You're making excellent progress and triptyx offers good resources above. The usual rule mentioned here is to backwash to find your "clean" pressure and then delay the next backwash until the pressure reads 20 to 25% higher and triptyx's psi numbers are likely to be very close to the same thing. The percentage is used only because the clean pressure varies quite a bit from one to pool to another.

You can turn the chlorinator down or off to reduce your FC. Also following up Kim's question regarding the high CYA, did you do a diluted test? See no. 9 in this link: Pool School - CYA
 
You're making excellent progress

Thank you. I kind of feel like I'm being a pain in y'all's butt! Unfortunately the people we bought the house from did not take care of ANYTHING. Even simple things were not maintained.

I'll read up on the pump run time, the CYA diluted test, and flushing the filter then get back to y'all. We are going to run the tests again tonight, I'll post the results.

Thank you for your help!
 
PLEASE do not feel as if you are ever a pain or taking too much of our time or attention! We are here because we LOVE to help! There are enough of us there is more than enough time and attention to go around.

My husband loves it because it keeps me quiet for more than 10 mins at a time LOL and keeps me from spending our money since I get to help others spend their money on the build threads! :slidehalo:

Kim:kim:
 
Had some unexpected things come up today so we didn't run the tests. I did read up on the pump run time and I think I'm running way too long. Espically since it's winter. Since my FC is hgh I'm going to turn it back to 8 hours and see how it goes. What is the optimal time to run a pool? Since we don't winterise here, should I run it at night when it is coldest to prevent freeze ups?

On a positive note, I'm giving notice to the pool company tomorrow. Thanks to y'all's help I'm officially on my own!

Thank you,
Aaron
 
I change my run schedule from the afternoon in the summer to around 2a-6a in the winter for the precise reason that it will help prevent anything freezing up (if we're expecting a hard freeze - rare here but possible, I'll just remove the "Off" tab from my timer and run it continuously until the temp rises again).

As Kim said, we don't mind answering questions. Do make sure to use the search feature from time to time to see if the question has already been asked (and to familiarize yourself with the site's info - there may be answers to questions you don't know you have in there), but if you're confused, please do ask. :)
 
For the winter you can run 2 to 3 hours and call it good. We watch the weather real close. If they say freeze overnight (happens about 3 nights a winter here in my part of FL) we run the pump all night to keep the water moving.

Do you have energy tiers? If you do run the pump during the cheapest times for your area.

Kim:kim:
 
Thank you triptyx. I was able to find helpful information on the new pressure gauge using the search option. I will start my topic research there.

With the projected cold weather this weekend I will change the timer to run from 11:00pm to 5:00am. I expect that this will decrease the FC and get us back where we need to be.

The next projects are to flush the filter and find a base line pressure, then dig up and extend the overflow pipe.

Thank you,
Aaron
 

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Your FC burn rate with cold water will likely be glacial (very slow) as long as nothing is fighting the chlorine in the pool. As an example, I recently went out of town for a week, and boosted my FC to around 15 before I left. Just yesterday, two weeks later, it was finally back down to 3ppm (which is the minimum for my CYA level) and I needed to add more bleach. Compare this to daily additions during the summer.

You may consider turning down the chlorinator and, as Kim suggested, reducing your run time to 3 hours and see how that affects FC.

All that said, let's circle back to your 120 CYA. This is way too high (by about double) and your chlorinator is digging you a deeper hole every day. It's time to consider getting rid of the chlorine pucks completely, turning off that inline chlorinator, and converting to bleach. This will save you having to drain even more water than you already need to (right now, you need to drain about half the water in the pool to get CYA down to 60, which is a manageable level for sunny Louisiana). I inherited my pool with a new-to-me house last April and had a CYA in excess of 300. I had to drain nearly the entire pool to fix that, and with a vinyl liner, a full drain in one go is NOT an option for you - you'll damage the liner and possibly float the pool shell. Every day you wait to stop using those pucks is even more water you'll waste having to drain a few feet, fill a few feet, drain a few feet, fill a few feet - over and over to get that CYA under control.

Do yourself a favor right now and switch to bleach to stop the CYA from creeping higher and higher.
 
I changed the timer to run from 11:00pm to 7:00am just to get through this cold snap. It's supposed to get into the 20's. I'll change ti again Sunday after i get a weather report.


It's time to consider getting rid of the chlorine pucks completely

Yup, the inline chlorinator is empty. New test results are:
FC = 16
CC = 1.5
pH = 7.4
TA = 60
CYA = 120

FC dropped 4 and TA dropped 10 in a week, CC test worked great last night.

