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Copperhead

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LifeTime Supporter
Dec 29, 2009
88
Chandler, AZ
I was sweating bullets because this year is a water change year, and the temp went from 60 to 80 overnight and stayed there!
Not supposed to drain pool over 70, I thought I was hosed this year....
But the weather said high of 68 today so I drained it last night!!
Refilling now, time to get some salt, cya and borax!!!
 
You can drain the pool over 70 degrees.

If you were really worried, then just keep spraying down the surface to keep it damp.

Or do the drain and refill overnight when the sun is not beating on the surface.

I would rather drain the pool in 90 degree cloudy weather than 70 degree intense sun beating on the surface.
 
lol - takes 24 hrs to refill!

Original pool builder told us 70 so that has been working since 2004. Today was a perfect day though regardless.
I usually do it end of Feb - early March but the weather this year caught me.
Every two years. I tried going three once but had difficulty with everything by the middle of August so I learned my lesson the hard way.
 
The only reason to replace water is if your CYA or CH are too high. Your CH should not climb in 2 years.

What problem were you having in August? I think your issues may be more chemistry related than "old water".
 
Cartridge filter, no back flush ever. Phoenix area, Salt River is primary origin of tap water. CH starts at the high end and goes off the charts from there.
When I get the salt in and everything balanced I'll post what everything tests at.
Really good water pressure yesterday, filled in about 15 hours!
 
It was August 2009, the problems eventually led me to this forum, which fixed everything so I gratefully joined as a paid lifetime member.
In a nutshell, I found that when the CH is too high, and the air temp is 115, aerating at night to keep water temp down... drinking acid like crazy because of the aeration and salt water chlorine generation, even though PH, CYA and everything else is right, brushing the pool daily etc, I started to have a black algae problem. Small spots appearing here and there. I did battle daily. Followed pool store recommendations and tested water there a couple times a week! Shock, scrub, rebalance everything then it started all over again a week later. Pool store just took my money and sold me everything under the sun!
SOooooo frustrating!
But I found this website, bought a test kit and all has been well since the end of 2009. I do test and indeed 2 years is about it, so I automatically plan on draining in even years.
In hindsight and subsequent dealings with the company that built my pool and owned the pool store I feel that they put sales ahead of what is best for the customer. I can say much more on this but not in a public forum.
Anyways, I am very happy with all the help and mostly sound advice that can be found here, and pleased to report I have had no chemistry problems since joining.
 
Well, either I "mis-remembered" how much salt I put in at startup last time or the Salt River is a little saltier this spring... the AutoPilot sensor is saying 3600 - oops! I will buy some salt strips today to verify that, hopefully it will go down a little before it goes up with evaporation.
TA is 80
CH is 320
Nothing added to the fresh pool water except salt and CYA, and 1 gallon of acid.
pH 7.3 - with the very hard water here, my target is 7.2 as this seems to be the magic number that keeps the cell clean.
 

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3600 isn't so bad I don't think. My SWG doesn't report high salt until 4500 ppm.

The best thing you can do to keep your cell clean is to manage your CSI. after you enter you test results and water temp in Poolmath it will give you a CSI score. Keep that slightly negative -0.1 to -0.2 and your pool, plaster and SWG will be happy. Use PH as your primary adjuster and TA second.

More here
Pool School - Calcium Scaling

and here
Langelier and Calcite Saturation Indices (LSI and CSI)
 
I dumped in some liquid chlorinator at startup and I have cell power at 0 until I could test the water and make sure everything was OK. On my Taylor K-1000 the chlorine is 5. Sounds high but with the heat here it should come down fairly quickly. As I need chlorine I will bring power up on the cell.
AutoPilot recommends 2500-3500 salt, target 3000.
I am going to the pool store now to have the salt tested as my strips are too old. I can calibrate the sensor reading to the pool store reading.
My current CSI is -0.65
Nothing I can do about CH, it is what it is and it gets worse from here!
I will keep an eye on TA, on target now but I know it will shift especially when aerating this summer to keep water temp down.
 
Pool store says 3500 so we will leave it be and keep an eye on what it does.
I calibrated my AutoPilot to read 3500.
I wonder if my local water utility publishes the salt levels of the tap water?
Found it, most recently published 2014, average sodium 171 with a range of 84-290!
Well if it was hitting the high side that may account for part of my overage as I had figured with the tap water the highest I could possibly be was 3200.
Next time I should just read the AutoPilot screen first.
I just put it in "autopilot" myself and dumped the salt in lol.
 
Well I'm pretty pleased most everything went as planned. The cya was lower than it should have been with the product I bought at Wal-Mart so I added more of a different brand.
Everything else was reasonably on target so I just dumped in the Borax.
Will add half the acid in a couple hours then let it run all night and check pH in the morning.
 
Howling ago did you add the CYA? If it was within this week, 60 is fine for now. You can always retest later. Please be careful not to overshoot your target!

Why did you add Borax and acid both? Are you adding "borates" to the water?

EDIT: Howling! How long... Dang auto-correct.
 

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