Help! 1st Home and Pool

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If he drains his pool completely as recommended on here without knowing ground conditions and he sends back this picture next I would like to see what kind of help is offered then.
 

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Hey guys, I have some basic knowledge of the filtration process, I even printed out the PDF user manual (thanks google). I just looked into "floating the pool" and for fear of my pool and possible damage i might cause, im not wanting to find out if i have any underground water underneath the pool foundation, i have decided that I am not going to drain it completely. Just a partial drain like 1/3 and refill with hose water it to see if I can get the chemistry right. I Thank You All for the advice!!! especially jblizzle! Toesinsand, and the rest of yall for helping me. I will keep you posted with pictures soon!
 
If you have the ability to shut off the valve from the skimmers while putting the multiport in waste mode, you will not need a sump pump in the pool. You will drain from the main drains in the bottom of the pool. If you can't close the skimmers off with a valve then close the flapper valves in the bottom of the skimmers, but you likely only be able to drain the water to the level of the bottom of the skimmer housing as you will start sucking air unless you have skimmer plugs. Adding water through your water supply while draining will also result in more high CYA pool water being replaced. I am surprised you have to add water through a hose and you don't have a water supply to your pool. Look all around just under your coping for a pvc pipe sticking out to make sure you don't. If you find it then there is likely a valve off one of your outdoor faucets to turn it on. I personally would never completely drain my pool, especially since I live in Houston. I would only hire a professional to either acid wash or replaster as they would be responsible if they floated it. I don't think there is any such thing as a minor float. If it happens, your pool is toast, a complete loss. Then bring in the jack hammers before building a new one.
 
Ok, this thread is getting a bit out of control, my advise is to go slow, your not going to be swimming in the pool any time soon regardless if it is cleared up next week or next month. People have cleaned up pools that look a lot worse than this without draining, but it is some work. It may or may not be cheaper to drain, clean and refill, a lot depends on local water cost, how much you value your time, etc. You already know you have a mess, you know CYA is high and needs to be lowered through water replacement, but what we don't know is your feelings on the subject, amount of free time, inclination to get it clean, etc. We also don't have a clear idea of your pool setup, a few pictures of your equipment pad will give us a better idea of what your working with. I would also suggest reading over pool school here a couple of times (link in the upper right corner, and watching the TF test kits videos on youtube (the TF-100 test kit uses the same chemistry as the K2006, just slightly different tubes) In particular pay attention to the CYA test. Then take a breath slow down and decide on a plan of action.

Ike
 
A voice of reason there Ike. Slow down and think about it. No one here knows you. You might be willing to manually "skim" the Crud out of your pool in the next few days/weeks or you may not. My personal preference would be to get as much of that stuff out of my pool before replacing any water. In the end you know, you need to replace some water. IMO if you get the excess algae and organics out first, you'll have a better idea of where to go from there.

Just my 2 oz. and probably not worth that,
Spyder
 
This thread seems to have gotten away from the thrust of OP's question.....How to get his pool in line. I would suggest these steps that you can do yourself.

1. Drain 1/3 of your pool and replace it with fill water. Test and post your results after the refill

2. if they are still too high (Read "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School) then repeat the 1/3 drain refill and they should be fine or adjust as necessary. Test and post your results after the refill

3. Immediately put 2-4 ppm of chlorine in your pool and keep it there.

4. Now, your pool should be ready for the SLAM process.....disregard the peripheral info if you want to keep this simple. Just ask questions along the way and ,responders, make sure your responses are correct and on topic and don't muck up the water

5. read "SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain" in the How To section of Pool School.....Ask questions.

The folks on this forum have enough experience to build your pool from scratch and get it balanced and crystal clear.....even over the internet.

What you have to give is a willingness to learn and then learn.

On a side note.....
Maybe people ignore non-moderators, I think this is basically what I said in my previous post.
Click to expand...
The opposite is true. It is the new new members post we most closely scrutinize.....virtually everyone. We know our moderators work hard at being polite, concise and technically correct with their answers.

This is the finest pool forum on the net by a VERY long shot and no one holds a candle to us when it comes to politeness, accuracy, and response time.
 
Draining the pool

This is a follow up of the recommendations of the post from:

help-1st-home-and-pool-t71850-20.html

TL:DR
Drain the pool 1/3 of the way refill and check water chemistry.

