Still at 7.0, but FC seems to be slowly moving in right direction - see my latest test this morning. Water was crystal clear for the party (which was an absolute blast - seeing kids be kids again was fantastic) so adding more liquid chlorine to make sure it stays that way. Will probably run the full battery of testing after church tomorrow or Monday. Thanks again all. You guys are the best.
Please, help me understand the TFP way and why anyone would want to work on their pool daily?
- Thread starter NextGallon
- Start date
From your first post to today... well done! Glad the party was a success!
I will bw willing to bet your pH is a bit higher. The kids playing will push the pH up which is a good thing as it is tad low.
So glad the party was great!!!
So glad the party was great!!!
PointeTaken
Bronze Supporter
- Aug 28, 2019
- 215
- Pool Size
- 12000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
Whew! Quite a thread...was busy most of this week so I had some catching up to do. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, no worries. You’ll get the hang of things in short order and pretty soon you won’t have to think about 90% of the things bouncing around in your head like a pinball right now. It’ll just be second nature. I know you’re probably tired of the testimonials, but I’m going to give you mine anyway, because I hope hearing all of these accounts convinces you to stick with the TFPC method.
When we found this house in 2019, a pool was not in the list of things we wanted in a home. The massive expense and headache of maintaining it was just of no interest to us as fairly new parents with full time jobs. But we fell in love with the house, and knew we’d use the pool if we had it...so we said “whatever, I guess we’ll just have to figure out how to be pool owners.” This forum and the magnificent people on it helped me do just that. And they shattered all the illusions I had of thousands of dollars per year spent in pool care and too much time wasted maintaining a pool to actually use it.
My only experience up to that point was as a lifeguard for three years, one of which was as a pool manager. I dutifully checked levels daily and occasionally punched buttons on a control panel in accordance with the company’s manual. I didn’t understand any of the chemistry, I just did what I was told. And it worked, because I was using commercial equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars and there was always a maintenance engineer checking on things a few times a week. Without all that fancy automation equipment and a maintenance engineer, I thought I was in for a world of regret. Well, I have no regrets. And that’s all thanks to everything I learned here. And after nearly two years, I’m still learning, mostly on the equipment and repair side of things. Buy into everything you learn here. You won’t regret it.
When we found this house in 2019, a pool was not in the list of things we wanted in a home. The massive expense and headache of maintaining it was just of no interest to us as fairly new parents with full time jobs. But we fell in love with the house, and knew we’d use the pool if we had it...so we said “whatever, I guess we’ll just have to figure out how to be pool owners.” This forum and the magnificent people on it helped me do just that. And they shattered all the illusions I had of thousands of dollars per year spent in pool care and too much time wasted maintaining a pool to actually use it.
My only experience up to that point was as a lifeguard for three years, one of which was as a pool manager. I dutifully checked levels daily and occasionally punched buttons on a control panel in accordance with the company’s manual. I didn’t understand any of the chemistry, I just did what I was told. And it worked, because I was using commercial equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars and there was always a maintenance engineer checking on things a few times a week. Without all that fancy automation equipment and a maintenance engineer, I thought I was in for a world of regret. Well, I have no regrets. And that’s all thanks to everything I learned here. And after nearly two years, I’m still learning, mostly on the equipment and repair side of things. Buy into everything you learn here. You won’t regret it.
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I picked up the tftestkits swirler. That thing is a game changer. I can’t get ph up, and chlorine isn’t really budging. It rained tonight and new pool cover came so I opened during storm to make sure it didn’t get punctured. Hopefully it raises ph.
Can you turn your return eyeballs up so their roll the water good? That is how I always push my pH up.
I have yet to find a return on the pool other than the one that runs the Polaris and I can’t turn it. There are returns on the floor I think that push the heated water in.
Well there goes that idea.............go find some kids and throw them in! That will do the same thing and their parents will love you for wearing them out!
I tried something some years back on a pool that had the returns too low. I created a small gap on the pump basket O ring gasket by putting something very small on the sealing surface thus creating purposely bubbles and it brought the PH up very nicely the same way aeration does it.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
you need something like one of these things:
Amazon.com: Kokido K385 Waterfall Fountain for Swimming Pools: Garden & Outdoor
Amazon.com: Kokido K385 Waterfall Fountain for Swimming Pools: Garden & Outdoor
www.amazon.com
Look at the instructions for Skippy's Pool Fountain in my signature file- it uses our previous Polaris wall outlet as a starting point.
Maddie
Maddie
- Jul 3, 2013
- 9,028
- Pool Size
- 15000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool SJ-40
they do not have any returns like a normal pool, it is a bottom in floor cleaning system return only.. the returns pop up when it cleans..
keatz85
Bronze Supporter
I stumbled upon TFP when I was trying to figure out why my pool had purple "dust" in it. Learned that too high of CYA could do that. The test strips tell you your FC is okay with no regard for the relationship to CYA, had no clue what the CYA to chlorine relationship was at that time or that CYA could get too high. What the TFC folks were saying made sense and when I looked up pool chemical ingredients they literally are the exact same thing as regular stuff you can get at the store (ie: baking soda) but at 2-4x plus the price.
Once I figured out how to test my water myself, figured I would take it to the pool store for fun and see if what the TFP folks were saying was true. The water testing machine at the pool store was provided by a pool chemical manufacturer, the results looked completely made up, they were absolutely inaccurate and even test trips were more accurate (as I had some leftover) and test trips are one step more accurate than guessing lol. It printed a nice long list of what was wrong and what I needed to fix it that equated to about $400 worth of their chemicals, one being CYA even though my CYA was already too high lol.
