Vacation Home Pool Maintenance

Jsf721 said:

Thanks like I said I’m trying to get up to speed.

Started messing with the Tf Pro kit. Will keep learning.

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Welcome! If you spend a bit of time reading through the pool schools articles you’ll find that TFP does things differently because doing so makes pool care easier. The site is filled with people trusting the pool store to test their water, getting bad results and then sold a bunch of stuff that made things worse. So the advice is to not even waste the gasoline driving over to the pool store. The advice they have is that bad.

The other general issue is that most places like that advise you to keep your chlorine lower than is safe because they don’t take into account the effect stabilizer (CYA) has on chlorine. When CYA is added, the amount of chlorine that’s needed to effectively sanitize the water increases. So when you added pucks with CYA in them, you also need to increase the amount of chlorine in the water to offset the effect. But if you are using pucks, that increases the CYA even MORE. Which becomes a vicious cycle which eventually leads to an algae outbreak or some other “bad water” diagnosis that the store will have you drain the pool to fix.

TFP method shows you how to maintain the correct amount of chlorine and stabilizer at all times so that you don’t need to add “shock” or buy other potions to fix the problem the pool store created.

IF we believed the test results you show on the picture (we don’t) your free chlorine level (FC) is very low given your CYA level. If this pool is something you are only managing weekly, you are asking for trouble over the long term. Algae starts growing before it turns the water green and once it’s green it takes a lot of work to clear it up. So you can’t judge things by eye, which is why the test kit is really required.

One of the things I think TFP could explain better is the higher FC levels advocated for. When CYA is in the water, chlorine still shows up on the test but is bound up with CYA so it’s not doing anything. The test kit can’t distinguish between the difference. The result is that water with no CYA in it is much harsher with a FC at 1ppm than it is with a FC of 10 with CYA at 100. It’s a difficult thing to communicate already and when people are afraid of “super high chlorine” they don’t realize the difference.

I hope that helps explain some of the details.

Welcome Jsf, truly no dig intended. We really want everyone who comes to this site to have a trouble free pool. It can be difficult to convince people to spend more money for what seems to them like an expensive "overkill" test kit. We're so insistent because no one, NO one, will care about your pool like you will.

TFP does not make money off test kits, if we did, we wouldn't recommend the K2006C that you can purchase from Amazon. We just know that kit and the TF100( from tftestkits.net) are the only kits that have the correct reagents to give you accurate, repeatable results.

Why would you want to swim, or have your children swim in unknown chemical soup? We basically recommend cheap well known products: liquid chlorine, muriatic acid, cyanuric acid and calcium, all of which you can buy at Walmart or home center stores. Think of your expensive investment, we care about you getting the longest life out of your finish and equipment!

I have followed tfp protocol since day one with my pool. I have never had algae, and I know exactly what my grandchildren are swimming in and that it's safe. I test chlorine and ph everyday which takes literally 5 minutes, all other tests are monthly.

It's much cheaper to invest in the kit, which should last 2 seasons, than to buy all the overpriced chemicals pool stores are pressured to sell. Nothing wrong with them trying to make money, but not at my expense!

Do some reading on the site, not just pool school and other articles, read the forums and you will see the proof that this method works, if you follow it, it's foolproof.

You'll also see threads over 10 pages long, full of people falling over themselves to help others have a beautiful enjoyable pool. No one is pressured to donate, it's always much appreciated, but donate or not, everyone gets the same excellent help.

We hope you'll drink our pool-aide!

Jsf721 said:

I ordered the Kit TF-Pro and I think I am using it properly. The only one I am having trouble reading is the Chlorine / PH block. It my be my ability to discern colors.

I am relying on the drop test for chlorine.

Great site with very responsive people.

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Don’t sweat small differences in color for pH. All you care about is whether the pH starts with a 7 or not.