Preparing the pool for a special event

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Given the little time you have and the fact that your chlorine dosing system is currently working, I wouldn't change a thing.

If you add CYA now to your pool, you will very likely throw off the sensor and it will take too much time to recalibrate it. Just leave it alone. At 1ppm FC, a pH of 7.5 and 0 CYA, you have an ENORMOUS amount of active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) in the water (about 10X what we around here run our outdoor pools at). There is very little chance your water will become dangerous enough to be a concern. It may get cloudy from all the kids in it but your pool will recover and no one is going to get Legionnaire's disease. Just have fun (although I'm traditionally the wet blanket at most parties so I highly discourage the prom dress in the pool thing...).

Just exercise caution with the kids. If the water becomes too cloudy to see the bottom then it's time to get out. You can test the chlorine periodically through out the night with a simple OTO chlorine test to make sure there's chlorine in the water.

If you want to run your pool differently (with CYA) later on, gives us a shout. But for now my advice to you is to leave it alone....if it ain't broke, yada, yada, yada.
 
kimkats said:
Linn, I want to address the girl's dreses.......Get some dark colored, silky fabric samples to throw in the water to show how they will react to the water. That will put the other moms mind at ease as far as the coloring. The boys on the other hand...do NOT let them take rented tuxes in!

I LOVE that you are doing this! I hope you have thought about the amount of food you are going to need!!! LOL

Now a word about what they will try (been there, done that) do NOT let them come and go....Once they leave they stay gone........They WILL have alcohol out in the cars and go out to sip on it :-( Ask me how I know LOL

hugs! :hug:

Kim :cat:
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! Yeah that could be a good way of making them more relaxed in case that there are any that are truly worried about it. I know that chlorine bleaches colors, but that is in the concentrated form. I've spilled some on my clothes when I've been looking after the pool and it gives a stain right away, usually sort of purple or pink. But at 1 ppm levels it's a totally different story. I haven't spoken to each and every parent, but those that I know well are fully ok with it, there were just a couple who wondered about what the chlorine would do to the dresses, though without seeing it as a major problem. The girls are really dressing up for this though - I heard that one girl has a dress that was like $ 5000 - can't tell if it's just a rumour or not, figures like that can get boosted as the kids pass them on. Our daugther spent way more than what we'd planned on initially, but she's been super-performing this year and is well worth a reward. I don't think that her dress will be ruined if she goes into the pool in it, but if it should happen I don't worry about it. The main thing is that she and her friends have a safe night. Too many tragic things happen on prom nights. It's only a few years ago that one girl in hte area got killed in a DUI-related accident. I can easily replace a dress but not my daughter.

As for the guys, yeah rental tuxes is a different story, but I checked with one of the rental compnies here, they told me that at least with their tuxes it's safe if they just take off their jackets. Their pants and shirts can handle water easily, at least with the ones that they rent to promgoers. The reason is simply financial: whenever possible they want to use garments that they don't need to dry clean all the time as that gets costly.

Yep, I'm well awareof that we need lots of food, snacks and drinks (no alcohol of course) ! Kids that age eat loads, especially when they're in a high energy mode like for a party like this. :) Luckily we've got some of the other parents that are helping us with the practical matters like that. We'll make sure that they'll have a fun and memorable night ! :)

Of course it wasn't the initial plan that they were to go swimming in their dresses, but I can see teir point. Teenagers love to do stuff that's a bit out of the ordinary at times like these, to make memories for one thing. I'll bet they'll have a lot of fun and I do expect it all to get quite lively. Our pool is well suited to stand this kind of a thing. We've waterproofed everything anywhere even close to the pool and it is a concrete pool so even if some of them will go in with heels on they're not going to puncture it or something - I could see that it would be different if it was a vinyl liner pool. We may need to do a bit of extra cleaning, extra backwash and so afterwards but that is no problem at all. All these kids are good swimmers so it's safe that way. It's of course a bit heavier to swim in a ballgown-style dress, but I'm sure our daughter won't have any problem with that.

Thanks for reminding me of how ingenious that teenagers can be when it comes to getting at forbidden stuff, like alohol... :) No we won't let them go in and out. Besides, they won't have any cars outside either. Some will come in limos, others be brought here by a bus that one of the parents who owns a charter bus company is fixing. Limos that vcome here have to drop them off and then leave. As I mentioned earlier we live in a fairly remote area and I don't think that the kids would fancy an eight mile walk on a dark road in the middle of the night... :) They are all to stay here 'til the morning.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
Given the little time you have and the fact that your chlorine dosing system is currently working, I wouldn't change a thing.

