Managing a pool from a distance :)

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L

liquidrt

Member
Jun 14, 2022
6
indiana
I am helping a family member manage a pool previously taken care of by someone else. The person I am helping knows how to turn on the filter, empty baskets, backwash, and other fundamental tasks. They are not comfortable with vacuuming, water testing, or understanding the chemical balance in a pool. To help out, they have purchased an automatic pool vacuum but have not used it yet.

Water testing, guidance, and chemicals are being suggested and purchased by a local pool company. The family member is taking water samples to the local company and being recommended different chemicals to add. The local pool store has been hit and miss on showing up for help with the pool.

The current problem is an algae bloom after recently opening the pool. I have been reading up on SLAM to help out, but the daily testing and processing sound a bit out of scope for them to manage. I was looking at remote water monitoring solutions like water guru or something similar. Reading the forum posts it sounds like some people find value in this and some don't.

Other than completely hiring a pool company to maintain the pool, is the best course of action to try to train an older person on how to properly test the water, buy a remote solution where I can view the status of chemicals and advise, or continue taking water to the local pool store?
 
Welcome to TFP.

The TFP Methods are based on someone at the pool being able to do the water chemistry tests and add household chemicals.

You can hire a Pool Company to maintain the pool. They use different methods then TFP. Some are better then others.

There is no off the shelf remote monitoring solution. Folks have built elaborate DIY pool monitoring systems but I think that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Only you can judge how trainable the person is. With FaceTime or Zoom you can observe and coach and teach while the person at the pool does the physical tasks of testing and adding chemicals.

Do not try and mix pool store methods with TFP methods. That is a path to confusion. If you choose to follow TFP Methods then you ignore what the Pool Stores tell you.

How experienced are you with pool care methods?

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Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
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Hey L and Welcome !!!
liquidrt said:
Is the best course of action to try to train an older person on how to properly test the water,
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You can easily train them, but they have to want to put the repeated effort in daily or its all for nothing.
liquidrt said:
buy a remote solution where I can view the status of chemicals and advise
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They have yet to become reliable enough to blindly dose from. You would have to teach them to test (weekly?) so that they could verify the device was still accurate, and how to calibrate it if not.
liquidrt said:
continue taking water to the local pool store?
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The most expensive and hands off, but at least they have someone to yell at if it's not going well.
 
Thanks for reaching out so quickly! I have never maintained a pool before but am familiar with the components and have read the methods here on TFP such as SLAM. CC, FC and CYA all make sense to me as well as the method to test the water in the morning and evening to interpret the results. Although it makes sense to me, I think dropping a certain amount of drops, stirring the correct way, and interpreting the results are going to be frustrating for the person I am training :)

My fear is working with the pool store is going to lead the person down an expensive journey that might not help them in the long run. I guess I was hoping for a remote solution where I could interpret the results and advise based on tests I read in the morning and evening. Additionally, the local pool store has a waiting list for pool maintenance people where they often take a week or so just to come out and check things. The only real solution is to take a water sample to the store and buy what they recommend. So far they have recommended shocking the pool, adding phosphates, and now they are back to recommending shocking.

It sounds like the best course of action is to continue to work with the pool store and take their advice. :( Once the person builds up confidence after their first season of pool maintenance, I can try to get them up to speed next season.
 
If the person can follow pool store instructions for adding chemicals they can follow TFP methods for chemicals which are simipler.

Is testing the big hurdle?

I know I could take someone through testing using a TF100 Test Kits with Zoom or Facetime.

I think you will find the Pool Store ways as much or more frustrating then trying to help a person remotely test.

Get a test kit for you and for them. So you can get hands on understanding of what they are doing while testing your tap water.
 
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How close are they ? Can you stop by once a week ? Once every other week ? Or is she across the country ? We can teach you how to add and use a salt water chlorine generator that needs minimal tweaking once it's dialed in at the start of the season, but you'd be needed here and there.

I hear you about 'who you're teaching'. My mom was one of the kindest people but if she didn't want to be bothered with something, it sat. Pools don't have to be their thing. It's OK. They're still great. :)
 
IMHO, if they can backwash the filter, then they can do simple water testing. Admittedly, water balancing and testing is daunting at first, but it becomes second nature, like driving a car, after a while. I would try to encourage them to get a good test kit (see pool school) and learn the basic tests necessary for their pool. (Free chlorine, pH, Calcium if a cement pool, etc).

I am probably the dumbest person I know and I figured it out!

Also, the automatic vacuum is awesome. I love mine (I use a self-contained robot vacuum, not one attached to my filter, and it makes it so I hardly ever have to clean out my filter! Well that and skimmer socks in the skimmer.
 
liquidrt said:
It sounds like the best course of action is to continue to work with the pool store and take their advice. :( Once the person builds up confidence after their first season of pool maintenance, I can try to get them up to speed next season.
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If you think performing your own testing can be frustrating, wait until you spend several hundred dollars per week and see no improvement.

I second the idea of getting on a Zoom call with them. I'm sure you could get plenty of volunteers here to sit in on that too. Once you've performed the tests one time, it's really quite simple. And some of them only need to be done once per year, if at all.

The only ones that are really crucial are CYA, FC, pH, and to a lesser extent, TA. Once my CYA is at the desired level, I never test it again the rest of the season. And I don't recall the last time I tested TA. It's been years.

So FC and pH are the only ones I do on a weekly basis.
 

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There are only two test kits that contain the FAS-DPD chlorine test required by the TFP method, the TF-100 and the Taylor K-2006.

If you're not going to get either of those, save your money. We can only be of very limited assistance without the proper tests. You might as well go with the pool service.
 
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