Hi all -
I thought I'd document my saga with the pool that came with our new house. When we first bought the house, my wife hired a pool guy that was recommended by one of her co-workers. After noticing his bills were routinely 2-4 times as high as his quoted rate, it was time to take over. I knew from the constant shocking and piles of tablets in the floater that our CYA had to be high, so that was the first thing I tested when I got my TFT-100.
CYA 100. Did a 1/2 dilution test, and confirmed the 100 reading, so it wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought. Unfortunately, I had to leave town for a few days, so I left the floater and the tablets in the pool for when I got home. As soon as I landed, I started draining the pool. As it was refilling, I thought I'd look in the filter and do a deep-clean of the sand. Unfortunately, with everything hard-piped, I knocked it all out of whack taking the multi-port valve off.
Several trips to Home Depot (and Leslies) later, I have re-plumbed the filter with union fittings, emptied the sand, inspected the laterals, replaced the sand, and got everything back together with a new pressure gauge from tftestkits. (with only minor leaks - ordered a new o-ring and lube from amazon to remedy that)
Meanwhile, the pool has filled up, and we re-test CYA. Between 30 and 40. Pool is clear, add some bleach according to pool math, dump a bucket of ice on my head (stupid social media), and pat myself on the back.
Only a couple of days later do I re-read pool school to find that I should have slammed immediately after re-filling.
We start the slam. First some dry acid. (Worth the expense to not need my wife to deal with muriatic when I'm not home) Then lots of bleach. I had naively believed that this would be more of a "quick slam" since the water was so beautiful and clear, but so far, that is not the case.
I don't have my notes with me, so I can't give you the actual test results, but last night's OCLT was 2-3ppm lost. I did a thorough vacuum, brush, and backwash last night, so that might account for it.
The tough parts about this are:
1) We finally hit our stretch of 100+ degree days here in tulsa, and the pool has been out of commission. (It has been a VERY mild summer for us so far)
2) I have color deficient vision (red/green), so I don't really trust my eyes for the crucial FAS/DPD tests. I'll do them to make sure I'm keeping FC above slam level, but I rely on my wife to do the last test each night and the first one in the morning. Sometimes her numbers seem a little crazy. (one morning her FC was 3ppm higher than what I had found the night before.)
3) I know it's only been a few days, but the slam feels like it's taking forever. I also know that I have no basis for this complaint since I've read several accounts of multi-week slams, but I'm ready to be done!
I guess I don't have any real questions here, just wanted to document my progress somehow.
Thanks for reading,
Aaron
I thought I'd document my saga with the pool that came with our new house. When we first bought the house, my wife hired a pool guy that was recommended by one of her co-workers. After noticing his bills were routinely 2-4 times as high as his quoted rate, it was time to take over. I knew from the constant shocking and piles of tablets in the floater that our CYA had to be high, so that was the first thing I tested when I got my TFT-100.
CYA 100. Did a 1/2 dilution test, and confirmed the 100 reading, so it wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought. Unfortunately, I had to leave town for a few days, so I left the floater and the tablets in the pool for when I got home. As soon as I landed, I started draining the pool. As it was refilling, I thought I'd look in the filter and do a deep-clean of the sand. Unfortunately, with everything hard-piped, I knocked it all out of whack taking the multi-port valve off.
Several trips to Home Depot (and Leslies) later, I have re-plumbed the filter with union fittings, emptied the sand, inspected the laterals, replaced the sand, and got everything back together with a new pressure gauge from tftestkits. (with only minor leaks - ordered a new o-ring and lube from amazon to remedy that)
Meanwhile, the pool has filled up, and we re-test CYA. Between 30 and 40. Pool is clear, add some bleach according to pool math, dump a bucket of ice on my head (stupid social media), and pat myself on the back.
Only a couple of days later do I re-read pool school to find that I should have slammed immediately after re-filling.
We start the slam. First some dry acid. (Worth the expense to not need my wife to deal with muriatic when I'm not home) Then lots of bleach. I had naively believed that this would be more of a "quick slam" since the water was so beautiful and clear, but so far, that is not the case.
I don't have my notes with me, so I can't give you the actual test results, but last night's OCLT was 2-3ppm lost. I did a thorough vacuum, brush, and backwash last night, so that might account for it.
The tough parts about this are:
1) We finally hit our stretch of 100+ degree days here in tulsa, and the pool has been out of commission. (It has been a VERY mild summer for us so far)
2) I have color deficient vision (red/green), so I don't really trust my eyes for the crucial FAS/DPD tests. I'll do them to make sure I'm keeping FC above slam level, but I rely on my wife to do the last test each night and the first one in the morning. Sometimes her numbers seem a little crazy. (one morning her FC was 3ppm higher than what I had found the night before.)
3) I know it's only been a few days, but the slam feels like it's taking forever. I also know that I have no basis for this complaint since I've read several accounts of multi-week slams, but I'm ready to be done!
I guess I don't have any real questions here, just wanted to document my progress somehow.
Thanks for reading,
Aaron