Hello everyone!
I purchased a home with an in-ground pool this past December. I was pretty nervous about the cost and the maintenance, but I love swimming and I loved the house, so I decided to go for it.
I just ordered a recommended test kit and have been reading your amazing wealth of information here.
We just opened the pool on Wednesday evening. I paid our kind-of-local pool company to come and open it. I have not received the bill yet but I know it will be more than I expected. We had a broken plug on the pump and a broken gauge on the filter so both of those had to be replaced. And two pieces of the PVC pipe stuff were leaking, so those were cut and replaced as well. Plus the initial $200 cost for just having them open, not including the chemicals (another $50 was their estimate). I have no idea what they poured into the pool, but they told us to let the filter run for 48 hours and let the chemicals do their jobs and then for us to clean out the leaves and vacuum the pool. After that we were told to bring them a water sample and they will tell us what to add (and probably try to sell us their chemicals since I was told I should only purchase high quality chemicals from pool service stores...)
Do you all think I still need to do that or should I be able to handle it? My test kit should be here soon and I have some chemicals test strips leftover from the previous owners.
As of this morning the pool was very blue and clear enough to see the bottom everywhere except the middle of the deepest end (9 ft). I expect it'll be clear by the time I get home from work this evening. Unfortunately the temperature dropped this week and it's been raining and it's not supposed to be nice enough for swimming until NEXT weekend. But at least I have some time to work out issues and come up with a routine. I am counting down the days and super excited for a hopefully trouble free, fantastic pool season.
I purchased a home with an in-ground pool this past December. I was pretty nervous about the cost and the maintenance, but I love swimming and I loved the house, so I decided to go for it.
I just ordered a recommended test kit and have been reading your amazing wealth of information here.
We just opened the pool on Wednesday evening. I paid our kind-of-local pool company to come and open it. I have not received the bill yet but I know it will be more than I expected. We had a broken plug on the pump and a broken gauge on the filter so both of those had to be replaced. And two pieces of the PVC pipe stuff were leaking, so those were cut and replaced as well. Plus the initial $200 cost for just having them open, not including the chemicals (another $50 was their estimate). I have no idea what they poured into the pool, but they told us to let the filter run for 48 hours and let the chemicals do their jobs and then for us to clean out the leaves and vacuum the pool. After that we were told to bring them a water sample and they will tell us what to add (and probably try to sell us their chemicals since I was told I should only purchase high quality chemicals from pool service stores...
)Do you all think I still need to do that or should I be able to handle it? My test kit should be here soon and I have some chemicals test strips leftover from the previous owners.
As of this morning the pool was very blue and clear enough to see the bottom everywhere except the middle of the deepest end (9 ft). I expect it'll be clear by the time I get home from work this evening. Unfortunately the temperature dropped this week and it's been raining and it's not supposed to be nice enough for swimming until NEXT weekend
. But at least I have some time to work out issues and come up with a routine. I am counting down the days and super excited for a hopefully trouble free, fantastic pool season. 
You are doing the right thing. Have a nice weekend.
