New pool owner in Maryland

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bs911

bs911

0
Aug 29, 2013
15
Williamsport, MD
Hi. Just got a new pool finished and have been enjoying it and this website for about a week now. It's a custom L shaped vinyl inground. 3 ft shallow to 5 ft deep. It's not for diving but a real fun play pool for the family. So far the water is great. Crystal clear and holding. I'm only running around 1-2 FC, but with my low CYA levels of about 15 right now it's doing the job and I'm being patient letting the trichlor gradually do its own stabilizing. Thanks for the great resource!

[attachment=0:25p6nerx]pool small.jpg[/attachment:25p6nerx]
 

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Welcome to tfp, bs911 :wave:

Your pool looks great!

The problem with using trichlor to raise you cya up form low is that you can experience dips in FC where it goes below the minimum FC required to keep you pool algae free. If you watch it close (as in test multiple times a day especially when you have a lot of sun and/or high swimmer load) then you can make this work. This approach is not one we recommend. If was doing this, I would personally use liquid chlorine to bump up the FC up towar the top of the range (5 ppm FC for 15 ppm cya) as insurance.

Speaking of cya, how are you able to measure 15 ppm?
 
Thanks for the feedback. The pool company did a test on my levels shortly after start up. I know the CYA is low and I'm going to run another sample over there later to see how we're tracking. I'm torn on how to proceed without overreacting to anything. Your advice is good on the "insurance" FC. The good thing for me is that I work from home. So I'm monitoring it a LOT (Basic 3 way test kit) until I get things where I want and hopefully on autopilot. I'm consistently getting somewhere between 1 and 2 throughout the day. The water is running crystal clear still and we have pretty low bather load. If the CYA levels aren't showing higher from another test today I will start on it.

I don't have a good test kit yet. But I'm seeing the recommendations here and will be getting one shortly. With the basic OTO/Phenol kit I'm seeing:
FC = 1 - 2
PH = 7.6

With the strips I'm starting to think either I have selective color blindness or else they are useless. But I show:
TA = 120
TH = 0
CyA = ... somewhere, ANYwhere between the brownish 0 and slightly orangish brownish 40. This is highly accurate and scientific... ish.
 
Test strips are horrible at measuring anything but and are almost always wrong on cya. Do you know how much cya you have added...how many pucks you have used? Do you know if the pool company added any?

I would keep the Total Chlorine (TC is what the OTO chlorine test indicates) more up towards the 5 range on the OTO kit for now.

It would be an important investment to get your self an appropriate test kit soon. See: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison Many of us have the tf-100 since it is the best value.
 
Yeah... I got a thing of test strips in a gift basket from the pool company and have quickly found out that they are useless. I think MAYBE they can be a ballpark indicator to tell you when you need to call the pool company out or go get properly tested.

I will most definitely take your advice on bumping up the chlorine today and will get a new reading on the rest this afternoon.

Will the tf-100 still be a good investment if in the spring I convert to salt? I'm thinking so, but I still need to find out about the best for that scenario.

Thanks so much for your advice.
 
bs911 said:
Will the tf-100 still be a good investment if in the spring I convert to salt? I'm thinking so, but I still need to find out about the best for that scenario.
Click to expand...
Imo, even more so. Getting a swg tuned in takes some accurate testing and more work (compared to a manually chlorinated pool) up front.
 
linen said:
bs911 said:
Will the tf-100 still be a good investment if in the spring I convert to salt? I'm thinking so, but I still need to find out about the best for that scenario.
Click to expand...
Imo, even more so. Getting a swg tuned in takes some accurate testing and more work (compared to a manually chlorinated pool) up front.
Click to expand...


Just a +1 to linen's comment. A good kit will be the single best small investment you ever make in your pool. Especially with a SWG. Good luck and do keep us posted.
 

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Sure thing. I used Pro Pools of Hagerstown MD. I'm not sure how far they travel for installs. They are a local business here in Hagerstown and not a chain store, if that matters to you. Baltimore is quite a haul though.

With the summer rapidly coming to an end I will admit I was anxious during the build of the time going by. It seemed that everything took just a tad longer than I originally wished for. Permit took a few days more. It rained right when concrete was due in... lost a whole week on weather there. It was never slow work or "wasting time"... just hurry up and wait kind of time. But all in all it was just over a month for the whole build. Can't complain about that. Although, I had no "extras" like lights, water jets, diving boards, or anything like that.

What I can say about Pro Pools (in case anyone ever looks for a recommendation here) is that they KNOW building pools, and build them right. I feel confident after watching the process that it was done right, with no corners cut. Things were never "close enough"... things were done properly. They were professional, courteous, worked with me on what I wanted, and delivered exactly what I expected. The concrete company (Nicholas Construction) did great work and, like Pro Pools, took a lot of pride in their product.

Being new here myself, I haven't read up yet on etiquette about referrals and dealing with companies who may or may not be site sponsors so let me know if I need to take things offline. I'd be happy to discuss more via private message. Not sure how much this will help you, but I hope it is useful.
 
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