How often should I test? I was thinking of testing again Sunday.

Thank you,
Aaron
 
During the summer, I test FC and pH using the OTO (the little color block unit) test daily. Once a week, I test FC/CC (DPD), pH, and TA. Once a month, I add the CH and CYA tests.

So far this winter, I've been testing FC/pH using the OTO about once a week (boosting chlorine as needed), and run FC/CC (DPD), pH, TA, and CH once a month.

This is what works for me, you may have to spend some time learning your pool and how it works/consumes chemicals to come up with something that works for you.
 
How often should I test? I was thinking of testing again Sunday.

This is where a good test log comes in handy. I just have a small notebook I keep with my test stuff. I run my tests and write down the results AND make note of any "big" weather-rain all day, very windy, HOT sun, etc. After a while you will start to see a pattern.

How is your water looking?

Kim:kim:
 
How is your water looking?

The pool looks great.

Do I have to be concerned with the dropping TA? I read a bit from KimKat's links, Recpmended Chemicals and Pool Math. I think I need a tutorial on the Pool Math link. I tried entering my gallons and test results, but it didn't change anything. For now I think I'm in decent shape.

UPDATED QUESTION:
After reading quite a few posts, I think I have asked a loaded question! It seems I need to get a triangular clear vacuum head, hose and vacuum plate.

I have two ports under the skimmer basket, do I just plug the hose into the port that has suction, or buy a vacuum plate and a "diverter" for the port that goes to the main drain? What is a "diverter"?

Thank you,
Aaron
 
Oh you JUST think it looks good! Wait until I get done with it! You will need :cool: to look at it. It will sparkle like never before!

For the TA question I have a question of you.................how is your PH doing? Is it staying steady? No big jumps up? Are you keeping a log of your tests? If so you will see a pattern for you PH and TA. These two are friends that depend on each other. Once you find the "happy" place for TA your PH will find it's "happy" place. It will take some watching and tweaking to find it. Each pool is VERY different so you will need to find what works for YOUR pool.

vacuum question-How have you been cleaning/vacuuming?

Pool Math-do NOT put the , in the gallons/size. For some reason Pool Math does not like it. See if that helps with it. If that does not work I will work with you on it. It took me a while to get it good. There is a learning curve for sure!

Kim:kim:
 
Thank you KimKats! The pH is holding steady at 7.4. I had four people verify the color test. Both the pH and TA are within the vinyl liner suggested amounts per Pool School.

We have had a service coming out to vacuum the pool. The pervious owners took all of the pool related items with them. So I currently have a nice telescoping aluminum pole and a beat up skimmer net I found in the shed. I watched some suggested videos from previous posts here and think I have an understanding of what I need.

I do have another question, our system has two separate pumps. Do both pumps need to run at the same time all the time? That is currently how it is running. I believe I only need the helper pump when I am vacuuming the pool. Is this correct?

This could explain the current pressure readings of 19-20.

Thank you,
Aaron
 
Pumps-again questions to make sure I answer right:

-Have you run the pumps by their self to see what each one "runs"?

Please take and share a couple of pictures of your equipment set up and let us know what you THINK each pump does. My gut says you should not have to run both pumps all of the time. I am guessing you are correct that one of the pumps is for a suction side vacuum so would not need to be on except when you run the vacuum you do not have.

Before you buy a vacuum do some reading on the robot vacuums. Everyone on here that has one LOVES it. Here is a link to one: First Robotic Cleaner, Doheny's Discovery

There are quite a few threads about them. They are pricey (main reason I do not have one) but seem to do a great job.

I am a firm believer in every pool having a manual vacuum-hose with a vacuum head. This will allow you to do spot jobs on an as needed bases. It can be bought at Walmart.

I am glad to see the PH is happy. Leave things where they are.

Skimmer diverter-Mine does not have on so will have to share a link and encourage you to do some searches to find out about yours. Again you can post a picture of it and that will help us figure yours out.

skimmer diverter

See if that helps.

Kim:kim:
 
Thank you. I'll do some reading today and see what I can learn. Everyone suggested a robot vacuum to me, but it's just nor in the budget right now. I like your idea of having a manual vacuum system as a backup to the robot vacuum.

I went out and studied the system yesterday. I wanted to run a backwash on the filter, but with the cold temps I didn't want to run the risk of breaking something. It's going to be in the 70's tomorrow, I can run through things then.

Thanks again for the help!
 

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