Pool girl

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deb1unlimited

deb1unlimited

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Bronze Supporter
Mar 29, 2016
7
Joplin, MO
My husband has designated me as the official "pool girl". Part of that is because I am the one at the new house, until the other house sells, and partly because he does not have the patience to measure and count drops, etc. It has been an odyssey so far. We hired a local company to open the pool on May 12th because we have not had an inground pool until now and because we are overwhelmed with everything else going on in our lives, trying to sell a house, moving stuff, a new job for me and fixing one thing after another at the new house. The house and probably the pool are 20+ years old so things are wearing out. Here is what has happened with the pool...

May 12th, two bozos show up, remove the cover, turn on the pump, dump in E-Z Pool, dump dry DE in one of the skimmers and charge us $250. "Just keep vacuuming for 4-5 days and you will be fine." They couldn't or wouldn't answer any of my husband's questions about the pool except in vague generalities. So, we ran the pump and vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed. We didn't know we should have set the valve to bypass the filter, so we would backwash when the pressure got high. And the pressure was always over 20 PSI. The skimmers barely pulled any water, the vacuum barely pulled any water and most of the dirt would blow right back in the pool. Two weeks ago, we unaccountably lost about 4 inches of water. Where did it go??? Disassemble the filter and clean it. It was literally coated in clumps of grey goo and there was about 3 inches of goop in the bottom of the tank. Make a slurry and pour it into the skimmer, LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO! The south skimmer is not pulling like it should. Run a garden hose down the line and clear the blockage. Incidentally, that is the skimmer they dumped dry DE in. Refill the pool, more vacuuming, more backwashing, it's looking better and the pressure is 8-10 PSI. 10pm, go out to check the pool and lost 3 inches of water again. Walk around with a flashlight and discover that water has been leaking from the backwash hose. Hmmmmm, must be a valve issue. Get the manual out, get on line and order parts. My husband was delighted that I figured out what was wrong...finally. Next day, take apart the valve, oh, a whole section of the spider gasket is missing and other parts are warped. Next chapter. Parts arrive, gasket goes in, everything works. Still getting air in the return jets. What? Huh, what is this extra mess connecting the input/output line? What do you know, an injector for chemicals that aren't there. It's just sucking air. OMG That will be eliminated next week.

Given that the pool has set for days and days without being able to run the pump for fear of what would happen, the water is pretty clear. I've put in shock and gallons of chlorine and also more E-Z pool to keep it from turning into a swamp. Now, we are finally ready to get it into shape for swimming. The frog that was diving in the pool last week is gone, though I still have a few of those water bugs happily zooming around. I had put 4 lbs of CYA in the day we lost water for the second time, as well as several gallons of bleach. Yesterday I put 2 more gallons of 10% bleach in and when I tested late in the day, chlorine came up 0 on the test strip, as did CYA. (I do have a Taylor test kit, but hate to waste reagent if the results are going to be 0) I got two more 4lb bottles of CYA and poured them into socks and placed them in the skimmer today. I'm not sure why the chlorine is not registering. The water is not quite crystal clear, so could there be algae that is using up the chlorine? I'm about worn out by this whole process. Oh, and the automatic pool cleaner died a quiet death yesterday, too. We plan to bury it in the garden.

FC 0
pH 7.2
TA 80
TH 200
CYA 0
 
Ok, first off welcome and we can help make this a lot easier, but there are few things you need to do:

1, throw out the test strips, we call them guess strips around here for a reason, about the only thing they are even half way good for is pH

2, Which Taylor test kit do you have, and how old is it (should have expiration dates printed on the bottles if packed after January 2015)

3, I suggest you read a bit in the pool school link in the upper right of each page, in particular Pool School - ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry and Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain
 
Hey, thanks for responding. The test kit is new, Taylor K-2006, ordered from Amazon, and well within expiration date. Yes, I spent several hours today reading everything about chemistry, etc. Learned a few other things as well, like bypassing the filter when vacuuming lots of debris when opening the pool. Would have been nice to have that explained by the pool guys. I bought the strips when my readings kept coming up zero, thinking at least I wouldn't keep wasting reagent. Heading out now to buy more bleach. I used the PoolMath calculator to tell me how much bleach to add yesterday, so puzzled about why it still reads zero, but will add more and retest with the kit. I read on this site that you shouldn't expect to retest for CYA for a week after adding more. I think the pool instruction sheet we inherited said nothing about when to retest, just said run the filter for 24 hours and don't backwash for 48.
 