So after draining the pool i noticed that the walls of the pool have gotten green stains on the wall, im sure this is Algae residue. Should I try to remove the stains before I refill the pool? Or is this something that will clear up as i get the pool back into shape? Sorry I like to ask questions ask I go along lol
 

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Better to keep it all together and move forward even if there was some creative side trips going on, it helps us keep track of who is who, and what their issues are. This is not such a problem this time of year, but in the spring pool opening season when there are hundreds or even thousands of messages being posted here on any given day it is nearly impossible to remember who is who, and what you have said.

Ike

p.s. that is one nice looking pool you have, or at least it will be with a bit of clean up
 

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So I've been so excited tonight while filling the pool and I went out to check on it at 0400, and finally the water is back up to its normal level. After draining and refilling about half a pool's worth of new water, the new readings... its about 30 degree's outside too (cold front just rolled into Arlington today) not sure if this will throw off the readings.. but here we go

FC: 0
PH: 7.2
Total Alkalinity: 90 PPM
Calcium Hardness: 200 PPM
CYA: 90 - 100 PPM (Last time the reading was at least 150 - 200)

I think the numbers are ALOT better, so here is my question before I put my head down to rest again before work today.

Should i drain and refill again? to bring the CYA down? the water looks less swamp like and more of country lake green color. (will ask another question related to this)

Do I need to be worried about Calcium Hardness since this is the only reading that did not change??

Can I start slamming now? I have a SWG and after reading some peoples comments they said even if I got CYA down to 50 PPM I would have to bring it back up for the SWG

I have not tested salt level in the pool but I am certain I will need to replenish some, so should I start now or fix the CYA and Calcium first?

Have a good morning peeps.
 
I'd suggest another drain to try and lower the CYA to around 40-50ppm. It will make your life soooo much easier in the long run. The SWG will have a very tuff time reaching chlorine levels high enough to SLAM the pool, so I'd also suggest liquid chlorine for now. Once you've finished the SLAM process then switch on the SWG.
 
I agree with another drain, but I'm really posting to let you know that there are a lot more of us reading that don't post unless we see something that needs addressing.

You're doing a good job, just keep it up. :)
 
Did you test your tap water CH? If it is high, then that would explain the value not changing much.

I too would suggest another drain, at least 1/3. Then you should be ready to SLAM.
 
The fact that your calcium is unchanged just means your tap water is close to the same CH as what was in your pool. This is not surprising since you have a SWG and the previous owner probably never had great balance. So no worries about that other than it is a bit low, especially for winter. That gives you the option of using calcium hypo to slam if you wish. If you use bleach, you will probably want to add CH later to get it to 250-300 for better water balance. Also, you may want to go to Home Depot or Lowes and find the liquid chlorine to use instead of bleach. As it has twice the concentration level, you will use less. If it is less than twice the price of bleach, it's a better deal. Calcium hypo may be a better option for convenience since you have some room to on the high side for CH.
As I said from early on, you needed to remove 2/3 of your water, not 1/3. It's simple math. If your CYA is 150 and you remove 2/3 of your water, your resulting CYA is 50 since your tap water has no CYA. Since you only removed 1/3 you went from 150 to 100. Now since you have it at 100, you need to replace at least 50% of it to get to 50 CYA for SLAM. I would actually try to get to 40 for a good SLAM. If you only replace another 1/3 again, then you will be around 60-66 which is still too high for a good slam. Then will then need another 1/3 replacement which will get you to 40-45. Be prepared for a high water bill this month and possibly high sewage bills for the next year depending on how your sewage is calculated and paid. If your sewage bill goes up, some companies will grant relief if it is related to filling a pool.
 
Bleach is typically 6 or now more usually 8.25%, the chlorine at the hardware store is usually 10 and sometimes you can find 12%. There are calculators that you can find on the forum to know what the best deal is. I would not recommend cal hypo ... keep things simple.

You can SLAM just fine at any CYA level, why dump more water to get a lower CYA, when they will then have to raise it for the SWG? Sure the initial dose is less at lower CYA, but while maintaining SLAM level, the chlorine use Wil will be about the same.
 
Don't get side tracked by the CH. It's close enough that you don't need to worry about it. I also wouldn't recommend using cal-hypo to slam. It just adds another parameter that you have to keep up with.

Just keep draining as much as you're comfortable with and then retest. Once you get to about 50 ppm CYA, start the SLAM process.
 

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