5 day vacation

[luke2]

Hi and thanks for the help!

Our pool was just built here in Austin, Texas. They still are curing the plaster, which went in a week ago on Thursday April 18. Up until now, they’ve had a pool guy come every other day to test levels and add chemicals. I’ve only seen him directly add muriatic acid and chlorine tabs. But he may have added some other things too.

We are headed out of town on Wednesday at lunch and won’t return until Monday late evening, five days later. If I go out and buy liquid chlorine, baking soda, cya, calcium clorate, and a high quality test kit, can I coast for five days if my levels are good before I leave? I know pool school says to test daily. Should I hire a pool service ala carte for the middle of that vacation?

Pool volume is 6600 gallons, chlorine pool. Half shaded by a live oak tree that is not currently dropping leaves. Outter dimensions approximately 13x23.

 

[HermanTX]

Welcome to TFP.
Is your normal chlorination method chlorine tabs or liquid chlorine?
If it is LC, then that needs to be added at least every 2 days.
If it is tabs, then just load up the chlorinator (do not put in the skimmer) and ensure the other tests are all in target range - CYA, CH, TA, pH.
Another idea - especially if using LC, bring your FC level up to SLAM level - that is 40% of your CYA level. So CYA of 60, then SLAM level is FC of 24ppm. Add some chlorine tabs and enjoy vacation. For 5 days it should be fine - assume daily FC loss of 3ppm so that would be 15ppm of loss and if you start at 24 then that is still on target for your CYA of 60. Refer to the CYA and FC chart -
FC/CYA Levels
The other concern is your skimmer clogging. If you can have a neigbor check your skimmer baskets mid-way through vacation would be helpful.

 

[HermanTX]

BTW - purchase a recommended test kit-
Test Kits Compared

 

[luke2]

Thanks a ton for your useful replies! I have yet to add my own chlorine but was thinking liquid chlorine based on some threads here and after reading some of pool school. The employee at Leslie was strongly recommending tabs but sounds like this forum suggests that tabs often have cya so you have me less fine tuned control over cya levels since more chlorine would bring the cya associated with the chlorine tab.

This all makes a ton of sense. I’ll get the other levels good and add a chlorine tab (how do I know how many to add?) to tide us over.

Thanks again!

 

[sande005]

You can buy a floater for the tabs at a nearby store (pool store, sometimes walmart, etc), if your Cl is starting out in a good range, then one or two tabs should be good enough. I used to go through 2-5 per week for a 23,000 gal pool - depends a LOT on water temperature. You can then remove the floater, dry things, and save the partial tabs (if any) for the next trip. For only occasional use, the CYA increase will be pretty little.

 

[HermanTX]

Thanks a ton for your useful replies! I have yet to add my own chlorine but was thinking liquid chlorine based on some threads here and after reading some of pool school. The employee at Leslie was strongly recommending tabs but sounds like this forum suggests that tabs often have cya so you have me less fine tuned control over cya levels since more chlorine would bring the cya associated with the chlorine tab.

This all makes a ton of sense. I’ll get the other levels good and add a chlorine tab (how do I know how many to add?) to tide us over.

Thanks again!

LC is recommended over chlorine tabs. Tabs are useful for specific needs, such as vacation. Tabs also contain some acid so that helps in controlling pH rise while on vacation. Suggest you buy a test kit, know your chemical values before you depart and test upon coming home.
We also suggest the use of the PoolMath app. This helps track your chemical additions and also provides insight to the effect of adding chemicals in the "Effects of Adding..." calculation. For $8 per year - well worth it.