Yep. Mine only took half the summer to get upwards of 120. Could never get the chlorine to stay in one spot.
Please, help me understand the TFP way and why anyone would want to work on their pool daily?
- Thread starter NextGallon
- Start date
I run late April to October and I have a similar experience, except with CalHypo... I use that stuff for my opening slam and chlorination for about 6 weeks. By that time, my calcium is right where I want it and I switch to LC. My calcium is usually low on open due to partial drain/ refill from closing and soft tap water.
I started doing this last year when I realized it was kind of dumb to buy separate calcium, but I was surprised at first by how quickly my CH went up. I've recruited 2 of my neighbors into the cult of TFP, and they now do the same and save $80 each every year on calcium vs getting it along with the chlorine we need anyway. Round about March we start shopping for the best price on a case of 70% calhypo shock, and each buy one. If we can get a bulk discount, we just split it among us. Maybe next year we will split 3 ways on a 50lb tub.
I started doing this last year when I realized it was kind of dumb to buy separate calcium, but I was surprised at first by how quickly my CH went up. I've recruited 2 of my neighbors into the cult of TFP, and they now do the same and save $80 each every year on calcium vs getting it along with the chlorine we need anyway. Round about March we start shopping for the best price on a case of 70% calhypo shock, and each buy one. If we can get a bulk discount, we just split it among us. Maybe next year we will split 3 ways on a 50lb tub.
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Love my SWG. Once I get things dialed in my levels stay nearly perfect. Very little effort. Again, I just can’t believe the thousands of dollars I was paying for others to harm my pool.
Originally I wanted NOTHING to do with pool maintenance/management. I was happy to pay so I “didn’t have to worry about it”. Plus I was a super busy professionally and figured any time spent messing with my pool was time I could be making money. I was very resistant to taking on the pool myself.
Other than bad pool company experiences what finally convinced me was I discovered that a VERY busy VERY highly compensated friend of mine was managing his own pool using TFP. I mean if he was doing it why in the world wasn’t I?! All my excuses were gone. It took a little bit of trail and error but once i got going it was soooo easy and soooo inexpensive. (Granted I had an existing SWG from purchasing the house). Never looked back....shockingly I’ve come to actually enjoy it.
Originally I wanted NOTHING to do with pool maintenance/management. I was happy to pay so I “didn’t have to worry about it”. Plus I was a super busy professionally and figured any time spent messing with my pool was time I could be making money. I was very resistant to taking on the pool myself.
Other than bad pool company experiences what finally convinced me was I discovered that a VERY busy VERY highly compensated friend of mine was managing his own pool using TFP. I mean if he was doing it why in the world wasn’t I?! All my excuses were gone. It took a little bit of trail and error but once i got going it was soooo easy and soooo inexpensive. (Granted I had an existing SWG from purchasing the house). Never looked back....shockingly I’ve come to actually enjoy it.
The nice thing is, once you reach a point where you can reason about this stuff, you are almost constantly coming up with new ways to "work smarter, not harder"
I now know a geeky amount about chlorine and calcium chemistry, as well as pump "head", flow turbulence and cavitation, and can calculate exactly what it costs in propane to heat my water 1 degree F.
I now know a geeky amount about chlorine and calcium chemistry, as well as pump "head", flow turbulence and cavitation, and can calculate exactly what it costs in propane to heat my water 1 degree F.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
I never got that geeky about it... I followed a different economics.; Every time I heated the pool for a party I calculated in the number of bounce house rentals that equated to.
The point I was trying to make is that to an inquisitive mind, learning and doing this stuff not only gives you a lot of satisfaction in a man-vs-nature, entropy-fighting sense, but it actually becomes FUN.
Life is full of uncertainty, so being able to work on a system that behaves in a predictable, deterministic fashion helps to soothe some of my nihilistic angst by giving me an (admittedly somewhat false) sense that I am at least in control of some part of my destiny. Due to my incipient OCD, keeping logs of test results and chemical additions feeds into this. YMMV.
Life is full of uncertainty, so being able to work on a system that behaves in a predictable, deterministic fashion helps to soothe some of my nihilistic angst by giving me an (admittedly somewhat false) sense that I am at least in control of some part of my destiny. Due to my incipient OCD, keeping logs of test results and chemical additions feeds into this. YMMV.
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For even more fun, set up another virtual "pool" in the PoolMath app called "fill water" and do a full battery of tests on your fill. If you are on a municipal water system vs. a well, you might be surprised at how much chlorine is in your tap water. Then, next time you top up your pool due to splash out, backwash or evaporation, try to estimate how the approximate volume of water added will affect your water chemistry. After fill, perform a full battery of tests and see how close your estimates were I am tempted to purchase a flow meter for my hose so that I can get a better sense of how much water I am adding. 
Note that tap water fill has a VERY different effect than rainwater fill, since rainwater fill is basically adding distilled water with ( hopefully ) no chems at all and a pH of 5.5-ish . You can also test your rainwater pH to see if your area suffers from acid or alkaline rain from localized smog / pollution.
EPA Comparative pH values
I am tempted to purchase a flow meter for my hose so that I can get a better sense of how much water I am adding. Note that tap water fill has a VERY different effect than rainwater fill, since rainwater fill is basically adding distilled water with ( hopefully ) no chems at all and a pH of 5.5-ish . You can also test your rainwater pH to see if your area suffers from acid or alkaline rain from localized smog / pollution.
EPA Comparative pH values
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mguzzy
Gold Supporter
In your neck of the woods my Dad always called it "Schuylkill Punch" ... Which I understand is now an umbrella drink!
I spend 2-3 minutes a day on testing, and maybe 1-2 minutes checking skimmer and adding chlorine. I also put my cleaner in the pool 2 times a week. It actually takes me more time to take out all of the pool floats ect., than for the maintenance.
LOL! Our water actually comes from a local creek system via a local treatment plant. I live close to the reservoir.In your neck of the woods my Dad always called it "Schuylkill Punch" ... Which I understand is now an umbrella drink!
Cya is still a mess. FC back up to 20. Can’t turn my sani king down enough. Water is still clear. Pool store said 20-25 is what commercial pools run at, but for residential I don’t want to run it that high for long periods due to equipment concerns.
DeanP66
0
What do you mean by "CYA is still a mess"? Is it high? It must be if your FC keeps climbing.
On the test I am half way down the cylinder from 100. Best guess is 160. I backwashed three times then added de and let the hose run on the pool for 4.5 hours. It’s still super high.
DeanP66
0
Yeah, that is a problem. Did you do the diluted CYA test with half pool water and half tap? That will give you a little better estimate. The CYA test is really only valid up to 100. Anything over that requires the diluted test and even that has a little error built in, but still more accurate than eyeballing the initial test.
DeanP66
0
You use half pool water and half tap water, shake it up and then empty half of it down to your original line. Then add your CYA solution and run the test like normal. Then you just double the result at the end.