If you add CYA now to your pool, you will very likely throw off the sensor and it will take too much time to recalibrate it. Just leave it alone. At 1ppm FC, a pH of 7.5 and 0 CYA, you have an ENORMOUS amount of active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) in the water (about 10X what we around here run our outdoor pools at). There is very little chance your water will become dangerous enough to be a concern. It may get cloudy from all the kids in it but your pool will recover and no one is going to get Legionnaire's disease. Just have fun (although I'm traditionally the wet blanket at most parties so I highly discourage the prom dress in the pool thing...).

Just exercise caution with the kids. If the water becomes too cloudy to see the bottom then it's time to get out. You can test the chlorine periodically through out the night with a simple OTO chlorine test to make sure there's chlorine in the water.

If you want to run your pool differently (with CYA) later on, gives us a shout. But for now my advice to you is to leave it alone....if it ain't broke, yada, yada, yada.
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Yeah there may be some truth to that. pH and chlorine levels have been very much constant ever since we started the pool, except for a few weeks right at the very beginning at startup. If we would need to recalibrate the system it's hard to say how long it would take before we got stable at a new level.
 
That will be a night to remember by all! SO wonderful and fun filled!

I like that the other parents are helping out as well. The limos and private bus dropping off is great touch! The walk on the long road should curb any desire to leave early LOL

It sounds like you have it all planned out! What night is it?

Kim
 
kimkats said:
That will be a night to remember by all! SO wonderful and fun filled!

I like that the other parents are helping out as well. The limos and private bus dropping off is great touch! The walk on the long road should curb any desire to leave early LOL

It sounds like you have it all planned out! What night is it?

Kim
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Hi ! Well to say we've got it all set and planned is not quite true - there are still many things to fix. But we've got it under control and the main items are planned. Of course the event as such involves not just fixing the pool but Everything else as well. We have to use several parts of the house for different things to get it to work out, like we're setting up one room with computers for those that can't be away from gaming for more than 30 minutes... some of the guys are so much into that that I think it's beyond dating in priority for them ! But one of the parents is fixing the setup, as he does that forhis job normally. The blow is our very poor internet connection, but he's storing whatever they need for their games on the computers so they can manage without the internet at the time. But hopefully most of the kids won't get stuck in there ! We'll have the dance area in the pool room and extending to the patio that is right outside. We'll have one room as a rest area where those who get too tired can get a nap. We will have food and refreshments in a room near the pool room but we're trying to avoid food in the pool room itself, as any food that accidentally would end up in the pool would mess up the water. We learned that lesson at a kids party once... All in all, we want the kids to have fun through the whole night and to feel that they made a better choice than some other kids that may venture out on unsafe limbs.

When it comes to the pool, I think that we'll just leave it on automatic for everything, not add any extra chemicals or something until possibly afterwards. We'll need to run all de-humidifiers and the ventilation on full blast. We'll heat the water a bit extra, so they won't get cold even if they stay in for a long time or if they're going in and out. I think we should also backwash the filter just before the event so that the filtration has its full capacity. Our pump has only one speed, so there's no choice there. Our pool is quite well lit (two 300 W pool lights, plus a floodlight from the ceiling, though I think that for this party we'll probably leave that one off.

If they do as they said and go in in their prom dresses we'll have to deal with all the wet clothes afterwards. I don't know whether it's better to try to dry them or let them bring them home wet ? I guess running those dresses in our driers might be tougher for the dresses than the swim itself... We've got two driers, as we need that now when we've nine kids in the house. Anyhow, we'll still have a couple of meetings both with some of the kids and with their parents, to work out the details.

The night is on May 28, so we've got just a Little over o month to get it all worked out.

I wouldn't imagine we'd be the first parents to set something like this up. If someone has heard of a similar setup earlier and how they did it it would be great to get some feedback !

Linn
 
Linn, For the wet clothes have large plastic bags (garbage bags come to mind) for them to put their dress/clothes after they have hung out to dry for a while if they want. I would NOT put them in the dryer.

Kim
 
I would add a bit of extra chlorine at the start (using liquid bleach) as a mess of kids with a mess of makeup, cold sores, hair spray, assorted broken skin zits, rashes, etc just scream bacterial bath to me. At least wearing a bathing suit would make any open sores apparent.

I think encouraging them to jump in in their frocks is wasteful and potentially dangerous if anyone is rough housing in heavy water logged clothing. I just don't see the attraction? sorry.

Since your pool is on the shallow side, be sure to warn against diving.

Yippy the Trauma RN :flower:
 
pooldv said:
Ewww! Plus one on adding extra bleach before and after. Go at least halfway between target and shock level for your CYA. It is safe to swim up to shock level. Chlorine CYA Chart
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Noooooooooooo.

She has no CYA in the water! Once the chlorine gets much above 3ppm in unconditioned water, the harshness will be unbearable. This is the problem that one encounters often in commercial indoor pools - you wear goggles or else you get very red eyes, you go through bathing suits in less than a year and your hair gets brittle! Shock level for no CYA would be 10ppm FC and 5ppm FC would be noticeably harsh.
 

