Greetings everyone. I can't say that I'm a new pool owner, but I will say that I am now an "enlightened" pool owner. 
I'm in the valley of the sun (Mesa, AZ) - we have an indoor pool on our property (not part of the house, has its own dwelling) that up until just a couple of weeks ago sat empty for almost nine years. My wife and I aren't big water folks, so when we bought the house in 2002, the pool was an afterthought - we used it until rust started coming through the plaster and then emptied it and sorta forgot about it. The pool house actually turned into sort of a quasi-storage area. In October 2010 our daughter was born, and now that she's 3 1/2 years old, we figured it would be nice to get the pool up and running for her. She is definitely a fan of swimming.
We hired a popular pool remodeling company to replaster the pool and the work was completed on the 20th of last month. During the remodel, I started researching pool chemistry and that's when I stumbled onto this website. First off, let me say a very big thank you to everyone who has contributed articles to the pool school section (as well as to everyone in the forum posts who have answered other people's questions - I haven't had to ask anything that I couldn't find via searching the forums yet) - they've been incredibly helpful to me and have been the basis of many decisions I've made thus far, with good results. The pool has only had water in it for two weeks now, so we haven't been in it yet (well, we've splashed our feet a couple times, that's about it). The pool company did an initial setup, or "chemical-drop" as they called it, and I guess they aren't used to setting up indoor pools, because the chlorine level remains VERY high. Once that comes down to a level that I believe I can maintain, I plan to go with the BBB method. Mostly due to cost, but also because of the simplicity. I will admit that when we used the pool years ago, I was a typical ignorant pool owner, had a very basic DPD test kit and couldn't figure out why I kept getting algae even though my floater was full of chlorine tabs and my chlorine levels appeared ok. If only I had been smart enough to google back then. This time I have skin in the game - I'd really like to keep this new pool surface clean and appealing.
If there's anything special I need to know about indoor pools or pools in really warm climates, please let me know. My pool house is enclosed, but not climate-controlled - it's well ventilated and pretty much stays in sync with the outdoor temps (which are pretty high today). My signature line has pretty much the specs of my equipment, and I will be doing an install of a wireless water leveling system soon (the Poolmiser SM500 - I have already purchased it, but if anyone knows of a reason NOT to install it, please let me know). Our pool is a very basic setup, and a water leveler was not included during the construction, so we had to get something that would work "after-the-fact"... This was about the best setup I could find that didn't appear to be too invasive (and that didn't include having something to trip over sitting at the edge of the pool). I plan to do a write-up on the installation when we put it in - maybe I'll be able to help someone else out who might be considering one of these systems. I also plan to review the pool cleaner in the coming weeks (we are giving the plaster plenty of cure time before using the cleaner) - it's not the most expensive cleaner on the market, but our pool is simple with no obstacles so I don't expect it to be a problem. One longer-term thing I'm also interested in exploring is a liquid chlorine injection system, simply because I'm pretty lazy.
Thanks again and I look forward to exchanging information with everyone. Take care!
-Terry
I'm in the valley of the sun (Mesa, AZ) - we have an indoor pool on our property (not part of the house, has its own dwelling) that up until just a couple of weeks ago sat empty for almost nine years. My wife and I aren't big water folks, so when we bought the house in 2002, the pool was an afterthought - we used it until rust started coming through the plaster and then emptied it and sorta forgot about it. The pool house actually turned into sort of a quasi-storage area. In October 2010 our daughter was born, and now that she's 3 1/2 years old, we figured it would be nice to get the pool up and running for her. She is definitely a fan of swimming.
We hired a popular pool remodeling company to replaster the pool and the work was completed on the 20th of last month. During the remodel, I started researching pool chemistry and that's when I stumbled onto this website. First off, let me say a very big thank you to everyone who has contributed articles to the pool school section (as well as to everyone in the forum posts who have answered other people's questions - I haven't had to ask anything that I couldn't find via searching the forums yet) - they've been incredibly helpful to me and have been the basis of many decisions I've made thus far, with good results. The pool has only had water in it for two weeks now, so we haven't been in it yet (well, we've splashed our feet a couple times, that's about it). The pool company did an initial setup, or "chemical-drop" as they called it, and I guess they aren't used to setting up indoor pools, because the chlorine level remains VERY high.
Once that comes down to a level that I believe I can maintain, I plan to go with the BBB method. Mostly due to cost, but also because of the simplicity. I will admit that when we used the pool years ago, I was a typical ignorant pool owner, had a very basic DPD test kit and couldn't figure out why I kept getting algae even though my floater was full of chlorine tabs and my chlorine levels appeared ok. If only I had been smart enough to google back then. This time I have skin in the game - I'd really like to keep this new pool surface clean and appealing.If there's anything special I need to know about indoor pools or pools in really warm climates, please let me know. My pool house is enclosed, but not climate-controlled - it's well ventilated and pretty much stays in sync with the outdoor temps (which are pretty high today). My signature line has pretty much the specs of my equipment, and I will be doing an install of a wireless water leveling system soon (the Poolmiser SM500 - I have already purchased it, but if anyone knows of a reason NOT to install it, please let me know). Our pool is a very basic setup, and a water leveler was not included during the construction, so we had to get something that would work "after-the-fact"... This was about the best setup I could find that didn't appear to be too invasive (and that didn't include having something to trip over sitting at the edge of the pool). I plan to do a write-up on the installation when we put it in - maybe I'll be able to help someone else out who might be considering one of these systems. I also plan to review the pool cleaner in the coming weeks (we are giving the plaster plenty of cure time before using the cleaner) - it's not the most expensive cleaner on the market, but our pool is simple with no obstacles so I don't expect it to be a problem. One longer-term thing I'm also interested in exploring is a liquid chlorine injection system, simply because I'm pretty lazy.
Thanks again and I look forward to exchanging information with everyone. Take care!
-Terry
