect with a 2x6 frame that was right in front of my grade I did, cost a little more, but in the event of a lot of erosion I can access under my deck and secure boards to these to create a retaining wall, also added extra brace support to the front of the deck. I also laid sand bags along the edge (about 1ft off the edge) of the grade under the deck to help divert water around the pool - this was much cheaper than a retaining wall, and a full french drain system.
 

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