Just bought a house with Pool and need some advice

[Lisn2me]

Moved into a home with an pool about two weeks ago and I am a first time pool owner so I know next to nothing about pools and maintaining them. The previous owners had a pool company taking care of it but I can't pay someone else to do work I think I should be able to do, so I take my sample of pool water to local pool store to test the water and from what they said my pool was in pretty good shape but needed to bring the Chlorine levels up. Here are the numbers from the readout sheet

FAC 0
TAC 0
CH 210
CYA 60
TA 90
pH 7.8
Copper 0
iron 0
TDS 700
Pho 0
Temp 76Deg

They recommend manually increasing the FAC by adding 12oz of Power Powder plus. then to add 2 tablets to my Chlorinator and condition with another product as needed. so I bought all the stuff and a supply to get me through until the fall. I wanted to do my own testing so I bought a Taylor kit K-2006, this was all before I found this forum.

I have been reading a bit on this forum for a couple of days (pool school and such) and my Kit came today so I test the water it's been about a week from the time I have taken my water sample to the pool store. The first thing I tested is my CYA which was a little over 110 by my estimate tester only goes to 100. How can this be, going up 50 points in one week. so my question is did I read this wrong or could it go up that quickly in one week? I haven't tested anything else as of yet but wanted to see your thoughts while I test the rest.

Thanks in Advance!

 

[AimeeH]

Welcome to TFP

A few things about the CYA test. It's the one we think pool stores most often get wrong. We here would trust your test more. However, it is a subjective test that takes getting used to and lighting conditions matter. For you to get a more accurate reading, you should try a diluted test. In this thread are extended direction with notes for all the tests. Extended Test Kit Directions

Also, those tablets will constantly be bringing your CYA up.

 

[duraleigh]

Your CYA did not go up 50 points. Pool Store testing is bogus. Learn to manage your own pool (we'll all help) and stay out of the pool store.

Please read "The ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry" up in Pool School

 

[Lisn2me]

Thanks for the responses, I wasn't sure if I was messing the test up or what, did a second CYA test Diluted this time, Results are still to high with just over 100...

All results are as follows.
FC = 4.8
PH = 7.8
TA = 90
CH = 350

The pool need to be resurfaced and we were waiting until the end of the summer to do this which will kill two birds with one stone when draining to pool. Can I realistically maintain the pool until then?

all levels are on the high end so I would need to keep my FC up while maintaining all others. not sure I am a big fan of this but is it doable.

 

[triptyx]

You can definitely maintain the pool until then. You'll want to put your CYA number into PoolMath and then look at the appropriate chlorine level to maintain.

If your CYA is, let's say 110, then you'll want to maintain a minimum of 8 FC at all times, with a "zone" of 8-14ppm. Before I drained, I was maintaining nearly 24ppm FC to keep my pool safe and sanitized due to an obscenely high CYA that I inherited when I bought my house this year.

If you're going to run a high CYA pool, you need to be ULTRA careful not to allow algae to get a hold - that means making extremely sure that your FC never drops below the minimum. Trying to SLAM with a CYA that high is going to be prohibitively expensive.