Hi there,

I'm explaining to my husband that the new test kits in the pool stores don't have the tests that will go above 5 ppm of chlorine and he wanted to know if that's the case then why am I needing to put in more than 5ppm. He believes me when I tell him for shock purposes and high CYA pools and such but now I am wondering. Why the heck do they even sell those? Anyone?

So your pool turns green and then they can sell you buckets of shock, algaecide, pH up, pH down, and clarifier - all in one visit!

Exactly...

Note that Taylor doesn't sell pool chemicals.

HTH sells all kinds of chemicals no one here buys (except CYA), plus strips and OTO test kits. They prefer their customers to blindly dump this or that into your pool so you keep using their products.

Test strip says normal alkalinity is 80-120 or something like that. But when you stick it in it says you have 50 (it's really 90). So you go buy alk up and dump a bit in hoping to fall into the normal range color of the strip. Next time you test it's way over the 120 color so you think wow... 160 now. And then dump in something to lower it. PH same game... ph up... ph down... the strip never giving you a true result in the first place.

IMO the only chemical product HTH makes that is truly good for the purpose intended is their CYA. And that's the pad on the strip that's the least accurate of them all. Their OTO 6 way test only allows for TWO CYA tests. Huh?

Keeping customers in the dark sells product.

That's just messed up!

Do you all really believe that there is some global conspiracy by pool stores and chemical manufacturers to maliciously and with premeditation rip you off?

Possibly some, but on the other hand the minimum wage teenagers they hire are most likely not pool experts anyway. So, they've been given a bunch of blanket "fixes" to sell ignorant pool owners.

Are they ignorant pool owners or just lazy? Is it the pool store's job to educate or to supply the most dumbest down solution available? You obviously have some business sense since you own such a large pool ... sometimes it's just the nature of the beast ... I'm just saying that they have bills to pay and kids to feed just like the rest of us and see no value in constantly bashing them.

Well, I guess I can see that the DPD kits are more user friendly to the novice tester. But I can find no excuse for making the FAS-DPD kits "order only." And why aren't the pool store employees at least somewhat knowledgeable? At the same time I have no sympathy for people who refuse to do a little online research if they have the capacity to do so.

If pool stores can't make an honest living by selling the things that are ACTUALLY needed then they need to expand/diversify/get the heck out of the business. Sell more ice cream like the water stores.

The pool chemical people put baking soda into a bottle and sell it at a huge markup. There is no warning on the trichlor bottles about the tablets inability to maintain chlorine after being used for x amount of time. The more shock product they can get us to buy while dumping tablets into the pool like crazy, sure. That puts food on someone's table but it's not a proper business model. Consumers should, and do expect honesty from the companies they give their money to. That money also could be used to feed the consumer's family.

If the battery manufacturers sold baking soda as a terminal cleaner, and then another solution of h20 to wash it off with they'd be laughed out of business with a quickness and labeled as a defrauder.

Well put Frogabog! It's not the people it is the model. A well educated pool store owner knows that you don't need all that stuff they sell in your pool. But it sells because there are some pool owners that do not understand, don't want to understand, don't care, etc. that buy these products. Yes there are some good pool store people, when asked for opinion they will tell you the truth. But come on, they are there to make money and I would think that corruption runs rampant. It's human nature.