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YippeeSkippy said:
I would add a bit of extra chlorine at the start (using liquid bleach) as a mess of kids with a mess of makeup, cold sores, hair spray, assorted broken skin zits, rashes, etc just scream bacterial bath to me. At least wearing a bathing suit would make any open sores apparent.

I think encouraging them to jump in in their frocks is wasteful and potentially dangerous if anyone is rough housing in heavy water logged clothing. I just don't see the attraction? sorry.

Since your pool is on the shallow side, be sure to warn against diving.

Yippy the Trauma RN :flower:
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Well I can see that in your profession you'd be worried about all such issues, but even if it was a regular pool party one couldn't know if anyone had sores or scratches. We never check our pool guests for such things but we hope that they use their common sense if they've any more serious problems. And of course we trust the pools chlorination and filtering to keep the pool safe. As for diving yeah that is vital. We Always remind kids when we have them over for a swim that there is no diving in our pool - it's too shallow for it to be safe. It would have been nice with a bigger and deeper pool, but Indoors it gets expensive very quickly if you increase the size, plus that in our the pool was built by the previous owner, but I Think he was pretty tied down as far as the depth goes, as there's rock underneath and blasting can quickly get very costly and is hard when you're doing it right next to the house.

I wouldn't agree that it's wasteful if they jump in, not any more than that prom is wasteful in one sense by itself. It's a lot of money for a single night and families on a low budget may feel a pressure to spend more than they should on it. But I think their dresses will, at least in most cases, survive the swim, plus that I think it's very rare that anyone uses a prom dress more than once anyhow. I've still got my prom dresses in a closet in the attic. They still look good, but SO out of fashion that there's no way that I'd get any of my girls to wear them when they go to prom. Remember those dresses with sleeves and huge poufy shoulders ? :) I know at least one school where they were so concerned about prom being a waste of Money and a problem for the low income groups that they decided that it was mandatory to wear their school uniforms also for prom. It saves money and the environment, true, but doesn't it take away most of what prom means for most of the kids ?

When I was going to prom longback we didn't hit the pool but instead the thing to do was to head for the beach, so we got wet anyhow. Where I lived then, either Venice or Santa Monica beach was the place to go after prom. Prom safety was less of an issue back then but since they close the beaches at night we could get maybe a couple of hours down there before they'd tell us to leave. I remember how I lost myshoes one of those times. I'd taken them off as walking on sand in high heels is pretty hard. Then when we decided to go into the surf I put them down in what I thought was a safe spot. But after a while a huge wave rolled in and swept them into the ocean.. I managed to retrieve one of them but decided to throw it in as well as one shoe was pretty useless anyhow.. LOL
 
Well of course I don't want the water to get unsafe but at the same time it's no good if it gets harsh either and I'm uncertain as to how our automatic chlorination system will react if I start making manual extras, so I think at this point it's best to leave it alone. One of the good things about it being automatic is that that will also work during the party. Without me checking anything it will starts adding chlorine as soon as more is needed.

We don't use bleach for our pool but sodium hypo, but I think that is basically the very same chemical, though just more concentrated. The only other chemical that we use normally is muriatric acid, to compensate for that the sodium hypo jacks up the pH all the time. I may need to do some manual work on the pool afterwards though, backwash for one thing, possibly use some clarifier if they manage to get the water cloudy or so.
 
^Be sure to have a photographer on a tall ladder for the jumping in shot ;)

Years back now I helped organize the senior all night grad party that we held on the top two floors of a very large entertainment venue. We had a blast but there were lots and lots of logistics, so I know what fun you're in for ;)

I don't know about your class size, but I will say even with these "gifted/talented-magnet-school" kids we ran security at all entrances and had a checkin system for backpacks -- longstanding committee policy. While traditional backpack management won't really work at a private pool party...if you have a place/room you can secure with a volunteer or two, checking it in and out is a huge disincentive for shenanigans...plus it keeps the space clear and reduces loss (or theft) ;)

Are the other parents going to help you chaperone? If so, its also worth setting up an informal little first aid kit/center and letting kids know where it is -- even if all goes well, outta every hundred kids there will be a few who get headaches, don't feel well, or need something. Make sure you know of any allergies, and that you also know what's in the food, whether catered or homemade, for the kids who ave allergies but don't tell you until they're trying to find something to eat ;)

On the dresses front, if you're able to hang a line outside where a team of parent volunteers can relocate them after the plunge the dresses will likely fare better...dryer would likely be out for many of them. Plus, then they'll be out of your way.

In terms of chlorination for a large mass of bodies, what's the largest pool party you've had? Has the orp kept up? Kids who do swim will stay in the water all night if ya let em -- I'm thinking even of the (college) grad party we had here with 50, which i suspect was smaller than yours will be. Might be worth a check with the orp mfg to see if there's a recommended setting or increase.

