Well, that is a long title. And this post will prolly be sorta long and incomplete in some ways. Its my first to this forum which appears to be a great forum with lots of good folks contributing and well moderated! I know that last part takes work so thanks to those who do it whoever you are.
I was paying attention to "The Pool Forum" for a bit but they seem to be inactive. I liked the common sense no frills or gimmicks approach I saw there. And there was still some good stuff there. But now I am here.
)
I am a previous pool owner for several years. A vinyl liner pool. I retired and moved to North Carolina and I got my workshop and lake in the back yard but my wife didn't get her pool. So we built one. Completed August 2021.
It's:
31,000 gallons
1 year old.
Has an infinity edge
two bubblers on a tanning ledge and three nozzle inlets in the main pool.
SWCG
Large cartridge filter that seems to rarely need cleaning (cleaned twice so far) Way easier than my previous DE filter though DE is a greater medium for filtering.
One pump for the filter and one for the infinity edge "spillover"
Taylor 2006 test kit and a Salt test kit. I don't use the local pool store for this anymore though I think most are fairly honest if you let them know you are not a sucker.
Also a huge propane sucking pool heater! Man it works great but has a propane problem and needs to go to Propane Anonymous or something!
I buy only pure basic necessary ingredients. I have yet to shock the pool and hope never to need to.
I use Calcium, Baking soda, Bleach, CYA, Borax and have a bucket of Triclor just cuz. Seems they keep putting less and less bleach in bleach these days... ;-p
I have had experienced pH rises that I have been reading in other posts. I was told that the cement and/or pebble finish would cause this for a year or more. I was not aware that the CWCG will also cause a pH rise but that seems to be the case. But I also see posts where this seems not to be the case. So I am still a bit confused on that but my thinking is that a SWCGers causes pH to go up in my pool. My SWCG is at 35% and as temps are dropping I plan to drop that number more soon. I am running my filter for 12 hours/day.
This summer the acid demand just seemed to be excessive and difficult to control. TA was always dropping as well. I did more research and have the bubblers set to manual and are no longer on a timer like my wife prefers. I have added approximately 106 lbs of borax (20 mule team) I have another case with 16 lbs Borax available to add. Chlorine has not been a problem other than in winter where I learned that the SWCG stops working below like 50 degrees water temp (or was it 40F??). So I have bleach on hand for that this winter, Fortunately chlorine demand is low in the winter. I have noticed that one of my jets occasionally has small bubbles coming out of it. It is the jet most distant from the pumps. I was reading a post that suggested the chlorine gas may be coming out of solution. So just before this post I pointed all my jets down. Maybe that will help? My wife likes them up and bubbly but to bad at this point. Yeah I'm a curmudgeon wanna be!
I also learned that swimmer waves can easily over fill the infinity edge basin and cause water to over flow out of the pool. The over flow is on the infinity basin. So if swimmers are present then the overflow pump needs to be running. Other wise water and chemicals are dumping into the back yard. I also learned that one inch of rain will probably equate to 10"-15"+ rise of water in the overflow basin and result in pool water and chemicals dumping to the back yard. Just depends on surface area ratio of the pool vs the basin. Mine is probably 15:1 or something. So the infinity edge complicates water level, chemistry demands, need for pumping when swimmers are present and aeration. It's a pretty significant pool management tradeoff for a nominal visual enhancement. In other words it's a bit of a pain in the butt! But it is what it is.
I feel like I am on the right track as far as chemistry and pH in particular. I pay attention to the calcium and other variables as well. I am looking at a pH target more at 7.7 than 7.5. One quart of acid is about equal to one point (0.1) of pH drop (ball park). At this point I think I am going to need about 1/2 gallon of acid / week with temps in the upper 80 and low 90s. But this is after the borax addition which is recent, bubblers mostly off and so forth.
So the above was some learnings mixed with a few challenges that represent a journey I am on to manage this relatively new pool. My wife absolutely loves her new pool BTW!
Based on my intro and admitting there are all sorts of details missing do you guys have any advise? Learnings I have not got to yet?
I have not checked my TA recently and feel like I need to do that soon. My calcium should be fine I think as it was at 280 last I checked. Salt is 3100 to 3200 or so. TA was about 60 last I checked and 80 seems impossible to achieve but I am still tweaking.
