First Time Pool Owner

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You had presence of algae, so yep, but it's called a SLAM and it includes bringing to pool up to shock level FC.

Here's the description, refer back to it often cause for me, it was really handy to have nearby.
Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain

You will need to be sure of, and probably lower, your CYA level.
 
Looks like I have a lot to do. This weekend I will definitely double check my tests and double check CYA for sure.

Now if my CYA is higher then 100, partial drain and fill, how would I go about draining with my setup ?


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I can't tell from the picture, but there's a fitting on the smaller pipe coming off your return. If that's a garden hose tap, that could be used.

Otherwise, you could buy cheap or rent a submersible pump and hose long enough to reach a drain inlet. Renting will probably give you gear that will do it the fastest, but $60 toward a sump pump and hose can be a handy thing to have.

Choose a drain inlet such as a floor drain in laundry room or laundry tub.

If you desire, reduce the chlorine using sodium thiosulfate and away ya go. At the same time, decide what you'll use to fill it back up quickly, e.g. 2 garden hoses.

Consider how your water billing works. Some utilities base the sewer charge on winter water consumption. If that's not the case in AZ, hopefully someone will put that to rest. Some places have quotas, if when exceeded attract a penalty charge. Just nice to know about these things ahead of time
 
Down in Tucson, sewerage fees are calculated based on Jan/Feb/Mar water usage. You DO NOT want to drain and refill a pool during those months. I suspect the greater Phoenix area is similar.


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JoyfulNoise said:
Down in Tucson, sewerage fees are calculated based on Jan/Feb/Mar water usage. You DO NOT want to drain and refill a pool during those months. I suspect the greater Phoenix area is similar.


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The same here for me. February usage determines maximum sewage fees for the year. Makes a difference when I put in 5,000 plus gallons in April not to pay the sewage fees on that extra.
 
JVTrain said:
The same here for me. February usage determines maximum sewage fees for the year. Makes a difference when I put in 5,000 plus gallons in April not to pay the sewage fees on that extra.
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Yep. I turn off the irrigation system, turn off the autofill, stop bathing the kids and force everyone to use the outhouse....the clothes washer suddenly "has problems" too...we all start looking like PigPen from Peanuts by the time April rolls around.


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JoyfulNoise said:
Yep. I turn off the irrigation system, turn off the autofill, stop bathing the kids and force everyone to use the outhouse....the clothes washer suddenly "has problems" too...we all start looking like PigPen from Peanuts by the time April rolls around.


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Haha. Covert missions to fill up carboys of water from the neighbor's hose in the middle of the night? Wear those underwear for a week, turn them inside out if you have to!

<...thread derail in progress...>
 

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espinola17 said:
Pinal County, Im allowed to drain into the street.


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Sewerage fees are based on water flow usage. So if you drain 10,000 gallons of pool water and refill it, they assume that the 10,000 gallons used to fill the pool represents 10,000 gallons you flushed down the drain and so you get charged for that discharge. The only time sewerage fees are waived in most places is for a new pool fill only and that usually requires documentation from the pool builder.

So if you drain and refill now, you're going to increase your baseline or average water usage and that will increase your sewer fee. You have to check with your local water utility to find out the details.


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JoyfulNoise said:
Sewerage fees are based on water flow usage. So if you drain 10,000 gallons of pool water and refill it, they assume that the 10,000 gallons used to fill the pool represents 10,000 gallons you flushed down the drain and so you get charged for that discharge. The only time sewerage fees are waived in most places is for a new pool fill only and that usually requires documentation from the pool builder.

So if you drain and refill now, you're going to increase your baseline or average water usage and that will increase your sewer fee. You have to check with your local water utility to find out the details.


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I will look into this, and it would only be partial drain just to lower CYA. But is it possible to maintain the pool with a high CYA if it's not above 100? In hopes that it will lower, I will immediately stop using tablets, since apparently this is the cause of the high CYA. Luckily we're getting some rain here, maybe not enough but this should dilute some of the CYA.

What's recommended instead of tablets?


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It is possible, but you must be VERY diligent and careful - especially with your ban on discharging non-clear water.

A high CYA means you need to maintain a higher FC level to keep the pool clean and clear. This consumes more bleach for "normal" maintenance, but more importantly, if you end up having to SLAM, it takes a LOT more bleach to accomplish it - meaning a far higher cost (imagine having to boost your FC level over 60 or 70ppm to SLAM - it takes a virtual tanker truck load of bleach to get it there and hold it there). I maintained my pool for a few months after purchasing my house with near 300 CYA simply by boosting the FC level north of 20ppm and holding it there. Once the weather cooled enough for me to not risk my plaster, I then drained and refilled to lower my CYA.

You'll be fine waiting until you're outside of the sewerage meter timeframe - just keep your FC above minimum for your actual CYA. Since the water is cold right now, it's even easier to do this.
 
Im also going to test on my own and bring the water to get tested as well to compare results. The pool water level was low when I bought the house so I filled to half way of skimmer, it was at bottom of skimmer. CYA must've been even higher.


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Pool Store testing is notoriously unreliable - sometimes they'll give you different numbers when retesting the same sample a second time! Test carefully and trust your own numbers. Most of all do not listen to any advice they give about things you might need to buy. They'll sell you hundreds of dollars of stuff you don't need, and then sell you more stuff to fix the problems created by the first stuff they sold you. :mad:

Remember, the CYA test is repeatable. You can pour the mixture back into the bottle from the view tube and run the test multiple times without having to waste more reagent. Run it a few times - hopefully we'll have some sun this weekend, right now it sounds like we may not. :(
 
triptyx said:
Pool Store testing is notoriously unreliable - sometimes they'll give you different numbers when retesting the same sample a second time! Test carefully and trust your own numbers. Most of all do not listen to any advice they give about things you might need to buy. They'll sell you hundreds of dollars of stuff you don't need, and then sell you more stuff to fix the problems created by the first stuff they sold you. :mad:
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No worries on that, well aware of that but was worth a go to see. When I did CYA test, it wasn't very sunny out so I'm waiting for a bright day here, since this week has been cold and rainy which is unlike our AZ weather.
 
Doing a SLAM at this point may not be the most profitable venture. It's winter time here in AZ and, as long as your water temps are below 60F, pretty much nothing is going to grow in your pool water. If it does turn out that your CYA is over 100ppm, then I would simply manage the water you have through the cold months by keeping the FC at 7.5% of CYA (e.g., if CYA is 100ppm, then your FC should be maintained at 7.5ppm). Once you are outside of the metering months, then you can drain the pool, refill and SLAM it with a much lower CYA. Since we usually recommend a shock level of chlorine that is 40% of CYA for doing the SLAM process, draining and refilling means you can SLAM with a lot less chlorine and cost.

Up to you, but I would simply wait it out.
 
I removed my floater from the pool. I will test again on Sunday and then post results. It's raining throughout the day periodically here so let's see what that does to the CYA and then go from there. Should I pick up bleach?


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Yes, for now bleach is best for your pool.

Since this is a new pool to you and not knowing how the previous owner cared for it, you can pretty much bet that they followed pool store advice and used a steady diet of trichlor pucks in a floater and dichlor shock powder regularly, both of which add CYA. If there is an inline chlorinator like a Pentair Rainbow 320 or something like it (looks like a big cylindrical tube sticking above the plumbing on the return side after the filter and heater), you should open it up (when the pump is off) and make sure there are no pucks in there either.
 

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