New FG pool opening

[Mario P]

My PB owns the whole process of constructing, setting up and training us on operation of our pool.
I have already bombarded him with a million questions about this, that & the other so I figured I'll ask here what I should expect from him and if I need to get involved during initial setup.

He's providing the tablet chlorinator. I do not plan on using it much if at all due to the apparent CYA effects, but unless will let him put it in so that if we leave on vacation (will never happen) I can at least have something going.

During the initial pool chemical setup, what should I expect?
I know he'll drain and wash the pool to get rid of all the dirt, mud, etc.
After that he'll fill it with water from our 640ft deep water well, which I expect to take 2-3 days. To deliver 20,000 gallons of water would cost $1,850 here in New Mexico.
I have not asked fire department if they have any firetrucks that need to be dumped; I heard that's an option in some areas.

So, once the pool if filled with my well water; what's the next step?
Do PBs bring 55gal drum with bleach? Do they drop a bunch of tables in the water?

 

[Patrick_B]

I varies. Some do Acid or "Hot" startups, some just fill, throw in some chemicals, and let it go. Unfortunately, most of the time you will be at their mercy to let them start it up for them to validate the finish warranty. Starting up a new pool is one of the situations where using pucks is a great plan. They bring up the Chlorine and Cya slowly. And there is nothing wrong with having a Puck feeder, as they are useful for situations like you mention.

As for Chlorine 99% of all pool builders do not use bleach at all, let alone show up with a drum of it. They will likely bring powdered shock/pucks to use.

I would avoid the fire truck dump, because you don't know where the water came from. If it came from a rusty hydrant or something, you don't want that in your pool. I trucked my initial fill of good well water, still hard, but drinking water certified, and it was about the same cost. My well simply wouldn't fill me fast enough without stressing it to badly. Be careful of your fill water.

 

[Yev]

My pool is an IG Vinyl lined pool. Basically my PB buys the complete kit, and installs it. The kit came with a 1 gallon bucket of basic starter chemicals, 1 gallon each of pucks, stabilizer, ph up, ph down, etc. So when they started up my pool, here is what I was shown.

1.) How to work the pump
2.) How to work the valves near the pump (ie backwash, circulate, etc.)
3.) How to use the manual vacuum, including how to adjust flows from main drains and skimmers to maximize proper suction.
4.) How to add pucks into the puck feeder (they did add the pucks but that was only chemical they added, but water tested good otherwise)
5.) How to use the basic test kit that they provided

And then they answered my questions. The rest was mostly left up to me.

 

[Mario P]

We will be using my water well to fill up the pool.
Obviously the water is drinkable and safe at that point.
If all he does is provide the tables for the automatic chlorinator, which will obviously provide both chlorine and CYA, should I just get a bunch of Sam's Club's bleach http://www.samsclub.com/sams/clorox-concentrated-regular-liquid-bleach-121-fl-oz-3-ct/prod7350080.ip (using the match calculator) and do my own startup and only then use the automatic tablet cholirinator to keep the chlorine levels safe while slowly building up the CYA?
Do I need the CYA in my pool to keep it safe or is this something that happens naturally or otherwise and we talk about it only as a byproduct of high CYA making chlorine less effective?

 

[acgibson]

Don't stress out too much about the start up. Sounds like he is very experienced and so what he does should be fine to get you up and running. You will be much more stressed about other things going on with install and surround construction....the water is the easy part. Once it's up and running and the installer is out off your hair you can adjust the water balance to the methods here. It is very unlikely he can screw it up that bad in the first few days that it can't be easily adjusted.

The workers are going to get so much gunk in there you will flip out and wonder how it will ever get clean. It all cleans up with a little effort and patience. Wait till the crane or track hoe has your $20,000 flimsy fiberglass tub hanging in the air! You won't give a rip about the water

 

[Mario P]

The workers are going to get so much gunk in there you will flip out and wonder how it will ever get clean. It all cleans up with a little effort and patience. Wait till the crane or track hoe has your $20,000 flimsy fiberglass tub hanging in the air! You won't give a rip about the water

The PB will completely drain and pressure wash the shell after all the work is done and before the pool gets the automatic cover installed.
There is literally about 1-2" of dirt and **** all over the pool. I used to clean off the few tumbleweeds that rolled into the pool since we don't have the wall setup yet. One day last week the wind got so bad that all of the sudden I had about 40 of the small tumbleweeds inside the pool and I gave up trying to get them out.


As for the pool being moved, the PB had to do it twice. Once to get it off the semi, the second one to actually set it in the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7JN22vmB4

 

[Swampwoman]

Greetings, Mario.
If you are filling with well water in NM, you may wish to get familiar with metal sequestrant. Do you know if your well has any iron ppm, for example? Your PB may add some sequestrant on start up to make sure you don't get metal staining initially, but you may need to periodically add more. The two products most often recommended on TFP are Jack's Magic and Metal Magic.

Also, re:

Do I need the CYA in my pool to keep it safe or is this something that happens naturally or otherwise and we talk about it only as a byproduct of high CYA making chlorine less effective?

Great question -- cya is not all bad, and SOME is in fact needed...just not too much Insofar as cya protects and buffers your chlorine, you'd normally want to start up with about 30 ppm -- maybe higher in NM if you have a sunny location. (Higher if you have a salt water generator...see pool school for recommendations.)

That will stop the sunlight from burning off your chlorine too fast. So using tabs in the beginning is a reasonable way to get your cya up. Alternately, you can buy cya/stabilizer and add it if you choose to use beach only during start up.

It takes about a week to get a read on it with testing, so whichever way you chose to add it, make sure you've checked how much you need to get to target before you add. Also, make sure you know if your PB add it (either directly or through dichlor, trichlor, etc.) so that you don't overshoot your level. I believe with pucks, for ever 10 ppm of chlorine, you've added 6 ppm of cya.

Best wishes on your new, trouble free pool!