We have a SWG and have never had issues when going on vacation....the SWG does it's thing and we make sure the water is well balanced and add some extra MA since our pH tends to drift up fairly quickly.
About a week before leaving on vacation we realized our SWG stopped working and we couldn't get anyone out to do a warranty check on it till after our return. I started managing the pool with liquid chlorine and came to realize I was losing an average of 3ppm of FC daily due to the heat/dust storms/etc. So I did the math and figured at 3ppm loss per day x 7 days I would need at least 21ppm available to manage the "loss" and include another 10ppm to be on the upper side of my FC need (per CYA levels)...I'd want to leave the pool with an FC level of 31 (at minimum). And since you never know in the valley if a big haboob comes, I figured I'd add a couple of floaters to the pool with some pucks for added safety (2 floaters with 2 pucks each). My CYA is on the low side so I dont mind supplementing with pucks if needed.
The night before we left, I made sure to give the pool a good scrubbing/skimming and then the next morning added my MA and a while later the liquid chlorine. Using the pool math calculator, I dumped enough gallons of liquid chlorine to get my FC to 32ppm and added the floaters (tethered them in the deep end so they wouldn't inadvertently get stuck in a corner or the skimmer).
I'm happy to report that upon my return 7 days later, my pool was perfectly fine....although FC was on the low end (3ppm) and of course the pH was in the 8-8.2 range (which I expected). Both floaters still had some remaining puck pieces but not much.
Indeed there was a big dust storm while we were gone so I think more FC was eaten up in response to that, otherwise there would have been a higher residual FC I think.
Hopefully these details can help you think through things if you're wondering how to handle your pool while on vacation if nobody is available to manage it for you.
About a week before leaving on vacation we realized our SWG stopped working and we couldn't get anyone out to do a warranty check on it till after our return. I started managing the pool with liquid chlorine and came to realize I was losing an average of 3ppm of FC daily due to the heat/dust storms/etc. So I did the math and figured at 3ppm loss per day x 7 days I would need at least 21ppm available to manage the "loss" and include another 10ppm to be on the upper side of my FC need (per CYA levels)...I'd want to leave the pool with an FC level of 31 (at minimum). And since you never know in the valley if a big haboob comes, I figured I'd add a couple of floaters to the pool with some pucks for added safety (2 floaters with 2 pucks each). My CYA is on the low side so I dont mind supplementing with pucks if needed.
The night before we left, I made sure to give the pool a good scrubbing/skimming and then the next morning added my MA and a while later the liquid chlorine. Using the pool math calculator, I dumped enough gallons of liquid chlorine to get my FC to 32ppm and added the floaters (tethered them in the deep end so they wouldn't inadvertently get stuck in a corner or the skimmer).
I'm happy to report that upon my return 7 days later, my pool was perfectly fine....although FC was on the low end (3ppm) and of course the pH was in the 8-8.2 range (which I expected). Both floaters still had some remaining puck pieces but not much.
Indeed there was a big dust storm while we were gone so I think more FC was eaten up in response to that, otherwise there would have been a higher residual FC I think.
Hopefully these details can help you think through things if you're wondering how to handle your pool while on vacation if nobody is available to manage it for you.
