Okay...so I am new here, I am not a pool owner. I am however doing side jobs for a lady that lost her husband and he used to maintain the pool, when he died 2 years ago she left the pool open and it FILLED with leaves then she was forced to close the pool professionally WITHOUT removing the leaves, etc.
Now late in this summer I removed the cover (that one they show an elephant walking on) and she insisted getting it running immediately so I threw the chlorine tabs she had left into the strainer and spent the last 40 hours removing leaves with a net basket on a pole. Finally I got 95% of the leaves removed over the course of the last 2 weeks, the next day after we opened it she bought a 25lb bucket of shock...we have been feeding it 5lbs a day as I remove the leaves and this went on for over a week we have less than half a bucket left of shock and this is our second bucket so we have almost put 50lbs of shock into this pool in 10 days testing daily and it is high but stripped by the next day when I return...last week she also dumped half a bottle of this mustard stuff in the pool she had left from years ago that was suppose to help clear the water and also we put a whole bottle of pH-up in over the course of 48 hours and it is now on the higher side of the low end on the test strip (nobody is really using it this year anyway she just wanted it opened, cleaned and cleared then closed).
This is her pump system (sand) they installed it because it was easier to maintain and close the pool, as you can see they blocked off one of the inlet tubes.
One of the tubes to the furthest skimmer busted underground in the past so they just capped it and they are down to one skimmer inlet since it was going to cost her thousands to repair (does not make sense to me it can be done for far less).
We have been getting advice from everyone including a pool company nobody has a matching story, I used a brush and kicked everything up for days and let it run with high chlorine so it would kill the algae it did kind of turn from green to more of a teal color and is still getting lighter but so foggy. The last few days I have been vacuuming the bottom and it is getting lighter but Dang how long does this take to clear?
I was back-washing frequently then everyone told me not to unless the pressure goes up...well the pressure never rises above a steady 11psi and it's only about 6psi when vacuuming. We let it go 2 days and then back-washed today the water in the bubble window was very dark, it always clears then I rinse and it clears more. The question now is how often should I be back-washing until the water is clear?? I would think the sand needs to collect the dead algae then it needs to be washed out or else where is all this algae carcass going to go?? One guy said it works better when it starts to get plugged up...
Now late in this summer I removed the cover (that one they show an elephant walking on) and she insisted getting it running immediately so I threw the chlorine tabs she had left into the strainer and spent the last 40 hours removing leaves with a net basket on a pole. Finally I got 95% of the leaves removed over the course of the last 2 weeks, the next day after we opened it she bought a 25lb bucket of shock...we have been feeding it 5lbs a day as I remove the leaves and this went on for over a week we have less than half a bucket left of shock and this is our second bucket so we have almost put 50lbs of shock into this pool in 10 days testing daily and it is high but stripped by the next day when I return...last week she also dumped half a bottle of this mustard stuff in the pool she had left from years ago that was suppose to help clear the water and also we put a whole bottle of pH-up in over the course of 48 hours and it is now on the higher side of the low end on the test strip (nobody is really using it this year anyway she just wanted it opened, cleaned and cleared then closed).
This is her pump system (sand) they installed it because it was easier to maintain and close the pool, as you can see they blocked off one of the inlet tubes.
One of the tubes to the furthest skimmer busted underground in the past so they just capped it and they are down to one skimmer inlet since it was going to cost her thousands to repair (does not make sense to me it can be done for far less).
We have been getting advice from everyone including a pool company nobody has a matching story, I used a brush and kicked everything up for days and let it run with high chlorine so it would kill the algae it did kind of turn from green to more of a teal color and is still getting lighter but so foggy. The last few days I have been vacuuming the bottom and it is getting lighter but Dang how long does this take to clear?
I was back-washing frequently then everyone told me not to unless the pressure goes up...well the pressure never rises above a steady 11psi and it's only about 6psi when vacuuming. We let it go 2 days and then back-washed today the water in the bubble window was very dark, it always clears then I rinse and it clears more. The question now is how often should I be back-washing until the water is clear?? I would think the sand needs to collect the dead algae then it needs to be washed out or else where is all this algae carcass going to go?? One guy said it works better when it starts to get plugged up...