Let me say it has been a learning curve going from a straight up chlorine pool to a SWCG pool with two bubblers and a spillover. And yes I know it is still a chlorine pool.
I was paying attention to "The Pool Forum" for a bit but they seem to be inactive. I liked the common sense no frills or gimmicks approach I saw there. And there was still some good stuff there. But now I am here.
)I am a previous pool owner for several years. A vinyl liner pool. I retired and moved to North Carolina and I got my workshop and lake in the back yard but my wife didn't get her pool. So we built one. Completed August 2021.
It's:
31,000 gallons
1 year old.
Has an infinity edge
two bubblers on a tanning ledge and three nozzle inlets in the main pool.
SWCG
Large cartridge filter that seems to rarely need cleaning (cleaned twice so far) Way easier than my previous DE filter though DE is a greater medium for filtering.
One pump for the filter and one for the infinity edge "spillover"
Taylor 2006 test kit and a Salt test kit. I don't use the local pool store for this anymore though I think most are fairly honest if you let them know you are not a sucker.
Also a huge propane sucking pool heater! Man it works great but has a propane problem and needs to go to Propane Anonymous or something!
I buy only pure basic necessary ingredients. I have yet to shock the pool and hope never to need to.
I use Calcium, Baking soda, Bleach, CYA, Borax and have a bucket of Triclor just cuz. Seems they keep putting less and less bleach in bleach these days... ;-p
I have had experienced pH rises that I have been reading in other posts. I was told that the cement and/or pebble finish would cause this for a year or more. I was not aware that the CWCG will also cause a pH rise but that seems to be the case. But I also see posts where this seems not to be the case. So I am still a bit confused on that but my thinking is that a SWCGers causes pH to go up in my pool. My SWCG is at 35% and as temps are dropping I plan to drop that number more soon. I am running my filter for 12 hours/day.
This summer the acid demand just seemed to be excessive and difficult to control. TA was always dropping as well. I did more research and have the bubblers set to manual and are no longer on a timer like my wife prefers. I have added approximately 106 lbs of borax (20 mule team) I have another case with 16 lbs Borax available to add. Chlorine has not been a problem other than in winter where I learned that the SWCG stops working below like 50 degrees water temp (or was it 40F??). So I have bleach on hand for that this winter, Fortunately chlorine demand is low in the winter. I have noticed that one of my jets occasionally has small bubbles coming out of it. It is the jet most distant from the pumps. I was reading a post that suggested the chlorine gas may be coming out of solution. So just before this post I pointed all my jets down. Maybe that will help? My wife likes them up and bubbly but to bad at this point. Yeah I'm a curmudgeon wanna be!
I also learned that swimmer waves can easily over fill the infinity edge basin and cause water to over flow out of the pool. The over flow is on the infinity basin. So if swimmers are present then the overflow pump needs to be running. Other wise water and chemicals are dumping into the back yard. I also learned that one inch of rain will probably equate to 10"-15"+ rise of water in the overflow basin and result in pool water and chemicals dumping to the back yard. Just depends on surface area ratio of the pool vs the basin. Mine is probably 15:1 or something. So the infinity edge complicates water level, chemistry demands, need for pumping when swimmers are present and aeration. It's a pretty significant pool management tradeoff for a nominal visual enhancement. In other words it's a bit of a pain in the butt! But it is what it is.
I feel like I am on the right track as far as chemistry and pH in particular. I pay attention to the calcium and other variables as well. I am looking at a pH target more at 7.7 than 7.5. One quart of acid is about equal to one point (0.1) of pH drop (ball park). At this point I think I am going to need about 1/2 gallon of acid / week with temps in the upper 80 and low 90s. But this is after the borax addition which is recent, bubblers mostly off and so forth.
So the above was some learnings mixed with a few challenges that represent a journey I am on to manage this relatively new pool. My wife absolutely loves her new pool BTW!
Based on my intro and admitting there are all sorts of details missing do you guys have any advise? Learnings I have not got to yet?
I have not checked my TA recently and feel like I need to do that soon. My calcium should be fine I think as it was at 280 last I checked. Salt is 3100 to 3200 or so. TA was about 60 last I checked and 80 seems impossible to achieve but I am still tweaking.
Let me say it has been a learning curve going from a straight up chlorine pool to a SWCG pool with two bubblers and a spillover. And yes I know it is still a chlorine pool.
