I joined TFP a couple months ago, now I have total control of my pool and looks the best it has in ten years. How I ended up hear before I joined I spent $250 in one month on chemicals that didn't solve my returning algae problem. Anyway since I've joined All I use is chlorine, acid and stabilizer if I need it. What I have learned my pool in July used 1/2 gal of chlorine and a little acid now and then. This month I'm at about 1.5 quarts a day (cooled down) so being retired it's no big deal to take of the pool and actually like taking care of it myself. So some of my neighbors have pool services so I had to ask myself how can they possibly take care of a pool coming one day a week? Do they just dump some mass amount of chlorine in the pool once a week?