Hello All,
Here's my (pool) story, so far:
We bought a house two years ago and inherited a pool (see details in signature) that I didn't get around to messing with until this past fall (house renovations were priority). Well, this fall we took off the tattered pool cover that the previous owner left on the pool and were disappointed to see we had a lot of work to do: there was 4 inches of green, gooey water. After bleaching/vacuuming out the sludge, we filled up the pool with tap water for winter storage only to find out there were around five holes in the vinyl that I was able to fix. Put new cover on with big truck tire inter tube in the center of the pool and no issues with the ~5' of snow we had in Jan.-Feb.
In April, happy to see no algae in tap water pool. Local pool store had 25% off chemicals deal so I went and bought all chemicals that they recommended (ouch! :?) because I was ignorant of the CYA stabilizer issues at the time (didn't happen upon this website until June) and haven't even heard of the BBB method. Thankfully, my CYA levels weren't too high when I switched to the BBB method (50 ppm). Things have been going well since switching over. I've been fortunate enough to not have any algae blooms before the switch-over. We have a BJ's very close by, so we can get liquid chlorine and baking soda at competitive prices (borax may have to be ordered on Amazon). Our family is really enjoying the pool almost every day. Well worth fixing up the pool and keeping it up and running.
Now I have ~20 lbs of trichlor tabs and 12 lbs of dichlor shock that I won't be using...I feel like it is an unethical thing to sell these things to others because of knowledge of CYA's negative effects w.r.t. reducing active chlorine...
I'm glad to be part of such an informative and helpful forum. I have pored over the threads in the forum and have learned so much even before registering. As a research scientist, I like having my data ("knowledge is power"...at least when it is used wisely), making informed decisions, and to have hands-on control of my experiments (in this case, our pool). This website has been an eye-opener.
/start of pseudo soapbox rant
Over the years, I have become more cynical towards large corporations or industries, who rarely care about the consumer by pushing ethical boundaries to get the highest profits at all cost (What happened to doing honest business? No wonder consumers don't trust big businesses.). I'm glad to be independent of the money-making schemes through websites like this.
/end of pseudo soapbox rant
Here's my (pool) story, so far:
We bought a house two years ago and inherited a pool (see details in signature) that I didn't get around to messing with until this past fall (house renovations were priority). Well, this fall we took off the tattered pool cover that the previous owner left on the pool and were disappointed to see we had a lot of work to do: there was 4 inches of green, gooey water. After bleaching/vacuuming out the sludge, we filled up the pool with tap water for winter storage only to find out there were around five holes in the vinyl that I was able to fix. Put new cover on with big truck tire inter tube in the center of the pool and no issues with the ~5' of snow we had in Jan.-Feb.
In April, happy to see no algae in tap water pool. Local pool store had 25% off chemicals deal so I went and bought all chemicals that they recommended (ouch! :?) because I was ignorant of the CYA stabilizer issues at the time (didn't happen upon this website until June) and haven't even heard of the BBB method. Thankfully, my CYA levels weren't too high when I switched to the BBB method (50 ppm). Things have been going well since switching over. I've been fortunate enough to not have any algae blooms before the switch-over. We have a BJ's very close by, so we can get liquid chlorine and baking soda at competitive prices (borax may have to be ordered on Amazon). Our family is really enjoying the pool almost every day. Well worth fixing up the pool and keeping it up and running.
Now I have ~20 lbs of trichlor tabs and 12 lbs of dichlor shock that I won't be using...I feel like it is an unethical thing to sell these things to others because of knowledge of CYA's negative effects w.r.t. reducing active chlorine...
I'm glad to be part of such an informative and helpful forum. I have pored over the threads in the forum and have learned so much even before registering. As a research scientist, I like having my data ("knowledge is power"...at least when it is used wisely), making informed decisions, and to have hands-on control of my experiments (in this case, our pool). This website has been an eye-opener.
/start of pseudo soapbox rant
Over the years, I have become more cynical towards large corporations or industries, who rarely care about the consumer by pushing ethical boundaries to get the highest profits at all cost (What happened to doing honest business? No wonder consumers don't trust big businesses.). I'm glad to be independent of the money-making schemes through websites like this.
/end of pseudo soapbox rant
