Hi all!
I just bought a house in Scottsdale, AZ with a pool. I'm already on my second pool maintenance company. My pool gets cloudy and they can't figure out why. For weeks the new pool guy has been saying he isn't getting any chemical readings. He uses test strips. The pool gets cloudy every week. He throws stuff in the pool, it is good for a few days, then gets cloudy again. This week there was something new: It had algae on the sides on Tuesday so I brushed the pool walls and shocked the pool. I've been running the filter 10 hours/day since then. I bought test strips at Leslie's yesterday (but I have ordered the fancy test kit now) and the readings were the same last night and this morning:
FCL: ZERO
ALK: around 40
pH: result color was barely visible and not shown on the bottle...so, less than 6.2
CyA: result color also barely visible and waaaaay lighter than the color indicating ZERO on the bottle.
How am I not getting any readings? I know there has got to be more than just water in the dang pool. At the end of July my daughter's blonde hair turned very green even though the pool guy wasn't getting a chlorine reading. Two weeks ago the pool guy mentioned draining the pool because maybe there's too much -[some chemical or something that I can't remember]- built up in it. He said it doesn't get used up and then over time it builds up and won't let the chlorine do it's job so we will have to drain our pool every five years. Huh? My parents have had a pool since I was 12...so 30 years...and I have only seen them drain it once to re-plaster. Is my pool guy talking nonsense or is the Arizona climate sooooooo crazy that, unlike San Diego, it makes the chemicals screwy and pools have to be drained every 5 years?
I'm looking forward to getting my fancy test kit in the mail so I can do some legit chemistry and fix my pool. Should I just load the pool with bleach 'til then? I have to figure out how to keep the dogs from drinking out of the pool. They have a conveniently located, perfectly good water dish full of filtered water but they would rather lean way over the edge of the pool and drink 87 degree water. Gross. Yes, they know how to swim. Wow - tangent.
Thanks for your help!
I just bought a house in Scottsdale, AZ with a pool. I'm already on my second pool maintenance company. My pool gets cloudy and they can't figure out why. For weeks the new pool guy has been saying he isn't getting any chemical readings. He uses test strips. The pool gets cloudy every week. He throws stuff in the pool, it is good for a few days, then gets cloudy again. This week there was something new: It had algae on the sides on Tuesday so I brushed the pool walls and shocked the pool. I've been running the filter 10 hours/day since then. I bought test strips at Leslie's yesterday (but I have ordered the fancy test kit now) and the readings were the same last night and this morning:
FCL: ZERO
ALK: around 40
pH: result color was barely visible and not shown on the bottle...so, less than 6.2
CyA: result color also barely visible and waaaaay lighter than the color indicating ZERO on the bottle.
How am I not getting any readings? I know there has got to be more than just water in the dang pool. At the end of July my daughter's blonde hair turned very green even though the pool guy wasn't getting a chlorine reading. Two weeks ago the pool guy mentioned draining the pool because maybe there's too much -[some chemical or something that I can't remember]- built up in it. He said it doesn't get used up and then over time it builds up and won't let the chlorine do it's job so we will have to drain our pool every five years. Huh? My parents have had a pool since I was 12...so 30 years...and I have only seen them drain it once to re-plaster. Is my pool guy talking nonsense or is the Arizona climate sooooooo crazy that, unlike San Diego, it makes the chemicals screwy and pools have to be drained every 5 years?
I'm looking forward to getting my fancy test kit in the mail so I can do some legit chemistry and fix my pool. Should I just load the pool with bleach 'til then? I have to figure out how to keep the dogs from drinking out of the pool. They have a conveniently located, perfectly good water dish full of filtered water but they would rather lean way over the edge of the pool and drink 87 degree water. Gross. Yes, they know how to swim. Wow - tangent.
Thanks for your help!
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