Hi Pool Girl,
Im of the opinion that letting the pool sit uncirculated for a few days without any CYA might be a bit problematic.

Trust your K2006 kit. Its a good one.

THere are 2 reasons to loose FC. One is burn off by UV from the sun. CYA protects that chlorine. With 0 CYA, the FC wont last long.

Next reason is the FC is used up fightining off organics that are in the water. Usually algae.

Good job on getting CYA in there. Next time you test the water, test for Combined CHlorine too. If its more than 1ppm, you will need to SLAM.
 
I added 3 gallons of 8% bleach last night around 8:30 pm. The water is crystal clear this morning, although I still have some water bugs and I fished out another little leopard frog and sent him on his way. Here are the numbers this morning at 8:30 am.

FC 4.0
CC 0.5
pH 7.4
TA 100
CA 130
CYA 70

pump pressure is 14 PSI

I removed the socks with the remaining CYA from the skimmer. I am considering adding some baking soda to edge the pH up a bit.
I backwashed the filter last night before adding the bleach and again this morning first thing. I am puzzled as to why it is still running high. There is no vortex in the skimmer baskets, like there was after we cleaned the filter last week. The Jacuzzi jets by the stairs are puny again. Any ideas?
 
Baking soda raises TA, not PH. Here is a handy sheet on chemicals and what they do, Pool School - Recommended Pool Chemicals

I wouldn't raise PH, your TA is on the high side and PH should rise on its own.
FC is low for CYA at 70, keep it above minimum at all times, Chlorine CYA Chart

What is clean pressure? We recommend backwashing when pressure rises 25% over clean pressure.
If there is some algae growing that will clog up a filter very quickly. You can Perform the Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT) to confirm if there is something organic growing in the pool. If you don't
pass the OCLT then SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain to kill the algae. If you do pass then maybe it is time to Deep Clean the Sand Filter
 
Hi and welcome, pool girl.
Maybe I missed it, but does your pool have a salt water generator?
If not, was raising the cya to 70 an accidental overdose, as they say?

Just checkin. If you didn't mean it, you might want to lower to cya a bit via water exchange before slamming.

You sound like you're doing a fine job on the learning curve. Careful or you'll become the new neighborhood pool whisperer ;) Cheers to clear!
 
Well, it certainly is a learning curve. I left the hose on yesterday longer than I intended...well, okay...a LOT longer than I intended! The end result was an extended backwash to lower the water level. That had two effects. One, it lowered the CYA to 50. Two, it thoroughly flushed the filter and the pressure dropped back to under 10 PSI. Both very good things. My pH level tested at 7.0 last night and my TA at 110. I read through the Recommended Pool Chemicals and realized I should use Borax and not Baking Soda. I looked for Borax at the Neighborhood WalMart the other night, but they don't care it. Another trip to the store. The pool looks spectacular and I went swimming for the first time yesterday. I have a sunburn to prove it! Oh, the water bugs were gone yesterday and no frogs had moved in over night. I shouldn't complain because my sister had to evict a large turtle from her pool when they bought their home!
 

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End of the season. Thanks to all I learned on this forum, we had a wonderful pool season! Once we recovered from all the stupid things the pool guys did, duh, we went on to have a completely problem-free season! No algae, no wild pH swings. The worst problem I had was with a couple of amphibians who insisted on coming back to hang out. There was a bullfrog that would hide in one of the skimmers and scare the daylights out of me when it would launch itself back into the pool as I lifted the cover to check it. It is time to close everything down for the season over the next week. I'm sad that we can't swim anymore but happy to be relieved on the work for a few months. We plan to add a solar cover, a passive solar water heater and some new lights next season. Thank you all for your contributions to the forum.
 
At least you did not have a problem with reptiles like:

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