Lastly, since you already have a pool, you hopefully already have an umbrella insurance policy. If not, you may wish to get one.
 
The more I think about it the more I become concerned about all those wet formal clothes in the pool, the thoughts range from some girls skin getting dyed smurf blue when the dye in her dress runs, to entanglement and of course teenagers being hormone driven teenagers and all the things that could happen under the cover of fluffed up formal wear that would be much more obvious if they were wearing bathing suits.
 
Well, if they want to get intimate it's very hard to prevent that unless you lock them up totally. I don't Think that any of them would get the idea to do that in the pool with all their friends around - they'd surely look for some more private spot, pool or no pool being available. In real life the only way to keep such matters under control is to try to give your teenagers proper values. It's true that some dress could dye, but that's not very common these days, and surely not to the extent of giving your body a whole new color. Formal dresses are much less prone to those problems compared to regular blue jeans - those tend to bleed quite often if they're brand new. Entanglement could maybe be an issue so in that respect it's maybe good that our pool isn't all that deep. But as I mentioned earlier I managed to swim ok in my wedding dress when they pushed me in at the end of the reception - and that dress was huge, way beyond any prom dress for sure ! :)
 
^At my wedding we (meaning the entire wedding party and some tag alongs) went the other way ... In a lake...under a full moon ;)

Which is likely why I always got called on to chaperone things....I'm expert in the field of shenanigans ;)
 
Swampwoman said:
^At my wedding we (meaning the entire wedding party and some tag alongs) went the other way ... In a lake...under a full moon ;)

Which is likely why I always got called on to chaperone things....I'm expert in the field of shenanigans ;)
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Oh, a fellow wedding swimmer :) And you obviously survived it as well ! Actually if you'd had asked me before I went in how hard it would be to swim in my wedding gown I would have thought it would be still harder than it really was. I don't know about your dress, but mine was huge, full length and partially beaded and pretty heavy even when it was dry, not to mention when it got soaked. But as long as I was in the pool the weight was no problem. I got heavy when I got out hough.. I was thinking that my heels might get caught in my dress but that never happened as the dress floated around me and nerer got near my feet anyhow. It started with that they pushed my husband in. I was thinking I should join him, but as soon as I came to the edge of the pool somone gave me a friendly push . . you know people are often very helpful at times like that :) My MOH and my BMs joined in, as well as a flower girl and a couple of friends. It was at the very end of the reception anyhow, so we didn't have to walk aeound all wet or so. My dress survived fine, my shoes got a little discolored but not too bad, plus that they were typical wedding shoes that I could never wear to anything else anyhow. I can see that going into a lake would be trickier than a pool though...also if you lost any items there would be no way of retrieving them. In a pool you can always get them back.

Well I hink you're right - if you're an expert in the field you make a good chaparone... Yep we'll check anything that they bring in as well. Plus that the location itself out in the middle of nowhere is a pretty good safety measure in itself. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think they'll be desparate enough to walk eight miles in the middle of the night to go somewhere. And they can't have anyone come with stuff to them either as the last five miles of the road is private and we have a barrier that we will close so no cars can get in (or out) without us knowing of it. So unless they come by helicopter...which we would notice...

I think the biggest party we've had so far has been around 60 and at that time the system kept up - the water stayed chlorinated, though it got a little cloudy as the filtration was not quite enough to handle the mechanical cleaning so to say. I think there will be lots of kids in the water, but probably they won't all do it at the same time. It's easy to see if the level stays up during the event. Each time that the value drops below the setpoint there is a small light on the unit that tells us that the pump is activated. I don't want to change the level setting, as that would require recalibrating the unit, but there is a setting on the pump that I can increase so that it gives a bit more on each stroke, meaning it reaches the setpoint faster in a situation where much chlorine is used up.

The idea of a long clothesline or even a couple of them to hang their dresses on is good. As you say, it's gentler on the dresses than the driers and once they're up there you don't need to think of tem. We should still have bags for them though - the dresses might not dry that quick and also they have other stuff like underwear and shoes to keep track of. With a bag each there will be less confusion, even though we'll probably get some lost+found to handle afterwards anyhow.

As for first aid, well we'll have the equipment if needed, there might always be someone getting a small thing like a sprained ankle or a cut in their foot or something. I will ask the kids to keep their shoes on during the party, as if they go barefoot it's enough that someone has broken a glass and then someone will cut his/her feet. I don't know whether they plan on keeping their shoes on or not for the dip in the pool, but regardless of that no glasses will be allowed in the pool or next to it. It's the hardest thing if you get glass in the pool, you hardly see it and it's very hard to clean up afterwards. Small splinters can also make their way through the strainers and into the filtrer and cause trouble.
 

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