Bought a Pool and it came with a house.

[Alwayswantedapool]

2nd day in the house and as hard as I tried, have a bit of a green monster.
FC 0
CC 1
PH, it stayed yellow so below 7
TA, add the r-0008 and it turns red, not green, what does that mean, there is none?
CYA, over 100

So my first step was to drain the pool down, it is a vinyl liner so only drained to a foot depth on the shallow end.
Pool is refilling now, on a well so will take a while.

So I am thinking while it is refilling should be working on PH and TA.
For the PH, should I add borax or washing soda, does it matter?
For the TA 577 oz of baking soda

Thanks for the help

 

[DaninFLA]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

check your pH and TA results and let us know what they are. your TA may be good and if you need to raise/lower your pH that's easy too.

do not add borax, baking soda, etc until your pool is filled. your tap water is probably going to have lots of TA already. lets see where you are add. have you tested the refill water???

only thing you need to worry about right now is keeping some bleach in the pool as it fills. aim for 5ppm or so.

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

I couldn't get a good reading on PH or TA. On the PH, it was yellow, so assuming way low. On the TA, when I added the R-0008, it turns red, not green like it is supposed to. I have no clue what that means. I will wait to finish filling the pool and test again. I will also test my fill water.

 

[DaninFLA]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

ok, sounds like a plan. im sorry, im not sure about the issues with the TA test, but others will answer that.

test the fill water for TA and pH, but the pH might not be accurate coming from a well. once the water is exposed to oxygen, the pH will change. it will be most accurate to measure pH after your pool is full. the TA test is fine to do on the fill water though.

don't make adjustments to the new pool based on the results of the old pool. no way to know what was added, etc compared to the fill water

 

[jblizzle]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

That means that your TA is close to zero which also means your pH is probably in the fours. Once the pool is filled circulate the water for an hour and then retest and let's see where you're at.

If the TA is still near zero then you want to raise that with baking soda up to around 50 ppm and then raise the pH with Borax until you get into the 7s.

At least that's what I think the process is.

 

[pabeader]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Do you know if your well water has iron or other metals in it?

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

I don't know about iron or other metals but the previous owners didn't mention any issues with it.

 

[pabeader]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

how does it taste?

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

No taste of metals, tastes better then city water

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[pabeader]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

that's probably good then.

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Pool is stillfilling, at this rate will be tomorrow sometime. I added 3 gallons of bleach this morning and 3 more this evening, in hopes it wont get any worse. Once the pool is full and I can cut the pump on I will test and post results.

Here is a picture of my starting point, before I started messing with it, I brushed, vacuumed and then it turned really green.



Thanks

 

[kimkats]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

You are on the right track! Test kit and finding TFP!

You are going to LOVE having a pool! We can help you get and keep it clear and easy.

You might want to order some extra stuff to test with. Here is a link to what you need more of.

TFTestkits.net

LOL I love your name! and how you said bought a pool with a house! LOL Did you drive your Realtor nuts house hunting? Don't bother showing me the house until I see the pool!

Kim

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

You are on the right track! Test kit and finding TFP!

You are going to LOVE having a pool! We can help you get and keep it clear and easy.

You might want to order some extra stuff to test with. Here is a link to what you need more of.

TFTestkits.net

LOL I love your name! and how you said bought a pool with a house! LOL Did you drive your Realtor nuts house hunting? Don't bother showing me the house until I see the pool!

Kim

We drove the realtor crazy on multiple fronts but still had a good time. Looking at houses was a family affair and sometimes there was 8 of us showing up to look at a house. We had 60 days from contract to closing so I have had a solid 60 days of reading these forums, so hopefully I have the base concepts down.
Have gotten the xl for testing so ready to go once I have the cya down

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[aboykin2269]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Beautiful pool! Just follow the TFPC Method and you will enjoy easy maintenance, and a trouble free, sparking pool!

 

[kimkats]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

We will be here to help or just cheer you on. Just let us know what you need!

Kim

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Thanks everyone for the motivation, Reading about it and experiencing it are really two different things. The cheering really helps. Especially when I am still waiting on the pool to get full, really close so not comfortable leaving it on overnight. I think I am only a couple of hours away from being to able to crank up the pump and filter back up.
So my routine this morning and this afternoon, add 3 gallons of bleach and stir. Also brushed down the walls each time. The good news is, it has already gone from green to blue, I think there is a story about how that happened. Basically when I signed the contract on the house, one of the stipulations was the pool would be swim ready on day of closing and I think there was some last ditch effort to get it there. They didn't succeed.
Out of bleach so off to the store first thing in the morning to stock back up. Really hoping my CYA will be in a manageable place.
Thanks all for the support.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Lets get the pH and TA fixed as soon as we can.

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

This morning with the pump off I could see the bottom of the pool at the deep end. Turned the hose back on and swept and manually skimmed the pool. Was very cloudy after that. Went to run errands and when I got back was able to turn the pump on. Waited an hour and started testing:
FC 32!!
CC 0
CYA 100
I did do PH, forgot you couldn't do it with FC over 10. It was still just yellow but don't know how accurate that will be.
So at this point, running pump, watching pressure, and will keep checking FC until I get under 10 and can check PH and TA.
I am not planning on draining any water right now for CYA, figure I will be doing a bunch of back flushing and will see where that gets me.
Does that plan of action make sense?
Thanks all.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Your high CYA is going to be a problem still. Did you do the diluted test?

You can test the TA and get that up while the FC is high. We should have stopped all your bleach addition.

 

[Alwayswantedapool]

Re: Bought a Pool and it came with a houses.

Yep, agreed on the CYA, I have already had to back flush so am hoping that will help some. Can someone tell me how to do the diluted test? Expecting I will have to back flush quite a bit. I will test FC and TA again in a few.