new grumpy guy

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shane4

shane4

0
Jul 4, 2013
70
Ontario Canada
Hi all from Toronto Canada

I bought a new house ( well new to me, it is actually about 25 years old) and it came with an in ground pool. Approximatley 16 x 32 and around 83,000 litres (just under 20,000 gallons). It is a cross between an L and a kidney. Has a squared off shallow end and the deep end bends to the right of the shallow end with a large "curl" like a kidney pool. I have seen some websites refer to the shape as a Californian. Shallow end is 3' and deep end is 8'. Chlorine pool with no heater. Vinyl lined and about 10 years old.

Why am I a grumpy guy? I never wanted a pool. The house came with it and the wife always dreamed of having one. I never thought much about it as I figured I would stay out of it and let her take care of it. Ya right! That is like getting a dog for your kid who promised to take care of it and you end up doing the early morning and late night walks and scooping poop.

To my frustration I find myself dealing with this puddle I consider an unnecessary expense and waste of space. Regardless, it's mine and I better start dealing with it before it gets unmanageable. Of several websites I have seen this one seems to be the most informative and with very helpful members. So excuse my poor attitude as I ask questions.

Pool has been opened for about a month and so far I have learned about balancing chemicals or should I say not being able to balance, foggy water, possible algae, an old liner and tremendous amounts of ground water!!!! So far I am not seeing the fun (ha ha ha.....)
 
Hi grumpy guy. I am the grumpy gal! I did NOT want this pool but hubby did so............we have a pool. LOL

**The BEST thing you can do is order a GOOD test kit. Look at the link in my siggy. It will save you SO much money and time!

While you are waiting on your kit look at the prices of bleach/chlorine in your area. Make sure you look at the % as they range from 6% to 12%.

Start reading and rereading Pool School (top of the page).

Once you kit gets there do a test and post the results.

Good luck!
 
While you may not like caring for the pool, I can tell you from experience that the methods taught here work very well, and don't take a lot of your time. A few minutes a day testing and adjusting, and maybe an hour or so a week spent in the more physical aspects of pool care.
 
You can't order that kit in canuckistan from there, or any us Site. (unless you know someone in USA. ) you can get it from a few places in Canada. But the most cost effective way is to get a po bixnin buffalo and ship it there.

Sent from my HTC Ruby using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 
I will look into those test kits!

How accurate are the tests the local pool supply stores do?
A pool supply in my area takes samples of pool water and runs an analysis with their computer. They give you a computer print out of the water's condition with all the relative measurements (free chlorine, combined chlorine, total chlorine, PH, alkalinity, copper, poshpate, hardness, etc).
 
Most pool stores' tests are not reliable, though there is a small minority that are good.

Please remember, the store's objective is to make you buy their products. Your objective is to buy as little as possible.
They will confuse you. Here you will acquire the knowledge to avoid the confusion.

Using the proper test kit, and learning by reading Pool School, will put you in charge and in control of your pool and your wallet.

Pool School - white link button at top right of each page here. Lots of useful information, it takes several reads to assimilate as you put it into practice. Then it becomes easy.

50,000 members here are doing it, and so can you.

We're glad you found this forum. You'll have a safe and sparkling pool without unnecessary chemicals, and you'll save money, too.

Welcome, New Grumpy Guy, Shane4.
 
Thanks!

I have kind of noticed the inconsistency of the pool store tests. I understand FC, CC and PH will fluctuate regularily but I noticed other items such as phosphates and copper fluctuate drastically from day to day on the pool store test. A couple weeks ago they gave me number and suggestions how to deal with high PH and almost zero FC. The print sheet also indicated hardenss and phosphate were way out of wack. I concentrated on the PH and FC only and the next day went back to see how the numbers were shaping up. PH and FC were getting there and miraculously (does this forum have a spell check?) hardenss and phosphate were fine despite not having purchased or used their recommended chemicals from the day before.

I have googled around for the suggested test kits. Was wondering if any other Canadian forum members know where they can be purchased up here? Pool supply stores dont seem to carry them. So far I only have a cheap set from Canadian Tire (nation wide hardware type store) and those dip strips which my eyes have great difficulty matching the colours.
 
Here's some good news - you can ignore phosphates. No matter how much the pool store goes on about them and how you need PhosFree or some other junk to get rid of them, you can just look at them and say "no thanks". Copper you can test once and forget, if ever, unless you have something you are using that is putting copper back into the pool.

More good news - you don't have to buy anything expensive at the pool store to control pH or FC. Muriatic acid from your Canadian Tire, bleach from just about anywhere. Cheap and easy to get.

Now the bad news - Pool stores routinely get CYA wrong. That said, if you've had it tested, post the results. In fact post ALL your results.
 
I will be taking a sample over later today, as PH and FC got out of wack again. Not sure if I have a leak yet but water was down (could be evaporation) so I put the hose in which I am sure is the reason for FC and PH changes. I am also having ground water issues behind the liner. A couple weeks ago the pool guy came and I watched what he did. It's happening again but this time I am dealing it with it on my own. He pumped the ground water directly into the pool. I did the same, and I think that was a mistake. Surely that effected PH and FC but also now my water is getting cloudy and it looks like algae forming on the bottom and creeping up the deep end sides. I vacumed it all out last night and shocked but this morning there are two small patches starting again. Does algae come back that fast??? At first I thought it was sand from the filter as the patches do grow, but they seemed to have started forming around the return jets (x2) and creeped outwards

So I will head to the pool store after work with a new sample and will post what numbers they give me. I will post results.

Should I start a new thread as this is the "Introduce Yourself" Forum?

The only thing I have been using so far is chlorine tabs with stabilizer (from costco). I put two in the strainer and add two more when they are almost gone (approximately every 6-7 days sometimes 5 when it is warmer ). I use PH minus (-) from home depot when PH goes up. We have a lot of rain the past month! I have stopped using the powdered vinyl shock pushed by the pool store and switched to liquid chlorine for shocking when needed (found another pool store that sells liquid chlorine in bulk too so very reasonable).

:( Up until this week my pool has been crystal clear with what I have been doing but now low water, cloudy, maybe algae and ground water. Hopefully I can get over this and have ot back to crystal for the heat of the summer that is just about upon us now.
 

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the tablets your uising are putting CYA into your pool.. so over use of those will make it harder to keep algae at bay. once your CYA is high enough, stop using the bleach and switch to liquid chlorine. (im from newmarket) a little north of toronto, and find that bulk chlorine is cheaper.. as bleach in walmart etc. is 4.75% not the 8% our lucky neighbours to the south enjoy.. you should be able to find 1ltr around $.050 in bulk (and thats 12%) the jug costs $10 (one time fee) if your in the west end, mississauga has a few pool stores where you can buy a bulk card for liquid chlorine (pre pay for 100 litres) and it even runs cheaper than $0.50 a ltr.. my pool at 13.5k - 13k gallon and CYA of 40 ppm uses aprox. 1-1.5 ltrs of chlorine a day.. add on a 1/2 litre of muriatic acid a week as i have REAL high PH here (4l at a pool store is around $10) brings my maintanence chemicals to around $6 a week. (not including taxes). so the expense really is not all that high.

as for your cloudy water your chlorine level is probly low, and you probably have something taking hold. you need to find out what your CYA level is, pull those pucks out, and use bleach/liquid chlorine to bring your pool to the proper shock level determined by the pool clalulator.
 
I think Topher mistyped, I think he meant to say quit using tablets, as bleach and liquid chlorine are the same thing, just different concentrations, the local economics of which he goes into
 
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