Hello Everyone;
A little bit of background: bought my house with a pool 2 years ago. Knowing nothing about pools I signed up with the local Bioguard dealer. The pool is a 20'x40' in-ground vinyl 30kgal pool that was neglected when I bought the house. The first year it took 2 weeks and $400 to get the pool up and running. The second year it was probably close to 3 weeks and $600 to get things rolling. And this year I am in for over $600, and 4 weeks later the pool is still not ready. And finally, the 60lbs that broke the camel's back was when the pool store told me last week: "I know what's wrong, alkalinity is low...you need to dump 60lbs of our carbonate stuff into your water at $2/lb". And thinking that these guys knew what they are talking about I did and things were never the same afterwards: calcium levels and alkalinity through the roof, cloudy water...but I woke up and figured there must be another way...and there is! TFP!
So, I took charge, bought myself the TF-100 test kit, read the pool school and here are the results:
pH 7.5
FC 4
CC 1
CH 500
TA 210
CYA 60
Temp 70F
pool stats: 20x40, 30kgal, in-ground vinyl, 18" Hayward S310 sand filter, 1hp Hayward super pump.
Overall, the measurements are not too bad, but as I had suspected, CH and TA are completely out of whack. There is nothing I can do about the CH this season. It will have to wait until I partially drain the pool for the winter here in the northeast.
Here is my thinking on the TA and the cloudiness issues: lower the pH to 7.2 making the water more acidic. This will take care of the TA issue. It might also take care of the cloudiness because the more acidic water might dissolve some of the fallen out calcium??? Any thoughts on this would be very welcome.
Tonight I will do the OCLT test to rule out the fact that the cloudiness is due to organic material. My thinking is, if the cloudiness is due to calcium or scale then it should not consume chlorine at night -- correct? If chlorine is consumed then I have other issues to worry about
Thanks TFP, at least now I have a framework I can use to think about pool issues.
- Lutz
A little bit of background: bought my house with a pool 2 years ago. Knowing nothing about pools I signed up with the local Bioguard dealer. The pool is a 20'x40' in-ground vinyl 30kgal pool that was neglected when I bought the house. The first year it took 2 weeks and $400 to get the pool up and running. The second year it was probably close to 3 weeks and $600 to get things rolling. And this year I am in for over $600, and 4 weeks later the pool is still not ready. And finally, the 60lbs that broke the camel's back was when the pool store told me last week: "I know what's wrong, alkalinity is low...you need to dump 60lbs of our carbonate stuff into your water at $2/lb". And thinking that these guys knew what they are talking about I did and things were never the same afterwards: calcium levels and alkalinity through the roof, cloudy water...but I woke up and figured there must be another way...and there is! TFP!
So, I took charge, bought myself the TF-100 test kit, read the pool school and here are the results:
pH 7.5
FC 4
CC 1
CH 500
TA 210
CYA 60
Temp 70F
pool stats: 20x40, 30kgal, in-ground vinyl, 18" Hayward S310 sand filter, 1hp Hayward super pump.
Overall, the measurements are not too bad, but as I had suspected, CH and TA are completely out of whack. There is nothing I can do about the CH this season. It will have to wait until I partially drain the pool for the winter here in the northeast.
Here is my thinking on the TA and the cloudiness issues: lower the pH to 7.2 making the water more acidic. This will take care of the TA issue. It might also take care of the cloudiness because the more acidic water might dissolve some of the fallen out calcium??? Any thoughts on this would be very welcome.
Tonight I will do the OCLT test to rule out the fact that the cloudiness is due to organic material. My thinking is, if the cloudiness is due to calcium or scale then it should not consume chlorine at night -- correct? If chlorine is consumed then I have other issues to worry about
Thanks TFP, at least now I have a framework I can use to think about pool issues.
- Lutz