The TFP method - knowing how to test your own water which is easy and only adding what you need ( and for less) saves time and money. Chlorine and pH are recommended daily but I only test my water once or twice a week. Probably more importantly - is the time, money and hassle saved from not having to fix really messed up pool water.
Pool stores make money selling chemicals, and that's not a knock on them, but the more stuff they sell you the more profitable they are. I think a lot of them actually believe what they're pushing too because their suppliers have sold them on it.
Everything I've learned at on TFP has turned out to be true. That CYA incident I had to drain 60% of the water, so that's money that could have been saved. They saved me a few hundred dollars on a robot by recommending a good pool store and pointing out there was a promo going on.
Learned how to install an auto timer that turns off and on my pump...never had issues with my pool plus a bunch of other things I've learned that I can't remember off the top of my head lol.
TFP is awesome!
Once I figured out how to test my water myself, figured I would take it to the pool store for fun and see if what the TFP folks were saying was true. The water testing machine at the pool store was provided by a pool chemical manufacturer, the results looked completely made up, they were absolutely inaccurate and even test trips were more accurate (as I had some leftover) and test trips are one step more accurate than guessing lol. It printed a nice long list of what was wrong and what I needed to fix it that equated to about $400 worth of their chemicals, one being CYA even though my CYA was already too high lol.
The TFP method - knowing how to test your own water which is easy and only adding what you need ( and for less) saves time and money. Chlorine and pH are recommended daily but I only test my water once or twice a week. Probably more importantly - is the time, money and hassle saved from not having to fix really messed up pool water.
Pool stores make money selling chemicals, and that's not a knock on them, but the more stuff they sell you the more profitable they are. I think a lot of them actually believe what they're pushing too because their suppliers have sold them on it.
Everything I've learned at on TFP has turned out to be true. That CYA incident I had to drain 60% of the water, so that's money that could have been saved. They saved me a few hundred dollars on a robot by recommending a good pool store and pointing out there was a promo going on.
Learned how to install an auto timer that turns off and on my pump...never had issues with my pool plus a bunch of other things I've learned that I can't remember off the top of my head lol.
TFP is awesome!
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TFP is great. Luckily my pool seemed to respond quickly to this method, and once I understood it, I saw that the pool company was wasting lots of chemicals that were making the pool chemistry worse and charging me exorbitant prices for them.
But there is one thing I wish had been better emphasized in the TFP instructions. Many of the tests, including free chlorine, can be adjusted to use less reagents. The kit instructions say to use 10mls of pool water in the DPD/FAS kit and then multiply the number of drops by .5. However if you have a FC of 30 for a SLAM, that means using 60 drops a day. If you use 5mls of pool water you would use 30 drops. It's less accurate but it doesn't really matter if your FC is 29.5 or 30, that level of accuracy wouldn't matter when the FC is 30ppm.
But there is one thing I wish had been better emphasized in the TFP instructions. Many of the tests, including free chlorine, can be adjusted to use less reagents. The kit instructions say to use 10mls of pool water in the DPD/FAS kit and then multiply the number of drops by .5. However if you have a FC of 30 for a SLAM, that means using 60 drops a day. If you use 5mls of pool water you would use 30 drops. It's less accurate but it doesn't really matter if your FC is 29.5 or 30, that level of accuracy wouldn't matter when the FC is 30ppm.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
Yo 'Dangerous... you are correct.. and those suggestions are sprinkled amongst the posts. So here is something I found on the Taylor site, that was referenced somewhere on TFP.
and I quote
This is for FAS/DPD, CH and TA. So they recommend using a diluted or smaller sample size and change the multiplier accordingly to counteract the effect.
DanF
Silver Supporter
- Mar 17, 2019
- 594
- Pool Size
- 12500
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-45 Plus
Yep, I definitely use a 10 ml sample when testing CH here in hard-water AZ. May even drop to 5 ml if it gets much worse (currently about 600).
And I use a modified approach to the CYA test: I fill the tube to my expected level THEN look. Repeat as needed adjusting water level in the tube up/down.
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mguzzy
Gold Supporter
Here's a variation I call the beer stein method. It's a similar technique to pouring oneself a beer from a keg without bubbles. Get the squirt bottle in position to fill the CYA tube and look down the tube with nothing in it. Then start filling, using the "no-bubbles-in-my-beer" technique and when the dot disappears stop. Fill the tube to the next line and check the reading. That's it! I usually pour it all back in the squirt tube for one or two more laps to test my consistency. The idea is that by continually filling the tube the view is constantly changing and you will not be as prone to the optical googly eyes illusion of a circle with a dot in it. If I get the same reading three times in a row I celebrate with a cold one.
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mguzzy
Gold Supporter
The dilution factors for the FAS test are pretty well documented, since they are used for SLAMS all the time. If you check the wiki on testing.. you change the amount of the first two reagents in the CH test with a different size samples. They document the 25 and 10 ml sample sizes here:
Water Testing Instructions - Further Reading
www.troublefreepool.com
Also if you are using the 2000 series comaparator there are volume markings on the cylinder that would allow you to do a dilution test of the OTO Cl test. That information is in the Taylor link I provided above.
Sacrilege i know, but I routinely use 5ml and 1 drop per ppm on the fas/dpd... 