Hello everyone,
Like most everyone coming here we have a new house with a pool. It's our 1st time having a pool so I'm a noob.
The pool from my best educated guess is a 28' Ester Williams. It's Buried in the ground.
Here's a drone picture of our pool and backyard. As you can see int he picture the pool has a deep end. I am not yet sure how deep it is. I know it's at least 7' by measuring with my screen net. The shallow end appears to be around 4' deep.
and here's a ground level view of the pool
Here's the pump house
Since we are now starting to get some nice days here in Michigan I have ventured into opening my pool up.
Pre-Opening
I had to tackle an issue with the pavers around the pool. The previous owner had to drain the pool to replace the liner and yep the wall collapsed. I've read that they should have put in a concrete slurry around the pool to prevent a collapse. Thankfully he had that repaired and the pool back in operation. But he didn't have all the pavers down. So I installed them and then tackled grouting all the pavers. They moved under your feet when you walked around, so I used polycrylic sand and grouted them. This created my 1st issue with opening the pool. I couldn't connect the skimmer or water return lines to the pool because of a few pavers. Easily fixed removed them and leveled with sand.
On to Starting up the pool
I made sure all connections were tight. Primed the pump and started it. Went and checked and found a small dripping leak at the return line to the pool. I capped the return line off in the pool. closed the valves and tightened up that section. Went and turned the valves on and started the pump. Noobie lesson in session. I look over to see if the leak was fixed and I had a fountain of water. I had forgot to remove the plug in the pool for the return line. The Pump did it's job and well that water had to co somewhere so it blew the pipe off the connector. No damage done. Just had to reconnect it and tighten up the clamps again. I was able to laugh at myself for it so I gained knowledge and had some fun. Not a bad day. I spent the rest of the day removing the winter cover. Netting the pool, bruising the pool etc.
Day 2
I go out and try to turn the pump on... Nothing... grab a voltage tester and check the circuit it's dead. Go down and check the breaker. It says on, not tripped. So I turned it off then back on. Go out and I am able to start the pump. We leave for the day I come home and the pump is not running. Breaker is not tripped. I think to myself ***. Do they same voltage test check, reset breaker etc nothing. Frustrated I swap out the un-hook the switch, gfi, pump and try just testing voltage to the wires, Nothing. Now I'm thinking it must be a bad breaker. So I swap a couple breakers around. Go out and have power. Button everything up, go to bed.
Day 3
get up and try to turn pump on. Yep you guessed it dead. ***!??!?!?! So I swap breakers and retest Nothing. Frustrated and baffled. I get up into the crawl and follow the wiring back to the box. Odd it doesn't go to the breaker box, it goes in to the basement. Get out of the crawl, look up and there it is. In all it's glory. The reason why I would sometimes have power and other times not. you guessed it. A timer for the pump.
Now on to SLAM.
FC = 0
PH = 7.2
TA = 120ppm
CH = 100
CA = 0
Question. All the pool calculators want length and width to calculate how much water is in the pool. Do I use 28 X 28 ? if that's the case I should be around 25K gallons depending on how deep the deep end is.
Like most everyone coming here we have a new house with a pool. It's our 1st time having a pool so I'm a noob.
The pool from my best educated guess is a 28' Ester Williams. It's Buried in the ground.
Here's a drone picture of our pool and backyard. As you can see int he picture the pool has a deep end. I am not yet sure how deep it is. I know it's at least 7' by measuring with my screen net. The shallow end appears to be around 4' deep.
and here's a ground level view of the pool
Here's the pump house
Since we are now starting to get some nice days here in Michigan I have ventured into opening my pool up.
Pre-Opening
I had to tackle an issue with the pavers around the pool. The previous owner had to drain the pool to replace the liner and yep the wall collapsed. I've read that they should have put in a concrete slurry around the pool to prevent a collapse. Thankfully he had that repaired and the pool back in operation. But he didn't have all the pavers down. So I installed them and then tackled grouting all the pavers. They moved under your feet when you walked around, so I used polycrylic sand and grouted them. This created my 1st issue with opening the pool. I couldn't connect the skimmer or water return lines to the pool because of a few pavers. Easily fixed removed them and leveled with sand.
On to Starting up the pool
I made sure all connections were tight. Primed the pump and started it. Went and checked and found a small dripping leak at the return line to the pool. I capped the return line off in the pool. closed the valves and tightened up that section. Went and turned the valves on and started the pump. Noobie lesson in session. I look over to see if the leak was fixed and I had a fountain of water. I had forgot to remove the plug in the pool for the return line. The Pump did it's job and well that water had to co somewhere so it blew the pipe off the connector. No damage done. Just had to reconnect it and tighten up the clamps again. I was able to laugh at myself for it so I gained knowledge and had some fun. Not a bad day. I spent the rest of the day removing the winter cover. Netting the pool, bruising the pool etc.
Day 2
I go out and try to turn the pump on... Nothing... grab a voltage tester and check the circuit it's dead. Go down and check the breaker. It says on, not tripped. So I turned it off then back on. Go out and I am able to start the pump. We leave for the day I come home and the pump is not running. Breaker is not tripped. I think to myself ***. Do they same voltage test check, reset breaker etc nothing. Frustrated I swap out the un-hook the switch, gfi, pump and try just testing voltage to the wires, Nothing. Now I'm thinking it must be a bad breaker. So I swap a couple breakers around. Go out and have power. Button everything up, go to bed.
Day 3
get up and try to turn pump on. Yep you guessed it dead. ***!??!?!?! So I swap breakers and retest Nothing. Frustrated and baffled. I get up into the crawl and follow the wiring back to the box. Odd it doesn't go to the breaker box, it goes in to the basement. Get out of the crawl, look up and there it is. In all it's glory. The reason why I would sometimes have power and other times not. you guessed it. A timer for the pump.
Now on to SLAM.
FC = 0
PH = 7.2
TA = 120ppm
CH = 100
CA = 0
Question. All the pool calculators want length and width to calculate how much water is in the pool. Do I use 28 X 28 ? if that's the case I should be around 25K gallons depending on how deep the deep end is.
So you need to SLAM huh? No problem. I'm guessing "CA" is actually "CYA"? You need stabilizer to raise that CYA. Use the Poolmath Calculator (link below) to add enough stabilizer to go to 30 ppm. Once you have a sock soaking to dissolve the stabilizer, increase FC to 12 and keep it there until you pass the 3 SLAM criteria. Follow everything you see on the SLAM page and you will do fine. Nice to have you with us.
