BBB method in different climates

[zamboniman]

Curious on thoughts regarding BBB method being applied in short season northerly areas like I'm in.. ~3 - 4 Months.

After reading about this I'm all in and it makes total sense with one slight observation... many using this appear to live in climates of year round or long seasons. A disaster for continual Trichlor use.

These last 2 years after inheriting a pool with a house purchase, I've been blindly going about pool maintenance under the direction of the local pool store. In their defense.. They promote a "system" that doesn't include much extra stuff but rather what appears to work well for our area over many years of experience. They don't advocate putting a bunch of "stuff" in or making the pool into a chemistry project.

Their recipe consists of
1. Using the evil 3" trichlor puck all the time
2. Early in the season some weekly dose of granular dichlor (also after heavy use)
3. Liquid 12% whenever there's a problem and in place of dichlor late in the season
4. Weekly maint dose of few Oz of algaecide
5. Weekly maint dose of few Oz of sequestrant (mainly high iron well water around)

Basically the recipe seems to work as long as you keep it up. Also what I've determined through loose conversation is their general philosophy is to raise CYA throughout the season. Although they never have gotten into the technicals of it I know enough now to see that they are basically raising CYA up pretty high to where at closing time they put a good amount of liquid chlorine in to carry the fall, winter, spring with the high CYA. Also closing includes draining down a good volume of water. Effectively doing a major dilution at opening with off season rain + whatever new fill required.

So in a short season of max 4 months and a ~1/3 to 1/2 drain. Does the BBB make as much sense? It does seem that even though it "works" there does seem to be some level of chase required to keep things in check but I factor that into maintaining a pool. Also I don't have hard data but the amount of chlorine required at season end feels more than at open which would be in line with high CYA.

Full disclosure I'm going to try the BBB method this season and see how I like it. I'm hoping to use less chlorine and little or no algaecide overall. Still looking and hoping for a nice source of bulk sequestrant.

 

[Richard320]

The source of the chlorine isn't as important as understanding the chemistry and adding what you need. If you can get away with using trichlor pucks, do it! But if it starts driving pH and TA down because you have soft water and you have top start buying other stuff to fix it, then don't. It's about testing and adjusting and understanding.

Sequestrant is probably a good idea. Algaecide is only needed when closing, if you maintain FC levels by whatever source - liquid, powders, or pucks.

 

[zamboniman]

Funny you mention soft water.. My hose plumbing at the pool is actually plumbed to the home water softener. I typically would put it in bypass to fill but maybe the prior pool owner knew more than I give him credit for. After chasing ugly iron staining on my stairs last year despite the sequestrant, I was going to try filling with softened water (to lessen the iron). On that note doing an iron out treatment on the softner is WAY cheaper than continually buying expensive sequestrant.

Is that a horrible idea? I'm already committed at this point to try the BBB. Too many success stories on here. I'm all about making it easier and applying automation stuff to make it easier. In other words a stenner pump/tank combo is already in the mail. So this season I'll give it a shot and see how it compares from a work standpoint and results as well.

 

[Isaac-1]

Trichlor can work in some situations where there is a large amount of water replacement and a short swim season, what we often see around here with people in the more mid northern climates with slightly longer swim seasons, but still do formal closing and large amounts of water replacement in the off season is everything goes good for the first 3 months of the swim season, but then everything starts falling apart, algae blooms, etc. just as it is time to close.