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Sulfates don’t hurt gardens. Sulfates are a soil nutrient needed by all plants. Only excessively high levels would cause problems. If the equipment is below grade and in a confined space, then you shouldn’t use HCl as the vapors will accumulate and cause issues. You either have to continue...

From a human safety perspective, HCl is much safer to use than sulfuric acid. The human skin can tolerate direct contact with HCl for many minutes without issue giving you plenty of time to wash it off while sulfuric acid will immediately cause chemical burns and damage skin. HCl vapors can...

It is ALWAYS better in a residential outdoor pool to have CYA in the water where chlorine is held in reserve. Zero CYA doesn’t work in actual practice without serious amounts of highly automated measurements and dosing as well as constant filtration.

Arizona can mean a lot of different things in terms of climate - a pool in Flagstaff is going to operated differently from a pool in Yuma. Where exactly are you in Arizona?? Also, what is your pool size in gallons? I don't see that in your signature. Are you testing by using your own test...

Mixing a pound of dry cal hypo into a 5 gallon bucket that most people can’t lift when there’s more than 3 gallons of water in it creates an incredibly concentrated and caustic bleach mixture. Most of the cal hypo won’t dissolve anyway. It also gives off a little bit of heat. So now you have...

Are you vacuuming to waste or vacuuming to filter? If floc is present, then you have to vacuum to waste otherwise the floc gets embedded into the filter media, degrades back into fine particulates, and then those fines are released back into the water. Floc should only ever be used when a pool...

There is no difference in the effect of dry versus muriatic acid in terms of pH … the “protect your tiles” line is a load of malarkey. Muriatic acid is just fine - just add it by pouring it slowly (pencil diameter stream) in from of a fast-moving return in the deep end of the pool. Then gently...

There is no difference in the effect of dry versus muriatic acid in terms of pH … the “protect your tiles” line is a load of malarkey. Muriatic acid is just fine - just add it by pouring it slowly (pencil diameter stream) in front of a fast-moving return in the deep end of the pool. Then...

Meh. Chlorine … it’s a beautiful thing … and far better than the exploding sea whales -

It looks like it’s been in there a while. When small rodents and animals sit in the skimmer for a long time, they lose whatever hair they have. Eventually they bloat up from water absorption. The final stages are where the flesh turn into a gelatinous goo and the create disintegrates when you...

I don’t think that jar test really tells you anything without proper controls. In any small volume of water like that, leaving it to sit will result in some settling to occur and the clarity is misleading when looking at a small volume. A few inches of water that looks clear could easily be...

As the weather warms up here and we get more and more daylight hours, the intense UV is going to tear through your chlorine. 30ppm CYA might work for now but once the oven door opens up on June 1st (it’s always June 1st when the heat really kicks in), you’re going to need higher levels of CYA...

A salt water chlorine generator is an expensive upfront cost but you are basically buying all of your chlorine for years to come. So when you look at it that way, it’s a huge savings. And it makes pool care easy. Believe me, if you have to test and dose your pool every single day, it’s going...

The permanent system uses a copper ionizer to add copper to the water. There’s a good chance you could have enough copper left that it would cause staining once you start using the TFP method because the chlorine will oxidize the copper. There really isn’t easy or accurate way to measure...

As long as the daytime air temps are below 85°F the plaster should be fine for draining and refilling. Pools don’t float around here, the water table is way too far down. You can drain the pool, LIGHTLY power wash the surface (do NOT use a gas powered high pressure washer or you will regret...

Welcome :wave: Get a proper test kit as the previous owner was obviously following “industry recommendations” which means your pool’s water chemistry is probably off. Only by self-testing with a high quality test kit can you ever hope to maintain your own pool. And, no, pool store testing is...

New homeowner, old pool. That equipment is used. Whoever sold the home had the pool pad “cleaned up” to look good for a pool inspector … and “pool inspections” are an absolute joke. Most of the time the guy from “Shady AF’s Premium Pool Service” shows up, sits in the driveway for 45mins...

Good catch @JamesW ... agreed, what is up with the wear and tear on that equipment? My Pentair equipment is over 10 years old and sits out in the direct, brutal AZ sun all summer long and it doesn't look even half as bad as those pictures. Did this pool happen to get submerged in a recent...

Worst comes to worst, if that threaded hole is shot, then you’ll need a new filter lid. It’ll set you back a pretty penny but you really can’t repair, nor should you, filter bodies. They are pressure vessels and should never be modified or repaired, just replaced.

You can pick up different sizes of pipe nipple extractors for pretty cheap at most hardware stores. I have a full set. They’ll make fast work of extracting the sheared off plastic bit …

Also, I see Teflon tape on the hole where the valve goes. Plumbing tape should be absolutely unnecessary there. Someone was trying to fix a leak thinking that tape would work and tightening it would be good enough. That valve was likely cracked and the tape just bandaged the problem. Whoever...

That is a common failure point and it was likely tightened on with too much torque causing the plastic to crack. It was likely leaking/dripping prior to it blowing off. Sorry to hear that everything got soaked and you lost so much water. The high flow air relief valve is fairly cheap and...

Almost all consumer laundry bleach nowadays has “fabric protection technology” chemicals in it. It’s a bleach formulation that was patented by Clorox corporation and then licensed for general use. Bleach is a commercially manufactured product and there are only three major...

You would be hard pressed to find a source of hydrofluoric acid and you wouldn’t want to use it anyway. It’s incredibly toxic and dangerous - splash HF on more than a square inch or so of exposed bare skin and you’ll be dead in a short time from cardiac arrest. Small splashes of HF can be...

Just don’t use channel locks on plastic fittings 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️. Wrong tool for the job. Use a properly sized open end wrench OR an adjustable wrench, never channel locks. These yahoo DIY’ers YouTube “content creators”, always using the wrong tools for the job … just proves that the internet is...

There is no health consequence. The odor threshold of MA is far far below any of the health and safety limits for it. You got a nose full of very diluted acid vapors and your body did exactly what it was supposed to do - it told you you were too close. Using a full face respirator is...

You take the eyeballs out and you buy special expandable rubber plugs either from the hardware store or the pool store. See here - https://www.troublefreepool.com/wiki/index.php?title=Closing_Pool_for_Winter

You can just close it and cover it. The water will turn swampy but then again you’ll be pumping it out anyway once the renovation starts. As long as you can keep most of the crud and dead animals out of the water, a covered pool will be safe enough. Just drain it down below the returns and...

Don’t. An empty pool is an invitation to have it float up out of the ground or, with a vinyl liner, to have it collapse/cave in. Leave the water there until you are ready to do the renovation. Sure it’s a PITA to have to care for the water while you wait but a structural collapse would be...

Carbon dioxide is great for pH control if you can source it cheaply (it’s expensive in many areas) and if your fill water alkalinity is low. Injecting CO2 does not reduce TA and so if a pool normally needs acid to control TA (like my pool does), then CO2 injection doesn’t make sense. It’s just...